The idea is that, if it is nationalised, you don't end up spending anywhere near $100mpc on healthcare, most people don't need anywhere near that much - particularly if people are more willing to go to the doctor when they have minor problems, so they don't leave them until they become major ones.
As for not spending much, the other side to that is raising taxes; which is why tax rates in some of the more socialised countries in Europe can be in the 60-70% range (the effective top rate of tax in the UK got up to 98% in the 70s or 80s, back when we could afford all the social care we had; strangely enough we're now going bankrupt having dropped the top rate down to the 40-50% range).
We need national health insurance. The current system is turning into a cleverly designed system of wage slavery. Work or die.
Speaking as an evil, socialist, European, no; you don't need national health insurance. What you need is national health care - i.e. where the state provides free, accessible healthcare for all (paid for out of general tax). This way involves far less paperwork, fewer middle-men, and contributions are made on the basis of how much wealth people have, rather than being a flat rate or based on likelihood of needing healthcare.
Personally, I find the second option a far better way of doing things anyway. The former just means insurance companies get even richer, in the latter, you cut out the insurance companies and are actually paying for healthcare. If you do it correctly, that is.
From paragraph 1 of the judgment (Lord Phillips's opinion):
The offences of which he is accused and in respect of which his surrender is sought are alleged to have been committed in Stockholm against two women in August 2010. They include "sexual molestation" and, in one case, rape.
More (NSFW?) details of the alleged offences are set out in the High Court judgment (which actually considered them) and the relevant press release, which can be found here - the important part being in the introduction.
He hasn't been charged with anything, he is wanted in connection with those offences which he is merely accused of. That is enough, under EU law, for an extradition.
Iirc they're on charges of conspiracy to defraud, which is a separate offence to fraud. Fraud is quite narrowly defined (by the Fraud Act 2006). Conspiracy to defraud is one of the most controversial criminal offences in English law as it is incredibly broad and vague, potentially criminalising an agreement to do something that is of itself perfectly legal. It's popular with FACT and the MPAA at the moment as it is far easier to prove than criminal copyright infringement.
A crime was committed.... I know the MPAA is just supposed to roll over and let everybody steal from them, but they didn't do anything wrong or even questionable.
Firstly, a crime was *allegedly* committed. The couple involved are on trial at the moment, and they may be found not guilty.
Secondly, this is a UK situation, so there is no issue of "stealing". Plus I don't think the MPAA actually own that much to steal, being just an association.
Thirdly, what they did was definitely questionable, which is why the couple involved were able to sue them (or rather, their UK front company) and the local police. The couple won the initial case but then lost on appeal. So while that may not be wrong, at least a few English judges thought it was questionable.
If it helps, they did complain. They sued the police and FACT to get their equipment back after the charges were dropped (or rather a decision was made not to charge them). They lost on appeal.
England doesn't have plaintiffs any more, and this is a criminal case anyway, so it's a prosecutor.
But yes, they did try to get it thrown out, or rather, they sued the police and FACT (the MPAA's UK enforcement minions) to get back their equipment, but lost on appeal. Apparently it was all perfectly legal.
The MPAA (through their UK minions, FACT, a "private commercial organisation, representing the interests of the audio-visual industry") did some investigating to find out who the operator of SurfTheChannel.com was. After various undercover meetings, fake deals and that sort of thing, they were able to identify the operators as a UK-based couple. Then they set the police on them.
The police turned up, with FACT people, and arrested the couple, seizing a load of evidence, and a FACT specialist was able to copy a load of data from the computers (and may have done so illegally). While in custody the couple were interviewed with FACT people present, FACT were able to examine the evidence, and eventually most of it was handed over to them for analysis.
Eventually, the couple were released and the CPS (who decide whether or not to bring prosecutions) decided not to charge them. The police then handed the rest of the evidence over to FACT who wanted it so they could run a private prosecution. The couple sued the police and FACT to get their stuff back (after their direct requests were refused). These facts all come from the resulting case (Scopelight Ltd & Ors v Chief of Police for Northumbria & FACT) which FACT won on appeal.
The initial arrests were in August 2008, the CPS gave up in December 2008, FACT filed their private prosecution in February 2009 and that appeal was ruled on in November 2009. This new information has come to light because that private prosecution is currently being heard in Newcastle Crown Court.
The other major fact that emerged was that the US programmer who worked on the site was arrested by US authorities, but managed to get out of being convicted for his part in exchange for agreeing to testify in the UK case. So the US let an alleged criminal go so he could help a private, UK-based company win a private prosecution in the UK.
Actually, England *does* have a Bill of Rights, written in 1688 and mostly still in force. Unfortunately, the only free speech that protects is the Freedome of Speech of MPs, which is increasingly being abused for political gain.
