No. Libel and slander are deliberate lies to hurt a person. However, libel and slander are not easy to prove. You must not only prove that the statement is false; but, that the person making it knew it was false. And, you must show that you have been harmed by the statement.
IANAL and am Canadian, but unless US libel laws are completely and utterly different from everywhere else's, intent is NOT required. Now, the USSupCt long ago said that if you're a public figure you have to prove malice (IOW, intent in this context) to sue for libel - but for everyday run of the mill citizens, you can unintentionally libel them and be sued. Most libel IS unintentional.
The shareholders would be in support of such a thing until they realized humans are humans because we can see and predict beyond the short term quantifiable results of our actions.
I was with you until the word "until". Of course, by that time it would be impossible to actually infringe copyright anyway, as books and non-DRM photocopiers would be outlawed and digital end to end DRMed out the wazoo information would be the only thing going.
Actually, it wouldn't be all *that* hard to DRM a photocopier. Colour copiers already detect banknotes and embed tracking information on the copies. Even without pattern recognition software, you could simply wire all books with RFID tags or hash with crypto-protected code containing a DRM restrictions list, which tag or info would be necessary to use the copier, which would then bluetooth to your PDA to verify you had copying privileges, or would bluetooth to your PDA to automatically bill your credit card.
Which industry exactly would be doing the lobbying? Napster? Aimster? Kazaa, from its offshore refuge? It hardly needs saying that the.mp3 encoders of the world are hardly the best friends of congress.
OTOH, who cares? The guy's entire rant is, I have [tinnitus/some medical condition], I [listen to mp3s/do x activity or use y product] occasionally, ergo, it's all [the mp3 industry/fill in the blank conspiracy theory target]'s fault. It's this sort of silly nonscientific anecdotal nonsense that brings the legal system and american popular media into disrepute.
Yeah. One more reason why "autoplay" is unchecked on my machine.
Is this USA only, or are these for sale in Canada or in Europe? Because if they are, Canada's PIPEDA and the EU DPD mean wake up and smell the lawsuits.
Sue in Uzbekistan. Sue in Vanuatu for an article posted on www.nytimes.com by somebody who resides in England. Go ahead.
Now... try to get that judgment enforced. Unless the Defendant has assets in Vanuatu or is personally present there, the courts there have no power to do anything to him. You'll need to enforce the order somewhere where there's property to seize or where the defendant is within the personal jurisdiction of the court. And the recognition of foreign judgments is discretionary, at least in the sense that it isn't automatic.
Here in Canada, the emerging rule for taking jurisdiction over a case appears to be whether we'd recognize a judgment given in the same circumstances as those at bar. If not, the court's are declining jurisdiction. IANAL and YMMV.
But the credit card info is held by Gateway, not RIAA. So first, unless there's a deal to share CC info between Gateway and pressplay (and I would think M/C, Visa, etc. would probably have some language in the merchant agreements about sharing not just mailing info but CREDIT CARD info), that doesn't help them. Second, if you rip DRM off of all 2000 songs and release them to the wild, pressplay might be annoyed, but one song? They're going to sue for one song?
I can't help but think they've written off those 2000 songs, knowing damn well they'll be ripped. I wonder if the whole damn thing isn't some sort of weird honeypot scheme to test the community.
Ah, and there you have the point of the ruling. When Mr. Scientist wants an oncomouse and uses a specific technique to alter its genetic makeup, he either needs a license or he's violating the patent. When daddy oncomouse and mommy oncomouse get busy and make a whole nest full of baby oncomice, in Canada you can seel those little oncomice to whoever you want and not have violated any patent restrictions.
Canada will continue to honour all valid bioengineering patents - we just won't allow patents on the bioengineered higher life forms. Special yeast make a useful chemical? Patent away. Bacteria that eat toxic waste? Sign here.
Genetically engineered chimpanzee? Not so fast, bub. Oh, just the technique for giving the chimp six arms. Sure, no problem.
