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User: BobTheLawyer

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Comments · 594

  1. Re:Don't they have something better to do? on Ministry of Sound Suing Spotify Over User Playlists · · Score: 1

    fair use would not let you use 50 words from a 50 word book

  2. Re:What a surprise on UK ISP Filter Will Censor More Than Porn · · Score: 1

    You are an idiot. There are plenty of sites advocating the abolition of the monarchy, and plenty of sites advocating the end of Parliamentary democracy and its replacement with fascism, communism, anarchism, Trotskyism, take your pick.

    The courts have spoken and they disagree with the previous poster. What they say counts, and if you can't be bothered to read the judgment I referred to that's your problem.

  3. Re:What a surprise on UK ISP Filter Will Censor More Than Porn · · Score: 3, Informative

    That post is not remotely correct.

    Some of the items on the list are laws enacted after the Human Rights Act, but they are not exceptions to it - the Human Rights Act has priority.

    Others - sedition and advocating the abolition of the monarchy - were criminal offences two hundred years ago, but there have been no prosecutions in recent times and the courts have acknowledged that the idea any prosecution would survive an HRA challenge is "unreal" (see Lord Steyn's judgment in the ex parte Rushbridger case).

  4. Re:Headline grossly misleading? on UK Court: MPAA Not Entitled To Profits From Piracy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    absolutely correct. The case was not about whether MPAA could sue Newzbin for damages - it is clear that under English law it can. But to do so, the MPAA would need to show its members suffered loss, and the MPAA could then only recover for their loss. The members' loss has no direct relationship with Newzbin's profits - it could be more than Newzbin's profits; it could be less than Newzbin's profits.

    In fact pretty hard to show what the MPAA members' loss is - and this case was about a crafty attempt by the MPAA to avoid that difficulty.

    The argument was that Newzbin's profits actually belonged to the MPAA members (in the same way that if you steal my bike, the bike still belongs to me, and if you steal my cash, I can have a proprietary right in your bank account of the same amount). Would be a great result for the MPAA, as they would then simply take the all profit and not need to show any loss. The slight problem was that there was no legal authority for such a claim, and so they lost

    Bob

  5. Re:Read their complaint again on Piriform Asks BleachBit To Remove Winapp2.ini Importer · · Score: 4, Informative

    I am a lawyer. The previous post is wrong - the usual rules of copyright apply whether or not you've accepted terms of service.

    Piriform's objection is not very clearly stated, but there is a problem if the Bleachbit developer is encouraging people to import winapp.ini - the information in it is copyrighted and this is likely an unlicensed use. It would be prudent for Bleachbit to tell people not to use its import functionality to import Piriform's original winapp.ini, and better still if the software rejects attempts to do this.

    Whether importing third party (non-Piriform) rules is acceptable depends upon the terms on which those rules are made available. If they're posted in a forum whose rules provide the files can be used only in Piriform products then Piriform has an arguable case (that Bleachbit is procuring a breach of contract/copyright) but that's a more difficult argument for Piriform to make, as they have to show the terms of the contract/copyright license are effective.

    Bob

  6. Re:Some insight into conveyancing: on Criminals Steal House Thanks To Hacked Email · · Score: 2, Informative

    Your firm needs to tighten up its money laundering procedures - that is an insufficient level of client due diligence. If you are not confident your client is who he says he is then you should not act. If something were to go wrong, your firm would face civil proceedings and it (and potentially you personally) could face an LCS investigation or even prosecution.

  7. Protectionism by another name on Microsoft & Intel Get a Pass On Higher H-1B Fees · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This is just protectionism - why shouldn't American companies be able to hire whoever they want?

  8. Re:Why incorporate when Section 83(a) exempts labo on Our Low-Tech Tax Code · · Score: 1

    Good luck persuading a court of that - last I checked those "tax protestor" arguments had a batting average of zero.

  9. Re:Censorship depends on the country. on UN Officials Remove Poster Mentioning Chinese Firewall · · Score: 1

    I'm aware that post-modernists believe it is a self-evident truth that there is no such thing as a self-evident truth.

  10. Re:Freedom versus high quality pictures on Why the Photos On Wikipedia Are So Bad · · Score: 1

    Well that's just not true - Wikipedia could accept copyrighted photos subject to an absolute irrevocable non-exclusive licence for their use on wikipedia (with attribution). A simple click-through licence would suffice.

  11. Re:So whose are the photographs? on UK's National Portrait Gallery Threatens To Sue Wikipedia User · · Score: 1

    As a matter of UK law, the gallery's position is most likely correct. How it enforces this against Wikipedia and/or the user in question is a different story...