England also does have a written constitution; unfortunately, it's scattered across hundreds of Acts of Parliament, and Court judgments. There are advantages and disadvantages to not having a codified, supreme constitution; for starters, we don't have people wandering around with assault rifles claiming they're part of a well-regulated militia needed to protect the country from invaders.
That said, the UK does now answer to two "higher powers" in a sense, the EU and the ECHR, both of which offer some protection for freedom of expression (a slightly broader idea than just freedom of speech).
Last I checked, the 4th amendment to the US Constitution prohibits any sort of "unreasonable search" without "probable cause" (although, of course, that seems to have been rather watered down over the last 200 years).
It doesn't really matter what the rules say, what matters is that you have a bunch of law enforcement officers, with considerable power over individuals, without the training or experience to know the limits of their powers, but with the arrogance to assume that they are always right. But hey, it's keeping us all safe from those evil terrorists the FBI and CIA keep training, right?
Especially in light of the UK's recent decision to block The Pirate Bay.
Could anyone sue the UK government if they were found to be blocking sites without providing a genuine legal reason for doing so?
Ah, but the UK didn't decide to block The Pirate Bay. An English (and Welsh, but not Scottish or Irish) court ruled that some of the UK's ISPs should block The Pirate Bay. That's a judicial decision rather than a governmental one, so would be challenged by an appeal. But as the ISPs weren't interested in fighting it in the first place, and no one else has both the resources and will to do so, it will probably stand forever.
Were a UK public body to block a website without a legal reason, that action/decision to do so could probably be challenged in the courts via a judicial review. That's using the basic legal principle that public bodies aren't allowed to do anything unless a law says they can (hence that case over prayer in a local council meeting recently).
But the UK governments have been sneaky about website blocking; they've left it to the courts, the police and the ISPs. So far, courts have ordered the blocking of at least 2 websites (Newzbin and now The Pirate Bay). Not sure how effective those will be.
The police seem to do it by seizing servers etc. in the process of investigations, or simply asking service providers to shut down websites (seize domain names, block financial transactions, SOPA-style stuff) - which is usually done through the service provider's contract with the target (i.e. "we can refuse your service if we have reason to believe you might be acting illegally"). This sort of thing seems to get used against financial scam sites as well as copyright cases (the police force that does it - the City of London one - happens to be near many of the major banks and the offices of the IFPI).
ISPs have also been doing their own web-blocking through the IWF blocklist system, set up under pressure from the government, but is run independently (thus making it immune to things like judicial review, Freedom of Information requests and the Human Rights Act). That mainly targets child abuse images although may have expanded now to cover racial hatred material. It's a bit unclear, which is kind of the point.
But anyway, the fear of the government being sued is partly why they haven't imposed laws about blocking certain websites (be it porn - the latest moral panic in Westminster - piracy or child abuse images). Their legal people will have advised them that blanket blocking proposals are likely to be illegal under EU and/or ECHR law.
Shortly after acquiring a maths degree I was interviewed for a job in a certain major investment bank, to deal with their "really complex" deals. In preparation, I was given a bundle of notes on the maths behind trading, including the Black-Scholes 'formula'. It was quite interesting, essentially being an application of Brownian motion, with some fancy economic terms involved. So basically, the whole financial model is based on the fact that they have absolutely no idea whether stuff will get better or worse, so just add layer and layer of complexity to try to even it all out.
Of course, that's only half the problem with the financial industries. I then actually went to the interview, and it turned out the job seemed to involve simply keeping an eye on spreadsheets to see what they're doing, rather than any actual maths. The person interviewing me (who would have been my boss's boss) clearly had no clue about any serious maths, or the differential equations underpinning his entire industry, but had a firm handshake and sounded confident.
Needless to say I didn't get the job, nor want it. But it doesn't surprise me that there was a massive financial crisis - the whole sector seems little more than a confidence scam on the rest of society. "Give us your money and we'll make you more money."
Your definition still doesn't quite work, as it then requires an expectation of payment - the whole "payment" thing is misleading; the important point is permission, not payment. Unless you're going into the area of compulsory purchases and all that.
And copyright infringement isn't theft, morally or legally (from where I'm sitting). It may be morally wrong, but that doesn't make it theft. Strangely enough there are more wrong things in the world than theft. And this discussion isn't about "facile rationalisation" or "lying to themselves", it's about whether or not it's actually theft.
As for being pedantic, the first word in the title of this story is "Court", which means this is probably a legal-esque discussion, so precision is required. Particularly when using complex legal words like "theft".
If it helps, the E+W definition of theft is "dishonestly appropriat[ing] property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it." And that's similar to the definition in several common law countries.