This is another important step on the long road to overturning the DMCA.
No... no, actually it's nothing of the sort. As the majority's concluding words said, Pavlovich may still have to face the music, just not in California.
The only way you can overturn the DMCA is to actually get the courts to accept a challenge of the validity of the DMCA. The victory here is precisely the opposite - a refusal of the California courts to even consider the case. It's not really a victory of any kind for anyone.
All that happened was that the CalSuprCt. took a look at the evidence and the arguments by the DVD-CCA for why the California courts should have jurisdiction and found that it all came down to one thing: foreseeability of harm to California companies' economic interests. The CalSuprCt. took a look at US Supreme Court precedent and said you had to show something more than mere foreseeability of harm to ground personal jurisdiction in that state.
Things they did not say:
1. That this ruling was broadly applicable.
2. That the DMCA was invalid.
3. That Pavlovich hadn't broken the DMCA.
4. That Pavlovich couldn't be sued in Texas.
5. That the DVD-CCA couldn't have shown jurisdiction if they'd shown some other evidence of intention other than just foreseeability of harm.
When the Courts throw words like "novel", "unique", and "unprecedented" around in describing the facts of the case, it means the entire judgment you're reading is probably never going to come up again. When they expressly state that they are deciding a matter "extremely narrowly", it means they don't want it to ever come up again.
Bottom line: the DVD-CCA can still go after Pavlovich in Texas or possibly Indiana. However, given the costs of litigating in a far away jurisdiction, it's still a victory and the DVD-CCA may give up or come up with a face-saving settlement.
The real problem is recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments and arbitration awards - in the end, the only thing that matters is registering/obtaining judgment in debt in the courts of the country in which your debtor lives and has assets. You can get judgment in whatever country you like, but unless the judgment debtor has assets in that country that you can seize, good luck getting paid.
Any "private" enforcement regime is going to depend on public enforcement methods and the courts at some point, because private citizens making unauthorized withdrawals from other people's bank accounts and/or driving away with their cars is looked down upon by the criminal justice system of most nations.
$50.00 + cost of removal is NOT the same thing as $50.00. What do you figure the average NYC Public Works crew gets paid per hour, plus cost of gas and vehicle maintenance, overhead in coordinating efforts, any tools necessary to remove decals... that all adds up pretty fast.
Don't want to work for $15/day? Tough. Work for the $15/day or go to jail.
Exactly - your attendance is required as part of your civic duty. You're not an employee, you're a citizen: you pay taxes, register for the draft, and occasionally have to leave work for a day to sit on a jury. In return, you get the protection of the constitution and bill of rights, state constitution, citizenship, the US Armed Forces, state militias and local police covering your back. In Canada, you get the above in Canadian form, plus socialized health care.
You actually owe them, is the basic theory, so you only get paid anything so you can cover the bus ride to and from and buy yourself lunch. As you mentioned, they can jail you for not showing up - the conduct money is a courtesy and simply designed to make sure you can afford to travel to the courthouse.
Good thought, but no, or at least, not necessarily.
You're a trained Small Claims Court Counsellor (whatever that is) in one jurisdiction, but the universal feature of small claims courts is that they're inferior courts without inherent jurisdiction - this means they have exactly the powers given to them by statute, no more no less. So, YMMV depending on your jurisdiction. For example, where I am the Small Claims Court has jurisdiction over any matter up to a monetary limit of $10K except for libel, anything requiring inherent jurisdiction, and real property issues and anything else requiring equitable jurisdiction (will construction, probate, rectification, injunctions, etc.)
Time, emotional disturbance, these are all part of general damages. Our small claims court can hear tort claims and award general damages - in fact, it does it all the time for minor MVA cases. It may be that your small claims court can't award general damages, but that's a silly system. Even if limited to contract, general damages can be and are awarded in contract cases. If for some reason the court is limited to actions in debt, then you'd be prevented from obtaining damages.
