Actually, the government (in the UK) can kill you. They just can't execute you as a punishment.
The death penalty is illegal in the EU, but that doesn't stop the state killing people. The relevant right to life (Article 2 of the ECHR) is a qualified right; the state can kill you: "when [your death] results from the use of force which is no more than absolutely necessary: (a) in defence of any person from unlawful violence; (b) in order to effect a lawful arrest or to prevent the escape of a person lawfully detained; (c) in action lawfully taken for the purpose of quelling a riot or insurrection."
Usually, Article 2 is engaged when the state kills someone but doesn't hold a proper investigation to make sure that the force used was no more than absolutely necessary.
I'm not quite a lawyer, but there was an interesting discussion on whether Internet postings were slander or libel in Smith v ADVFN Plc & Ors [2010] EWCA Civ 657 (see 7, and the previous High Court judgment by Eady J). Unfortunately as the appeal was dismissed by consent, and the claims were subsequently found to be without merit (due to not being defamatory or their being obvious defences), no conclusion was reached.
How about Article 10 of the European Declaration of Human Rights
The what?
Do you mean the European Convention on Human Rights (which is nothing to do with the EU, and technically doesn't trump UK law within the UK), or the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (which is EU-related) which only applies to EU bodies and member states when implementing EU law?
While, under the Human Rights Act, UK courts are public authorities must act in accordance with the ECHR, if there's UK law (either an Act, or case law) that conflicts with the ECHR, they must follow the UK law. The courts can try to interpret the law compatibly, but if they can't, there's nothing the Court can do to strike out the law. In the Strasbourg Court, the ECHR will trump domestic law (to a degree), but all the ECtHR can really do is issue fines/award compensation. The UK follows the ECHR (some of the time) more for policy reasons than any legal requirement.
In any case, the ECHR doesn't include an absolute "right to free speech". It includes a qualified "right to freedom of expression". In particular, in article 10(2), the Charter notes that the
exercise of [this right], since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.
Which obviously includes libel, contempt of court and privacy. So, not only does the ECHR not trump UK law, in a privacy/libel case, Article 10 may apply, but so does Article 8 (the "right to respect for private and family life, home and correspondence"), and neither trumps the other - it is just a balancing exercise for the Court.
Iirc the US has now done this at a Federal level with the SPEECH Act, however that only protects against libel cases where there would be an obvious 1st amendments defence in the US for the same "libel".
However, in this case, it isn't Twitter that is being sued for libel. The libel case is going on in the UK (technically E+W) and involves UK parties; Twitter is only being brought in as an innocent third party to hand over subscriber details. Twitter will likely have immunity under the SPEECH Act, so can't be sued for defamation in the US (it would probably be protected in the EU as well), but that's not the issue.
What might be more interested it see is whether, if this case gets anywhere, the Court finds that postings on Twitter count as slander or libel - the US doesn't have the distinction any more, but there are suggestions in earlier cases that transient internet postings might count as merely slander.
Super-injunctions are not aimed at everyone. That is a thing called an order "contra mundum" and they are very, very rare in these sorts of cases. Of course, super-injunctions are also pretty rare; there have been three since the start of 2010, two of which lasted for about a week.
Anyway, normal injunctions only bind the parties they are filed against. This is extended with temporary/pre-trial injunctions (like these) under the Spycatcher principle, so that they are binding on anyone notified of or server with them. This may (but probably doesn't) include just being aware of them, as it usually involves being given all the confidential information as well.
MPs and Lords can't break injunctions. Parliament has a thing called the sub judice rule that stops MPs from discussing ongoing cases. Those MPs that have broken injunctions have broken that rule as well. Parliamentary Privilege just means that no authority outside Parliament (such as the Courts, Crown, Government) can discipline or interfere with stuff that goes on inside.
Hyper-injunctions don't exist - or at least, aren't anything interesting. Three examples were given by John Hemming, one wasn't even a court order (just a voluntary undertaking not to talk to John Hemming). In the other cases (from 2005, iirc), the orders seem to have specified that the individual couldn't talk to anyone "including" their MP. Normal injunctions prohibit the defendant from telling anyone (other than instructed lawyers) - the MP doesn't have to be specified to be included). So either Parliamentary Privilege extends to telling an MP (in which case, the Courts can't do anything to stop you) or it doesn't, in which case, any injunction is a "hyper-injunction".