Are you trolling, or did you just not bother to read even the first sentence of what I wrote?
Where are you getting that definition of "theft" from? It's a rather silly one; for example, it would cover picking wild flowers from a public place or receiving gifts, but not taking a car from someone's house but leaving a $5 note behind.
That's why legal definitions tend to be a bit more complicated. Looking through some of them, most versions seem to require both property, and some element of dishonesty or fraud (both missing from your definition). The Canadian version seems only to require the theft of "anything, whether animate or inanimate", but it is covered under "Offences against property."
Also, property tends to be more about ownership than control.
Sadly not; all this ruling said was that the offence under the National Stolen Property Act of moving stolen stuff across state borders requires some physical goods (when not dealing with money). The judgment still talks about the "theft of intangible property" and so on. At least for the relevant jurisdictions.
Nope, copyright infringement is theft. Simple as that. "Theft" is a broader term than taking physical property. Some copyright infringement is straightforward theft of services, but when we're talking about the bits of a book or DVD or some such, it's closer than you might think.
And how are you defining "theft"? In the legal sense, or colloquial? If legal, then in which jurisdiction? If colloquial, in which society? Your claim is kind of meaningless without specifying that. Or, at least, hard to rebut.
Legally, in the US, theft isn't a federal offence, so it will vary from state to state, depending on each one's law. I can't be bothered to go through all 50 (or even 1) to find out how it works there. However, as you might have noticed from my post (to which you replied), or should have noticed had you followed either of the links I provided, I was referring to the UK (or more specifically, England and Wales). In E+W copyright infringement isn't legally theft, for the simple reason that in order to steal something, there has to be some property to steal and, based on the cases I gave, information isn't property. There are also issues of permanently depriving and removing all value, use and so on. That's based on statute now, but the statute mostly codified the common law, so US laws shouldn't be that different.
Colloquial, one could define theft as "taking someone else's stuff without their permission." In the case of copyright infringement, there isn't any taking. Only copying. And copying isn't theft. Simple as that.
The fact that these are physical items has very little relevance to the fact that taking them is theft. The physical items per se are nearly worthless to begin with, the only meaningful loss is taking the bits without paying.
Of course their physical nature is irrelevant. However, the fact that they are property (in the legal, not colloquial sense) has everything to do with the fact that taking them is theft. If you don't have property, you can't have theft. The worth of the objects is, however, irrelevant to the fact that taking them is theft, although it might affect sentences, or additional offences (such as the one involved in this case, under the NSPA). That said, information (that is publicly available) is valueless. It can be copied (almost) effortlessly, and then the principles of supply and demand come into play - copyright is an attempt to subvert that by restricting demand. However, if it is ignored, it fails spectacularly (although evidence suggests people are perfectly willing to pay for either physical products, or services; i.e. things that can't be copied effortlessly).
Because this case wasn't about property. It was about "goods, wares [or] merchandise." The reporting on this case seems rather misleading; if you read the actual judgment, they were quite happy that the code could be stolen, but theft is a matter for state law, not federal. They'd prosecuted the guy under the National Stolen Property Act which only applies to cases of theft or fraud where some "goods, wares, merchandise" etc., involved in a theft or fraud, are taken across a state or national border (presumably because a more general theft law would be unconstitutional, whereas this can come under the interstate commerce clause thingamy - IANA(US)L).
In this case, while the code was stolen (which is the silly part of US law, which recognises information as property), the specific law is drafted in a way that only applies to moving tangible goods (or money). Unlike an earlier case which is referenced - where information was photocopied and taken across a border and the defendant seems to have been convicted - here the information was transmitted via the internet, so no "goods" were taken across a border. Basically, this is due to a badly-drafted piece of legislation (I guess in 1934 people weren't really thinking about intangible property).
So, both types of code are property, but imported code isn't goods, wares or merchandise (unless it's bound to some physical form).
Some of us have been able to do this for years, using Oxford v Moss (there's also Boardman v Phipps which is a House of Lords case, but on trusts, and the information != property point is kind of obiter).
Of course, then they go "well, OK, it's not technically theft, but it's still taking someone else's stuff without paying for it" - remember, you don't have debates about copyright enforcement law, you have rants from either side; no one really seems to care about verifiable facts.
As a foreigner from a country with no (written/codified) constitution, but still manages to avoid the issues of unrelated amendments, I think a simpler solution is required. Making doing so recognised and unacceptable and something that is just "not done". Unfortunately this seems to involve either a long history of it not being done (i.e. tradition), or a majority of Parliamentarians willing to consistently vote down any and all unrelated amendments.
A constitutional amendment would be problematic as it would be hard to define "unrelated." You might just end up with politicians trying to find any excuse for linking their amendment to the bill.