As the other responders correctly note, the law could give a damn if you have an effective monopoly. The question is whether there are high barriers to entry or not. If there aren't any barriers to entry, the moment you start charging more than X (or otherwise abuse your monopoly somehow), someone else will start a business charging X (or treating customers with respect). You can match the newcomer or lose all your customers, and you won't be a monopoly in either event.
Antitrust law is there to deal with industries with barriers to entry that prevent people from entering into competition with a monopoly. In such cases, there's a gouge point Y which is the highest amount you can gouge people before they simply decide it's easier to live without the product altogether, and without competition there will be no reason to ever lower that price.
It's not as simple as distance, either. What are the transportation arteries between the various shootings? Is it easy to get from a certain neighbourhood to that location? Even if the sniper is trying to obscure geographic profiling, there are statistically relevant human tendencies that can still give them away. The basic principle of the geographic profiling is that a human predator hunts in an area where they have a comfort level (they know the neighbourhood) but not so close as to implicate their lair. You can track backwards, given distance, traffic rules, pedestrian patterns (witnesses) ruling out some areas, etc.
Now here's the problem: the way the law is written, if you throw out one portion (the retroactive extensions), the rest of the law can't stand on its own. I don't purport to understand the full legal reasoning-- it's pretty arcane-- but it has something to do with severability and the court having to substantially rewrite law in order to make the changes (and courts don't like to do that.)
Judges don't draft legislation - Congress does. For division of powers reasons, they merely decide whether a part or the whole of a statute is unconstitutional. If it's only part, the question is whether Congress would have intended the rest of the statute to stand without that bit, or whether Congress would never have passed the thing in the first place without that provision. Where the whole scheme collapses without one section, or where the loss of a section changes the entire act [for example removing an exclusion clause so that an act that used to apply to almost no one would apply to almost everyone], courts will tend to strike the whole thing down.
You're not on thin ice, you're right through the ice into the perilously cold waters below. There is copyright in performances. So, you own the copyright to your photograph or videotape, but if you've copied a performance, you've infringed the copyright of the performer. If the performer didn't have the permission of the playright/choreographer/author, they've infringed their copyright. If the playright didn't have the right to adapt the dialogue from the novel he based his work on, then he infringed THAT copyright.
This is why you couldn't pay me enough to do IP law.
Don't confuse motive and intent. There are *very* few crimes that don't require some intent. Did you INTEND to pull the trigger on that gun while it was pointed at the decedent? Yes. Your MOTIVE may have been self-defense, which you can raise as an affirmative defence - affirmative because you can't really dispute you intended to do what you did, just that you had an excuse based on your motives.
We already have ways to do that. I can't speak for the US but I imagine it's similar - there are all sorts of ways to get a frivolous lawsuit killed quickly. In B.C., you can move to strike the pleadings if they are frivolous, embarassing, improper under the rules of court, or disclose no cause of action. You can apply for a summary trial which will go very quickly and bet set down early (no witnesses, just affidavits and documents). If the claim has no merit, you can move for summary judgment (no trial required at all).
But the best thing in Canada is that we have a two way costs system: loser pays the other sides costs. Not their actual costs, but ~half of them, based on set rates set from time to time for each type of procedural step. Important or difficult cases get higher costs. If the guy REALLY cheesed off the judge, they can award solicitor-client costs (you pay the other guy's lawyer bill). Exceptions to the principle are made for public-interest litigation.
Tends to cut down on the number of frivolous cases rather a lot. If it doesn't, the Court occasionally (very rarely) orders that a person be barred from filing any more suits without permission of the court.
and what's the coverage on your flying wing? If I had a cheap way to provide broadband to a wide area - a wide area but by no means a whole continent - where am I gonna put it? Over subsaharan africa, or over, say, Manhattan? Who do you think's going to pay more?