You have no rights under a super-injunction. Even the defending party, example a news paper, isn't even allowed in the courtroom when the injunction is made.
The rights part is complete rubbish. The second part is, to a degree, true. The purpose of a super-injunction is to prevent anyone who is going to be notified of it (and thus brought within it) from being "tipped off" beforehand. i.e. if you summoned the newspaper to court to get an injunction, they'd realise what it was about and publish before their lawyers got there, then claim public domain. However, in some of the cases the newspapers are present but it is the person who is threatening to leak the information (in some cases, using blackmail) who isn't present. If everyone is present, a super-injunction isn't needed.
It's amazing how much misinformation and rubbish is being spread on this topic, you'd think the entire press hated this stuff or something.
Under a thing called the Spycatcher principle a temporary (pre-trial) injunction (which most of these are) is binding not only on those it is filed against, but anyone notified of it.
I'm not sure what counts as being "notified", though - being aware of the injunction might be enough, but it is unlikely to be so. Most likely they've been trying to identify Tweeters as they suspect the first few to tweet the story were involved with the relevant newspapers.
Also, injunctions aside, it can still be a criminal offence to publish or say anything which might interfere with or prejudice active proceedings in court... that's the other side of Contempt of Court.
FTA: However, he (Lord Neuberger) warned that modern technology was "totally out of control" and society should consider other ways to bring Twitter and other websites under control.
Firstly, he didn't say that. So, it's already pretty clear that you haven't looked at the context. Lord Judge (the Lord Chief Justice) did say those words, but in the following context:
...everybody knows about defamation; some people even know about the Press Complaints Commission; and some people even know that most newspaper editors do not like to go foul of the Press Complaints Commission, notwithstanding some of the articles to the contrary. But they know about defamation; everybody knows that if you get it wrong, the damages will be very substantial. They also know that modern technology is totally out of control. Anybody can put anything on it. I suspect that they would pay much more attention to an article in a newspaper or on the media than they would to anything that anybody can put out on modern technology. I think there is a significant difference.
Basically, what he's saying is that modern technology is out of the control of the law (which, if anything, this mess over injunctions - they're not super-injunctions - has demonstrated). But he's saying that it doesn't really matter! This was at the end of a speech where he was talking about how it was necessary to start using technology "to prevent the misuse of modern technology". It is currently beyond the law, and he - as the head of the English judiciary - wants to bring it into the scope of the law, strangely enough. This may not be desirable from our points of view, but I don't think we can criticise him for wanting this.
Of course, it isn't really your fault for taking the line out of context - the UK tabloids have been doing everything they can to discredit our judges for some time (especially when it comes to privacy). They mostly focussed on that one line, ignoring the 100+ page report (which is an interesting read) that basically said all this fuss over "super-" and "hyper-injunctions" was stopped over a year ago and the press are just making stuff up. [They managed to find 3 privacy super-injunctions granted since January 2010; two lasted for a few days, the third was removed on appeal - hyper-injunctions never really existed in the first place.] For some reason, the press don't want to report this, maybe because they keep losing privacy cases due to hacking into people's telephones, using spy-cameras, and publishing any dirty celebrity story they can get their hands on. No, of course they're being impartial in their reporting.
Maybe it's silly and naive of me to think this possible, but it would be nice if people would actually look at the facts on this issue.
[And yes, I've spent most of the last week split between researching this stuff and trying to knock some sense and facts into people discussing this.]
As has been noted by a number of commentators, no one has yet discovered a mechanism for incentivising the deceased.
The review strongly recommended against any form of copyright extension; however, that's not likely to change UK policy - lobbyists are much more convincing than academics.
Not just in Germany; it was pushed on all of the EU by France (iirc) via Directive 2001/84/EC "on the resale right for the benefit of the author of an original work of art". It's a good example of how "intellectual property", far from being some form of property actually breaks the basic principles of copyright law.
What's particularly scary about the UK implementation (I haven't really studied the directive itself) is that the money is taken by the auction house without the artist being involved, and "held" for them there. The right can't even be waived; so (unlike the rest of copyright) there's nothing you can do to avoid it.