BTW, Google already has a "safe search" feature that is turned on by default. Although things still sneak in, the site does exactly the behavior UK seems to wish ISPs implement.
Two major differences.
1) If I want to opt-out of Google's safe search feature, I click a button on the search page. I can choose when to do this, for specific searches (i.e. if I'm looking for something that might be filtered) and then turn it back on for normal use. If I want to opt out of this proposed scheme, I have to be the subscriber/account holder (i.e. not just a user) and I have to prove I'm over 18 (note that the age of consent for sexual activity in the UK is 16... so that age limit makes complete sense). When this idea was floated a few months ago, the suggestion was that one would opt-out when one signed up for a new account, thus leaving no flexibility, or middle ground.
2) Google provides a "safe search" feature voluntarily; if something gets through, no one really cares. This law would *require* ISPs to filter. If something got through, an ISP could potentially be liable for a breach of statutory duty. This makes it far more likely that ISPs would overblock, to cover themselves.
-- Aside from the issue of the technical burden on ISPs to get them to filter, the other major point that people seem to forget is how an ISP is meant to determine whether or not something is "pornographic." That is a rather subjective test (although there are attempts to put it into English law already); some material is obviously pornographic, some obviously not - but there is a rather large grey area in the middle. It seems ludicrous to force ISPs to scan the entire Internet, determine whether or not something is pornographic and then filter it.
Fortunately, as the summary notes, this is a Private Member's Bill, so unlikely to get anywhere.
We should now, however, watch very carefully how they treat the 11 detained who should get no more than a warning.
What do you propose they be warned about? TSA agents? Flying? Or for taking a perfectly legal and innocent "Science Project" (I haven't read the article, so will go with the headline) on a plane? If the latter, why should they be warned against doing that? Why should they need to be?
But in that case the intention/motivation/circumstances make a difference between being a criminal and not. In this case, both groups are criminals, the intention is irrelevant... at least, under English law, which is all I really know anything about.
The BBC's headline was particularly silly in this regard: "Data theft: Hacktivists 'steal more than criminals'" - as the BBC of all news groups should have someone available to point out that it's not stealing, and that hacktivists are criminals.
Of course, the whole story is rather silly as it seems to be based only on reported data breaches; presumably a hactivist breach is more likely to be noticed/reported than someone breaking in to take data for unlawful uses. They're more likely to want to keep the breach quiet so they can keep doing what they do.
You can prove a negative, provided that it is a specific enough negative. While you can't prove that fairies don't exist, you can prove that a certain kind of fairy (say one that can't make itself invisible, and is very large) doesn't exist at the bottom of your garden right now.
Well, for a given value of "prove", of course - this is science we're talking about, not maths, so nothing is ever proven properly.
1: Denver - Firstly, that's an arrest, not a conviction (even the press statement notes he is innocent), secondly, he wasn't planning any terrorist attacks in the US, and was stopped trying to leave the country to go back to Uzbekistan (or Pakistan).
2: Baltimore - this is another of those wonderful cases where the FBI creates a terrorist attack and then swoops in at the last minute, with great fanfare, to 'save' the day. There was never any risk of a terrorist attack, unless the FBI created it.
3: Washington Field - that's not a terrorist; that's a random nutter who decided it would be a good idea to shoot at some military buildings from his car, and filmed it. No indication of any political motivation etc.
4: Tampa - similar to 2, also still just charges, no actual proof. Just because someone wants to try to blow up a building, that doesn't mean there's the slightest chance they could do so.
5: Baltimore - apparently this guy tried to go to Somalia to join an Islamic group there, his 'material support' appears to have been something like $700.
6: Seattle - similar to 2 again (no actual risk, due to law enforcement providing weapons etc.), but otherwise, I'll give you that one.
7: San Diego - similar to 5, but she successfully sent $1,450 to them (the Somali-based Islamic group).
So, while four of those seem to be terrorists (assuming accusations to be true), and two tried to support terrorists, one doesn't seem to have been. Secondly, three of those (the three actually planning attacks in the US) were caught in sting operations, with law enforcement actively involved in their plots, providing equipment etc.. Thirdly, only one of those seems to have caused any damage (the non-terrorist), and that was possibly due to the ease of acquiring firearms in the US (which I won't get into). Fourthly, only 2 of those terrorists seem to have been in any position to actually carry out an attack, and were only stopped by law enforcement actions.
However, the most important point: None of these was stopped, identified, limited or hindered in any way by the TSA. Most seem to have been picked up through informants, i.e. real human intelligence-gathering, rather than the security theatre that people above (and below) are complaining about.