It's the large amount of dark fiber that killed this thing, not flying wings. If people won't pay their phone company or cable company for broadband at current prices, these things would have to really beat the price of a cable modem to survive.
Depends on where you are. In my jurisdiction, any communication for purposes of settlement is without prejudice, whether labelled or not. It's only able to be used against you if it's actually marked WITH PREJUDICE, which is obviously quite rare. IANAL, YMMV, obtain advice for your jurisdiction and situation.
I love how the ability to get "e-mailed voice messages" is supposed to be an immeasurable improvement over the outdated "voice mails". Uh huh... so instead of getting a long rambling message on my phone that I kill by hitting 3, 3, 3, 3, listening to the important bit, 3, 3,7... instead I get a long rambling message on my computer that I kill by clicking skip ahead, skip ahead, skip ahead, listen to the important part, Delete.
Wow. That's going to just revolutionize how I work, that is. And the best part is, I can now be annoyed by stupid callers in lovely Dolby Digital Surround Sound!!!!!!!!
LOL. It's ironic that he was complaining about fundamental rights to sue and you responded by suggesting the BCLRB. The LRB only deals with unionized workers/workplaces, and the first thing you do by joining a union is give up the right to sue your employer. Those rights belong to the union in a unionized workplace, and if it decides your complaint isn't worth the trouble, you can sue the union but not the employer.
Well it's a damn good question. If you actually plan on making money on the thing, then the patent lawyer is a cost of doing business. Heck, talk to your accountant about writing it off on your taxes. If you're not planning on making any money, it won't matter if you do it right so feel free to try it yourself.
My gut reaction is that patent law (and particularly patent drafting) is very complex - IANApL and I'm thankful I'm not. If you list a single embodiment that doesn't actually work, in Canada at least AFAIK you lose THE ENTIRE PATENT, so you need to be *extremely* careful about how you draft it. If it's too vague, you may not be able to enforce it - too specific, you may lose the patent. There's a reason the attorneys can charge that much.
Ignorance of THE LAW is no defence - the latin maxim is ignorantia juris non excusat - which means you aren't entitled to violate the copyright act/DMCA/whatever just because you haven't read them.
That doesn't mean that you can necessarily be held to contractual terms you haven't read or had brought to your attention. Contracts are bargains between two rational parties and are entirely voluntary. If you and the other guy don't come to an agreement, you don't have a contract. OTOH, the whole point of statutes is that they're not voluntary. In the case of the book, they can print whatever they like on the front cover, books are covered by the first sale doctrine and I can do what I please with the physical item. I can't make copies, except within the fair use exceptions, but that's a matter of copyright statutes not contract law.
The other problem with claiming a book license is that I have no relationship with the author or publisher so there's no privity of contract. If they shrinkwrapped it, so that I had to agree to certain rights to get the right to open the package and read, then you'd have something.
Reviewers *are* disposable. Ever worked for a college newspaper or radio station? Quickest way to get dozens of new volunteers is to shout "free review CDs" in the cafeteria.
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Actually, it wouldn't be all *that* hard to DRM a photocopier. Colour copiers already detect banknotes and embed tracking information on the copies. Even without pattern recognition software, you could simply wire all books with RFID tags or hash with crypto-protected code containing a DRM restrictions list, which tag or info would be necessary to use the copier, which would then bluetooth to your PDA to verify you had copying privileges, or would bluetooth to your PDA to automatically bill your credit card.
OTOH, who cares? The guy's entire rant is, I have [tinnitus/some medical condition], I [listen to mp3s/do x activity or use y product] occasionally, ergo, it's all [the mp3 industry/fill in the blank conspiracy theory target]'s fault. It's this sort of silly nonscientific anecdotal nonsense that brings the legal system and american popular media into disrepute.
Is this USA only, or are these for sale in Canada or in Europe? Because if they are, Canada's PIPEDA and the EU DPD mean wake up and smell the lawsuits.