That's the wrong term. The life+70 is for most works, but in the EU there is a different term for sound recordings and similar things - the idea being that you can make a sound recording of something already out of copyright and it will still be protected, but it should have a lesser protection than the music itself.
Across the EU this is currently "harmonised" at 50 years (not life+50, only 50 years), but the plan is to increase it to 70 or 95 years. Under current law, sound recordings from the 60s are beginning to fall out of copyright. Looking down Wikipedia's list of 1960s music groups it isn't hard to see why this extension is being pushed for. If anything, current artists are going to lose out on this (it isn't like they'll get a 40% pay rise overnight...) as it will encourage the major studios to reinvest in their existing works (that they own the copyright to) rather than investing in new material.
For anyone interested in doing something about this issue, it is currently before JURI (the EP's legal affairs committee) and you can find a list of its members here. Please do email or write to them.
The device that has been banned is really nowt new at all. I suppose my bit of kit is illegal too..?
The ban is all down to the Music industry seeing their grim reaper on the horizon.
The device has not been banned; that would take court action. Just the advert was banned by the ASA (which, afaik, is only a voluntary, industry-operated regulatory body). Also, there's a good chance that it was one of the company's competitors which complained, not the "music industry" (there isn't really such a thing) - they're too busy lobbying politicians, arguing with ISPs, and spending vast sums of money on lawyers to defend a rubbish law at the moment.
The UK has no fair use law. Never has, although there is a big debate in the corridors of power about establishing one (not that many people actually want it; fair use is really quite a bad idea).
There is the much more limited "fair dealing", but that only applies to non-commercial research and private academic study, and in any case, doesn't seem to be a complete "feel free to copy whatever you like as much as you like" thing.
It doesn't matter that people have been copying CDs etc. for decades (people have been "pirating" for longer than copyright has existed), what matters is whether or not it is lawful. It is generally accepted that it isn't.
As others have pointed out, this is pretty much rubbish. If you look in the actual law itself (which you helpfully linked but didn't actually reference), you see this isn't really the case. The only exemption that comes close is s29 which states:
(1) - Fair dealing with a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work for the purposes of research for a non-commercial purpose does not infringe any copyright in the work provided that it is accompanied by a sufficient acknowledgement.
(1C) - Fair dealing with a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work for the purposes of private study does not infringe any copyright in the work.
Firstly, this is not personal use. This is either for non-commercial research, or for academic study. Secondly, "fair dealing" is not the same as the US-style "fair use"; i.e. permitting any copying within this case. There is no definition of fair dealing (anywhere in law), and it has to be decided on a case-by-case basis, but the cases on fair dealing in the other sense (for criticism, reporting and review) seem to require quite a high public interest test. Basically the defence (in that case) seems to exist only to allow some scope for freedom of expression.
The other exemption that might be worth noting is s50A
(1) - It is not an infringement of copyright for a lawful user of a copy of a computer program to make any back up copy of it which it is necessary for him to have for the purposes of his lawful use.
but this only refers to computer programs, and making a copy must be for backing up only, and must be necessary.
But surely if they were made part of the US Government, the MPAA and RIAA would be accountable to someone? Things like the First Amendment would apply; they wouldn't be able to lie to you, steal from you or censor you without people knowing; and they would have to be open and transparent about how badly they screw over their members (or rather, those who work for their members).
Also worth noting that the court doesn't seem to have ordered him to pay £3,000, he *offered* to pay it (i.e. the case was settled). It may well be that no judgment is made, but I will keep an eye out for one.
I can't speak for Germany or Australia, but here in the UK we never had free speech nor do we pretend to have it. It seems to be a cultural thing, in that Europeans (and this is obviously a gross generalisation) don't care as much about freedom of speech as USians.
Of course, we're still doing what we can to roll back intrusive stuff. There's even a Protection of Freedoms Bill before Parliament at the moment, along with a new Defamation Bill (designed to tighten up libel law). The Identity Documents Act already passed (scrapping the ID card scheme) as did the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill (the first step in getting vaguely democratic elections).