Also, that's (for the most part) taking the FBI's press releases at face value. Because, of course, they're going to be impartial.
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The idea is that, if it is nationalised, you don't end up spending anywhere near $100mpc on healthcare, most people don't need anywhere near that much - particularly if people are more willing to go to the doctor when they have minor problems, so they don't leave them until they become major ones.
As for not spending much, the other side to that is raising taxes; which is why tax rates in some of the more socialised countries in Europe can be in the 60-70% range (the effective top rate of tax in the UK got up to 98% in the 70s or 80s, back when we could afford all the social care we had; strangely enough we're now going bankrupt having dropped the top rate down to the 40-50% range).
We need national health insurance. The current system is turning into a cleverly designed system of wage slavery. Work or die.
Speaking as an evil, socialist, European, no; you don't need national health insurance. What you need is national health care - i.e. where the state provides free, accessible healthcare for all (paid for out of general tax). This way involves far less paperwork, fewer middle-men, and contributions are made on the basis of how much wealth people have, rather than being a flat rate or based on likelihood of needing healthcare.
Personally, I find the second option a far better way of doing things anyway. The former just means insurance companies get even richer, in the latter, you cut out the insurance companies and are actually paying for healthcare. If you do it correctly, that is.
From paragraph 1 of the judgment (Lord Phillips's opinion):
The offences of which he is accused and in respect of which his surrender is sought are alleged to have been committed in Stockholm against two women in August 2010. They include "sexual molestation" and, in one case, rape.
More (NSFW?) details of the alleged offences are set out in the High Court judgment (which actually considered them) and the relevant press release, which can be found here - the important part being in the introduction.
He hasn't been charged with anything, he is wanted in connection with those offences which he is merely accused of. That is enough, under EU law, for an extradition.
Iirc they're on charges of conspiracy to defraud, which is a separate offence to fraud. Fraud is quite narrowly defined (by the Fraud Act 2006). Conspiracy to defraud is one of the most controversial criminal offences in English law as it is incredibly broad and vague, potentially criminalising an agreement to do something that is of itself perfectly legal. It's popular with FACT and the MPAA at the moment as it is far easier to prove than criminal copyright infringement.
Firstly, a crime was *allegedly* committed. The couple involved are on trial at the moment, and they may be found not guilty.
Secondly, this is a UK situation, so there is no issue of "stealing". Plus I don't think the MPAA actually own that much to steal, being just an association.
Thirdly, what they did was definitely questionable, which is why the couple involved were able to sue them (or rather, their UK front company) and the local police. The couple won the initial case but then lost on appeal. So while that may not be wrong, at least a few English judges thought it was questionable.
If it helps, they did complain. They sued the police and FACT to get their equipment back after the charges were dropped (or rather a decision was made not to charge them). They lost on appeal.
England doesn't have plaintiffs any more, and this is a criminal case anyway, so it's a prosecutor.
But yes, they did try to get it thrown out, or rather, they sued the police and FACT (the MPAA's UK enforcement minions) to get back their equipment, but lost on appeal. Apparently it was all perfectly legal.
The MPAA (through their UK minions, FACT, a "private commercial organisation, representing the interests of the audio-visual industry") did some investigating to find out who the operator of SurfTheChannel.com was. After various undercover meetings, fake deals and that sort of thing, they were able to identify the operators as a UK-based couple. Then they set the police on them.
The police turned up, with FACT people, and arrested the couple, seizing a load of evidence, and a FACT specialist was able to copy a load of data from the computers (and may have done so illegally). While in custody the couple were interviewed with FACT people present, FACT were able to examine the evidence, and eventually most of it was handed over to them for analysis.
Eventually, the couple were released and the CPS (who decide whether or not to bring prosecutions) decided not to charge them. The police then handed the rest of the evidence over to FACT who wanted it so they could run a private prosecution. The couple sued the police and FACT to get their stuff back (after their direct requests were refused). These facts all come from the resulting case (Scopelight Ltd & Ors v Chief of Police for Northumbria & FACT) which FACT won on appeal.
The initial arrests were in August 2008, the CPS gave up in December 2008, FACT filed their private prosecution in February 2009 and that appeal was ruled on in November 2009. This new information has come to light because that private prosecution is currently being heard in Newcastle Crown Court.
The other major fact that emerged was that the US programmer who worked on the site was arrested by US authorities, but managed to get out of being convicted for his part in exchange for agreeing to testify in the UK case. So the US let an alleged criminal go so he could help a private, UK-based company win a private prosecution in the UK.
Actually, England *does* have a Bill of Rights, written in 1688 and mostly still in force. Unfortunately, the only free speech that protects is the Freedome of Speech of MPs, which is increasingly being abused for political gain.