  12. Re:Keep this story in mind on Internet Giving Rise To "Citizen Spies" · · Score: 1

    Or they could just be an innocent citizen arrested by the secret police of a totalitarian state that denies freedom to its own people?

    Just a thought.

  13. Re:Better off not working for them... on In France, Fired For Writing To MP Against 3 Strikes · · Score: 3, Informative

    You are confusing the European Court of Human Rights (relevant to this case, irrelevant to the USA) with the International Criminal Court (which the US hasn't signed up to but which is irrelevant to this case)

  14. Re:Obligatory on Phony Wikipedia Entry Used By Worldwide Press · · Score: 1

    The problem is that the study was limited to Wikipedia articles covering mainstream science, and the quality of these is generally very good. The quality goes downhill very rapidly the further one gets away from the mainstream, whether in science, history, politics or anything else.

  15. Re:Right to return wares on Tricked Into Buying OpenOffice.org? · · Score: 1

    I think you are right. I'm not a German lawyer, but on the basis of European law she has a couple of excellent arguments:

    First, under the Distance Selling Directive she has 30 days to return the software and receive a refund (how precisely this applies to downloads is unclear, but it certainly applies).

    Second, under Council Directive 93/13/EEC, unfair terms in consumer contracts are unenforceable. A hidden term that the consumer pay a fee for software that is normally free is likely to be regarded as "unfair".

    I assume Germany has implemented these Directives into local law - it certainly should have done. So she should refuse to pay under the Distance Selling Directive, and have the Unfair Terms Directive as a fallback.

    Amazing so many people are so confident she has to pay.

  16. Re:Sorry, but how exactly is this informative? on Psystar Claims Apple Forgot To Copyright Mac OS · · Score: 1

    Plus an injunction to prevent further infringement, which is of some use...

  17. Re:Berne convention? on Psystar Claims Apple Forgot To Copyright Mac OS · · Score: 2, Informative

    How can that be? The cost of physically producing a copy of OS X is tiny. There may be a huge sunk development cost but - no matter what it is - Apple will make money off each sale. Whether this is increasing Apple's profit from OS X, or reducing its loss doesn't change that.

  18. Re:Comparison with gasoline on EEStor Issued a Patent For Its Supercapacitor · · Score: 1

    OK, but bear in mind the electricity may have been generated from fossil fuels at efficiency of 50-60%, and then transmitted across the distribution system at efficiency of 90ish%, and then used to charge the capacitor (which will have an efficiency of less than 100%, but I've no idea what it will be)

    All of which will likely end up better than 20% efficiency, but some way short of 90%.

  19. Re:Criteria for entitlement versus requirement on Barr Sues Over McCain's, Obama's Presence on Texas Ballot · · Score: 1

    This is not necessarily correct - in construing laws and contracts it's often corrrect to interpret "entitled if" to mean "entitled if, only if". Well drafted laws/contracts make this explicit. I don't know enough about the specifics, or indeed anything about Texas statutory interpretation, to say what the correct result is here.

  20. Re:I know I know! on How Can Nerds Make a Difference In November? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    do you really think Gore would have invaded Iraq, established Guantanamo and cut taxes for the wealthy on an unprecedented scale?

  21. Re:He needn't worry... on UK Teen Cited For Calling Scientology a "Cult" · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Actually there's a good chance the Human Rights Act will provide much the same defence (although it may not even be necessary to cite the HRA as the Public Order Act itself has a defence of "reasonableness" which I'd expect to apply to most political speech).

    Hopefully the guy involved will stop asking for advice on bulletin boards and find himself a decent human rights lawyer (many of which I am confident would take this on for free).

  22. Re:Here is Sequoia's response from their website.. on Sequoia Threatens Over Voting Machine Evaluation · · Score: 1

    You can be sued in many jurisdictions for assisting or causing a breach of contract between two other parties - tortious interference with contract. That said, in this case there seems a clear first amendment defence.

  23. Re:Link: Explanation with physics equations includ on More Spacecraft Velocity Anomalies · · Score: 1

    Humphreys is a crank, and nobody outside the echo chamber of creationist websites takes this stuff seriously. The wikipedia article on him is fairly hopeless, but a reasonable short summary of the problems with his "theory" is here: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CE/CE412.html

  24. Re: My Experience on Are Spammers Giving Up? · · Score: 1

    I've had a gmail account since the service started, and have never had one spam, filtered or unfiltered.

    (okay, my name has a weird spelling, but I still think that must be some kind of record)

  25. Re:Skype unbreakable? on Skype Encryption Stumps German Police · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Why? If the police can, in extreme situations, apply to a court for a warrant to search a suspect's house, open their mail or tap their phone - and the US and almost every other country allows this - why shouldn't they be able to search a suspect's computer?