Now... try to get that judgment enforced. Unless the Defendant has assets in Vanuatu or is personally present there, the courts there have no power to do anything to him. You'll need to enforce the order somewhere where there's property to seize or where the defendant is within the personal jurisdiction of the court. And the recognition of foreign judgments is discretionary, at least in the sense that it isn't automatic.
Here in Canada, the emerging rule for taking jurisdiction over a case appears to be whether we'd recognize a judgment given in the same circumstances as those at bar. If not, the court's are declining jurisdiction. IANAL and YMMV.
I can't help but think they've written off those 2000 songs, knowing damn well they'll be ripped. I wonder if the whole damn thing isn't some sort of weird honeypot scheme to test the community.
Ah, and there you have the point of the ruling. When Mr. Scientist wants an oncomouse and uses a specific technique to alter its genetic makeup, he either needs a license or he's violating the patent. When daddy oncomouse and mommy oncomouse get busy and make a whole nest full of baby oncomice, in Canada you can seel those little oncomice to whoever you want and not have violated any patent restrictions.
Canada will continue to honour all valid bioengineering patents - we just won't allow patents on the bioengineered higher life forms. Special yeast make a useful chemical? Patent away. Bacteria that eat toxic waste? Sign here.
Genetically engineered chimpanzee? Not so fast, bub. Oh, just the technique for giving the chimp six arms. Sure, no problem.
Any "private" enforcement regime is going to depend on public enforcement methods and the courts at some point, because private citizens making unauthorized withdrawals from other people's bank accounts and/or driving away with their cars is looked down upon by the criminal justice system of most nations.
$50.00 + cost of removal is NOT the same thing as $50.00. What do you figure the average NYC Public Works crew gets paid per hour, plus cost of gas and vehicle maintenance, overhead in coordinating efforts, any tools necessary to remove decals... that all adds up pretty fast.
Exactly - your attendance is required as part of your civic duty. You're not an employee, you're a citizen: you pay taxes, register for the draft, and occasionally have to leave work for a day to sit on a jury. In return, you get the protection of the constitution and bill of rights, state constitution, citizenship, the US Armed Forces, state militias and local police covering your back. In Canada, you get the above in Canadian form, plus socialized health care.
You actually owe them, is the basic theory, so you only get paid anything so you can cover the bus ride to and from and buy yourself lunch. As you mentioned, they can jail you for not showing up - the conduct money is a courtesy and simply designed to make sure you can afford to travel to the courthouse.
You're a trained Small Claims Court Counsellor (whatever that is) in one jurisdiction, but the universal feature of small claims courts is that they're inferior courts without inherent jurisdiction - this means they have exactly the powers given to them by statute, no more no less. So, YMMV depending on your jurisdiction. For example, where I am the Small Claims Court has jurisdiction over any matter up to a monetary limit of $10K except for libel, anything requiring inherent jurisdiction, and real property issues and anything else requiring equitable jurisdiction (will construction, probate, rectification, injunctions, etc.)
Time, emotional disturbance, these are all part of general damages. Our small claims court can hear tort claims and award general damages - in fact, it does it all the time for minor MVA cases. It may be that your small claims court can't award general damages, but that's a silly system. Even if limited to contract, general damages can be and are awarded in contract cases. If for some reason the court is limited to actions in debt, then you'd be prevented from obtaining damages.
Antitrust law is there to deal with industries with barriers to entry that prevent people from entering into competition with a monopoly. In such cases, there's a gouge point Y which is the highest amount you can gouge people before they simply decide it's easier to live without the product altogether, and without competition there will be no reason to ever lower that price.
It's not as simple as distance, either. What are the transportation arteries between the various shootings? Is it easy to get from a certain neighbourhood to that location? Even if the sniper is trying to obscure geographic profiling, there are statistically relevant human tendencies that can still give them away. The basic principle of the geographic profiling is that a human predator hunts in an area where they have a comfort level (they know the neighbourhood) but not so close as to implicate their lair. You can track backwards, given distance, traffic rules, pedestrian patterns (witnesses) ruling out some areas, etc.