England also does have a written constitution; unfortunately, it's scattered across hundreds of Acts of Parliament, and Court judgments. There are advantages and disadvantages to not having a codified, supreme constitution; for starters, we don't have people wandering around with assault rifles claiming they're part of a well-regulated militia needed to protect the country from invaders.
That said, the UK does now answer to two "higher powers" in a sense, the EU and the ECHR, both of which offer some protection for freedom of expression (a slightly broader idea than just freedom of speech).
Last I checked, the 4th amendment to the US Constitution prohibits any sort of "unreasonable search" without "probable cause" (although, of course, that seems to have been rather watered down over the last 200 years).
It doesn't really matter what the rules say, what matters is that you have a bunch of law enforcement officers, with considerable power over individuals, without the training or experience to know the limits of their powers, but with the arrogance to assume that they are always right. But hey, it's keeping us all safe from those evil terrorists the FBI and CIA keep training, right?
Especially in light of the UK's recent decision to block The Pirate Bay.
Could anyone sue the UK government if they were found to be blocking sites without providing a genuine legal reason for doing so?
Ah, but the UK didn't decide to block The Pirate Bay. An English (and Welsh, but not Scottish or Irish) court ruled that some of the UK's ISPs should block The Pirate Bay. That's a judicial decision rather than a governmental one, so would be challenged by an appeal. But as the ISPs weren't interested in fighting it in the first place, and no one else has both the resources and will to do so, it will probably stand forever.
Were a UK public body to block a website without a legal reason, that action/decision to do so could probably be challenged in the courts via a judicial review. That's using the basic legal principle that public bodies aren't allowed to do anything unless a law says they can (hence that case over prayer in a local council meeting recently).
But the UK governments have been sneaky about website blocking; they've left it to the courts, the police and the ISPs. So far, courts have ordered the blocking of at least 2 websites (Newzbin and now The Pirate Bay). Not sure how effective those will be.
The police seem to do it by seizing servers etc. in the process of investigations, or simply asking service providers to shut down websites (seize domain names, block financial transactions, SOPA-style stuff) - which is usually done through the service provider's contract with the target (i.e. "we can refuse your service if we have reason to believe you might be acting illegally"). This sort of thing seems to get used against financial scam sites as well as copyright cases (the police force that does it - the City of London one - happens to be near many of the major banks and the offices of the IFPI).
ISPs have also been doing their own web-blocking through the IWF blocklist system, set up under pressure from the government, but is run independently (thus making it immune to things like judicial review, Freedom of Information requests and the Human Rights Act). That mainly targets child abuse images although may have expanded now to cover racial hatred material. It's a bit unclear, which is kind of the point.
But anyway, the fear of the government being sued is partly why they haven't imposed laws about blocking certain websites (be it porn - the latest moral panic in Westminster - piracy or child abuse images). Their legal people will have advised them that blanket blocking proposals are likely to be illegal under EU and/or ECHR law.
Shortly after acquiring a maths degree I was interviewed for a job in a certain major investment bank, to deal with their "really complex" deals. In preparation, I was given a bundle of notes on the maths behind trading, including the Black-Scholes 'formula'. It was quite interesting, essentially being an application of Brownian motion, with some fancy economic terms involved. So basically, the whole financial model is based on the fact that they have absolutely no idea whether stuff will get better or worse, so just add layer and layer of complexity to try to even it all out.
Of course, that's only half the problem with the financial industries. I then actually went to the interview, and it turned out the job seemed to involve simply keeping an eye on spreadsheets to see what they're doing, rather than any actual maths. The person interviewing me (who would have been my boss's boss) clearly had no clue about any serious maths, or the differential equations underpinning his entire industry, but had a firm handshake and sounded confident.
Needless to say I didn't get the job, nor want it. But it doesn't surprise me that there was a massive financial crisis - the whole sector seems little more than a confidence scam on the rest of society. "Give us your money and we'll make you more money."
Your definition still doesn't quite work, as it then requires an expectation of payment - the whole "payment" thing is misleading; the important point is permission, not payment. Unless you're going into the area of compulsory purchases and all that.
And copyright infringement isn't theft, morally or legally (from where I'm sitting). It may be morally wrong, but that doesn't make it theft. Strangely enough there are more wrong things in the world than theft. And this discussion isn't about "facile rationalisation" or "lying to themselves", it's about whether or not it's actually theft.
As for being pedantic, the first word in the title of this story is "Court", which means this is probably a legal-esque discussion, so precision is required. Particularly when using complex legal words like "theft".
If it helps, the E+W definition of theft is "dishonestly appropriat[ing] property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it." And that's similar to the definition in several common law countries.
Are you trolling, or did you just not bother to read even the first sentence of what I wrote?
Where are you getting that definition of "theft" from? It's a rather silly one; for example, it would cover picking wild flowers from a public place or receiving gifts, but not taking a car from someone's house but leaving a $5 note behind.
That's why legal definitions tend to be a bit more complicated. Looking through some of them, most versions seem to require both property, and some element of dishonesty or fraud (both missing from your definition). The Canadian version seems only to require the theft of "anything, whether animate or inanimate", but it is covered under "Offences against property."
Also, property tends to be more about ownership than control.
Sadly not; all this ruling said was that the offence under the National Stolen Property Act of moving stolen stuff across state borders requires some physical goods (when not dealing with money). The judgment still talks about the "theft of intangible property" and so on. At least for the relevant jurisdictions.
Nope, copyright infringement is theft. Simple as that. "Theft" is a broader term than taking physical property. Some copyright infringement is straightforward theft of services, but when we're talking about the bits of a book or DVD or some such, it's closer than you might think.
And how are you defining "theft"? In the legal sense, or colloquial? If legal, then in which jurisdiction? If colloquial, in which society? Your claim is kind of meaningless without specifying that. Or, at least, hard to rebut.
Legally, in the US, theft isn't a federal offence, so it will vary from state to state, depending on each one's law. I can't be bothered to go through all 50 (or even 1) to find out how it works there. However, as you might have noticed from my post (to which you replied), or should have noticed had you followed either of the links I provided, I was referring to the UK (or more specifically, England and Wales). In E+W copyright infringement isn't legally theft, for the simple reason that in order to steal something, there has to be some property to steal and, based on the cases I gave, information isn't property. There are also issues of permanently depriving and removing all value, use and so on. That's based on statute now, but the statute mostly codified the common law, so US laws shouldn't be that different.
Colloquial, one could define theft as "taking someone else's stuff without their permission." In the case of copyright infringement, there isn't any taking. Only copying. And copying isn't theft. Simple as that.
The fact that these are physical items has very little relevance to the fact that taking them is theft. The physical items per se are nearly worthless to begin with, the only meaningful loss is taking the bits without paying.
Of course their physical nature is irrelevant. However, the fact that they are property (in the legal, not colloquial sense) has everything to do with the fact that taking them is theft. If you don't have property, you can't have theft. The worth of the objects is, however, irrelevant to the fact that taking them is theft, although it might affect sentences, or additional offences (such as the one involved in this case, under the NSPA). That said, information (that is publicly available) is valueless. It can be copied (almost) effortlessly, and then the principles of supply and demand come into play - copyright is an attempt to subvert that by restricting demand. However, if it is ignored, it fails spectacularly (although evidence suggests people are perfectly willing to pay for either physical products, or services; i.e. things that can't be copied effortlessly).
Because this case wasn't about property. It was about "goods, wares [or] merchandise." The reporting on this case seems rather misleading; if you read the actual judgment, they were quite happy that the code could be stolen, but theft is a matter for state law, not federal. They'd prosecuted the guy under the National Stolen Property Act which only applies to cases of theft or fraud where some "goods, wares, merchandise" etc., involved in a theft or fraud, are taken across a state or national border (presumably because a more general theft law would be unconstitutional, whereas this can come under the interstate commerce clause thingamy - IANA(US)L).
In this case, while the code was stolen (which is the silly part of US law, which recognises information as property), the specific law is drafted in a way that only applies to moving tangible goods (or money). Unlike an earlier case which is referenced - where information was photocopied and taken across a border and the defendant seems to have been convicted - here the information was transmitted via the internet, so no "goods" were taken across a border. Basically, this is due to a badly-drafted piece of legislation (I guess in 1934 people weren't really thinking about intangible property).
So, both types of code are property, but imported code isn't goods, wares or merchandise (unless it's bound to some physical form).
Some of us have been able to do this for years, using Oxford v Moss (there's also Boardman v Phipps which is a House of Lords case, but on trusts, and the information != property point is kind of obiter).
Of course, then they go "well, OK, it's not technically theft, but it's still taking someone else's stuff without paying for it" - remember, you don't have debates about copyright enforcement law, you have rants from either side; no one really seems to care about verifiable facts.
As a foreigner from a country with no (written/codified) constitution, but still manages to avoid the issues of unrelated amendments, I think a simpler solution is required. Making doing so recognised and unacceptable and something that is just "not done". Unfortunately this seems to involve either a long history of it not being done (i.e. tradition), or a majority of Parliamentarians willing to consistently vote down any and all unrelated amendments.
A constitutional amendment would be problematic as it would be hard to define "unrelated." You might just end up with politicians trying to find any excuse for linking their amendment to the bill.