This is why you couldn't pay me enough to do IP law.
Don't confuse motive and intent. There are *very* few crimes that don't require some intent. Did you INTEND to pull the trigger on that gun while it was pointed at the decedent? Yes. Your MOTIVE may have been self-defense, which you can raise as an affirmative defence - affirmative because you can't really dispute you intended to do what you did, just that you had an excuse based on your motives.
But the best thing in Canada is that we have a two way costs system: loser pays the other sides costs. Not their actual costs, but ~half of them, based on set rates set from time to time for each type of procedural step. Important or difficult cases get higher costs. If the guy REALLY cheesed off the judge, they can award solicitor-client costs (you pay the other guy's lawyer bill). Exceptions to the principle are made for public-interest litigation.
Tends to cut down on the number of frivolous cases rather a lot. If it doesn't, the Court occasionally (very rarely) orders that a person be barred from filing any more suits without permission of the court.
It's the large amount of dark fiber that killed this thing, not flying wings. If people won't pay their phone company or cable company for broadband at current prices, these things would have to really beat the price of a cable modem to survive.
Depends on where you are. In my jurisdiction, any communication for purposes of settlement is without prejudice, whether labelled or not. It's only able to be used against you if it's actually marked WITH PREJUDICE, which is obviously quite rare. IANAL, YMMV, obtain advice for your jurisdiction and situation.
I love how the ability to get "e-mailed voice messages" is supposed to be an immeasurable improvement over the outdated "voice mails". Uh huh... so instead of getting a long rambling message on my phone that I kill by hitting 3, 3, 3, 3, listening to the important bit, 3, 3,7... instead I get a long rambling message on my computer that I kill by clicking skip ahead, skip ahead, skip ahead, listen to the important part, Delete. Wow. That's going to just revolutionize how I work, that is. And the best part is, I can now be annoyed by stupid callers in lovely Dolby Digital Surround Sound!!!!!!!!
LOL. It's ironic that he was complaining about fundamental rights to sue and you responded by suggesting the BCLRB. The LRB only deals with unionized workers/workplaces, and the first thing you do by joining a union is give up the right to sue your employer. Those rights belong to the union in a unionized workplace, and if it decides your complaint isn't worth the trouble, you can sue the union but not the employer.
My gut reaction is that patent law (and particularly patent drafting) is very complex - IANApL and I'm thankful I'm not. If you list a single embodiment that doesn't actually work, in Canada at least AFAIK you lose THE ENTIRE PATENT, so you need to be *extremely* careful about how you draft it. If it's too vague, you may not be able to enforce it - too specific, you may lose the patent. There's a reason the attorneys can charge that much.
Ignorance of THE LAW is no defence - the latin maxim is ignorantia juris non excusat - which means you aren't entitled to violate the copyright act/DMCA/whatever just because you haven't read them.
That doesn't mean that you can necessarily be held to contractual terms you haven't read or had brought to your attention. Contracts are bargains between two rational parties and are entirely voluntary. If you and the other guy don't come to an agreement, you don't have a contract. OTOH, the whole point of statutes is that they're not voluntary. In the case of the book, they can print whatever they like on the front cover, books are covered by the first sale doctrine and I can do what I please with the physical item. I can't make copies, except within the fair use exceptions, but that's a matter of copyright statutes not contract law.
The other problem with claiming a book license is that I have no relationship with the author or publisher so there's no privity of contract. If they shrinkwrapped it, so that I had to agree to certain rights to get the right to open the package and read, then you'd have something.
Reviewers *are* disposable. Ever worked for a college newspaper or radio station? Quickest way to get dozens of new volunteers is to shout "free review CDs" in the cafeteria.