BTW, Google already has a "safe search" feature that is turned on by default. Although things still sneak in, the site does exactly the behavior UK seems to wish ISPs implement.
Two major differences.
1) If I want to opt-out of Google's safe search feature, I click a button on the search page. I can choose when to do this, for specific searches (i.e. if I'm looking for something that might be filtered) and then turn it back on for normal use. If I want to opt out of this proposed scheme, I have to be the subscriber/account holder (i.e. not just a user) and I have to prove I'm over 18 (note that the age of consent for sexual activity in the UK is 16... so that age limit makes complete sense). When this idea was floated a few months ago, the suggestion was that one would opt-out when one signed up for a new account, thus leaving no flexibility, or middle ground.
2) Google provides a "safe search" feature voluntarily; if something gets through, no one really cares. This law would *require* ISPs to filter. If something got through, an ISP could potentially be liable for a breach of statutory duty. This makes it far more likely that ISPs would overblock, to cover themselves.
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Aside from the issue of the technical burden on ISPs to get them to filter, the other major point that people seem to forget is how an ISP is meant to determine whether or not something is "pornographic." That is a rather subjective test (although there are attempts to put it into English law already); some material is obviously pornographic, some obviously not - but there is a rather large grey area in the middle. It seems ludicrous to force ISPs to scan the entire Internet, determine whether or not something is pornographic and then filter it.
Fortunately, as the summary notes, this is a Private Member's Bill, so unlikely to get anywhere.
We should now, however, watch very carefully how they treat the 11 detained who should get no more than a warning.
What do you propose they be warned about? TSA agents? Flying? Or for taking a perfectly legal and innocent "Science Project" (I haven't read the article, so will go with the headline) on a plane? If the latter, why should they be warned against doing that? Why should they need to be?
But in that case the intention/motivation/circumstances make a difference between being a criminal and not. In this case, both groups are criminals, the intention is irrelevant... at least, under English law, which is all I really know anything about.
The BBC's headline was particularly silly in this regard: "Data theft: Hacktivists 'steal more than criminals'" - as the BBC of all news groups should have someone available to point out that it's not stealing, and that hacktivists are criminals.
Of course, the whole story is rather silly as it seems to be based only on reported data breaches; presumably a hactivist breach is more likely to be noticed/reported than someone breaking in to take data for unlawful uses. They're more likely to want to keep the breach quiet so they can keep doing what they do.
You can prove a negative, provided that it is a specific enough negative. While you can't prove that fairies don't exist, you can prove that a certain kind of fairy (say one that can't make itself invisible, and is very large) doesn't exist at the bottom of your garden right now.
Well, for a given value of "prove", of course - this is science we're talking about, not maths, so nothing is ever proven properly.
1: Denver - Firstly, that's an arrest, not a conviction (even the press statement notes he is innocent), secondly, he wasn't planning any terrorist attacks in the US, and was stopped trying to leave the country to go back to Uzbekistan (or Pakistan).
2: Baltimore - this is another of those wonderful cases where the FBI creates a terrorist attack and then swoops in at the last minute, with great fanfare, to 'save' the day. There was never any risk of a terrorist attack, unless the FBI created it.
3: Washington Field - that's not a terrorist; that's a random nutter who decided it would be a good idea to shoot at some military buildings from his car, and filmed it. No indication of any political motivation etc.
4: Tampa - similar to 2, also still just charges, no actual proof. Just because someone wants to try to blow up a building, that doesn't mean there's the slightest chance they could do so.
5: Baltimore - apparently this guy tried to go to Somalia to join an Islamic group there, his 'material support' appears to have been something like $700.
6: Seattle - similar to 2 again (no actual risk, due to law enforcement providing weapons etc.), but otherwise, I'll give you that one.
7: San Diego - similar to 5, but she successfully sent $1,450 to them (the Somali-based Islamic group).
So, while four of those seem to be terrorists (assuming accusations to be true), and two tried to support terrorists, one doesn't seem to have been. Secondly, three of those (the three actually planning attacks in the US) were caught in sting operations, with law enforcement actively involved in their plots, providing equipment etc.. Thirdly, only one of those seems to have caused any damage (the non-terrorist), and that was possibly due to the ease of acquiring firearms in the US (which I won't get into). Fourthly, only 2 of those terrorists seem to have been in any position to actually carry out an attack, and were only stopped by law enforcement actions.
However, the most important point: None of these was stopped, identified, limited or hindered in any way by the TSA. Most seem to have been picked up through informants, i.e. real human intelligence-gathering, rather than the security theatre that people above (and below) are complaining about.
Also, that's (for the most part) taking the FBI's press releases at face value. Because, of course, they're going to be impartial.