Sadly, I imagine most of these won't make that much of a difference, and in any case, the government can do whatever it likes, really, but it is a start. There's also the irony that the bill on the lists next to the freedom bill is the Prevention of Terrorism Bill which effectively scraps the Human Rights Act, but that's a private member's bill, so shouldn't get anywhere.
Assange has been charged with rape, and the allegations include the use of force to overcome resistance
If I recall correctly, he hasn't been *charged* with anything - he is wanted for questioning.
Reading between the lines (and yes, I confess I only have the biased pro-Assange side that has been circulating in the UK, not the biased anti-assange circulating in Sweden and the US) it seems that if the Swedish prosecutors actually charged him, they would have to hand over all the evidence (so he could start work on his defence). If they did this while he was in the UK, he'd bring up the (his defence team claim) complete lack of evidence (and even evidence to support his side of the story) and it is quite possible the extradition hearing would collapse on lack of evidence.
However, once he is in Sweden, they can hold him, pending trial, in solitary confinement. Then the US applies for extradition, Sweden delays the trial until that is heard and the first thing Assange (or we) know is when he's on a plane to the US (Sweden seems to have a lot more relaxed extradition treaty with the US that the UK). It is my understanding that a large part of the defence argument was that proper procedure had not been followed (hence the first EAW being ignored and a second needed). I'm all for people being put on trial for alleged crimes, but there's a reason we have due process and procedures, and why they should be followed.
I'm not sure any entire series were lost as in some cases episodes survived due to people making unlawful copies at home (or in some cases, the actual tapes being "stolen" by producers etc. to save them), but yes; there are dozens, possibly hundreds of episodes of UK television from the 60s and 70s that no longer exist in any format.
It's somewhat similar to how they destroyed 1950s and 60s television tapes.
That wasn't due to archiving, or even expensive tape, though. That was due to copyright. In the 70s and 80s there was a big scare that home taping would kill the TV industry (MPAA sponsored, of course) and that as Networks could store shows on tape, they might just replay them over and over again, driving down the need for new material. So the TV producers' and actors' unions (or whatever they were) made strict rules about how long material could be stored for and how many times it could be shown. The result of which was that after a few years it became far too expensive to store the material. Most of the tapes weren't actually reused, but destroyed (by fire, iirc).
Incidentally, Doctor Who survived quite well; full audio exists for all episodes, and most at least have stills of every few seconds (ironically, due to copyright infringement and home taping..). Some other shows (such as Z-Cars and Steptoe and Son) were hit a lot worse.
The case is fair enough - it is the reporting that is rubbish. Which isn't really surprising; journalists tend to ignore the details when anything legal happens.
From what I can tell, he pleaded guilty to 4 charges under the CMA 1990; and 1 under the Proceeds of Crime Act (2003?).
I would imagine he was charged under section 1 CMA which makes it an offence to cause "a computer to perform any function with intent to secure access to any program or data held in any computer" provided that one knows "the access he intends to secure... is unauthorised". I think it is quite clear he did this (if the facts are to be believed). There is no requirement under s.1 that he intends to do anything illegal once he has gained access, the unauthorised access is enough. I wouldn't be surprised if he was also charged with something under s.2.
Sadly I know very little about the Proceeds of Crime Acts, but I imagine there is an offence in one of them to profit from a crime; i.e. by then selling the imaginary chips he broke that law (possibly somewhere in Part 7 of the PCA 2003).
Either way, there wasn't any "theft" or "stealing". That requires property; and imaginary chips don't seem to count as property. Of course, the CMA has greater punishments available anyway...
You're american aren't you? I know because everyone else uses the SI system. No sane non-american would suggest going back to your medieval system.
Not entirely true. Myanmar (Burma) and Liberia don't use SI units either ("SI system" is rather tautological as the S stands for "Systeme"). I'm sure it gives Americans great comfort knowing they're in the company of such powerhouses of scientific research and technological advancement.
[Yes, I accept there is a degree of hypocrisy in what I'm saying as I live in a country that is still fighting to keep miles and pints (real, Imperial pints, not US pints which are smaller) - but I'd happily vote for scrapping them if I could.]
As I tried to explain in the linked article, "authorisation" wrt websites seems to be a really problematic area. I think due to a lack of case law (or statutes; probably a good thing) no one is quite sure how websites work legally. While some Internet stuff (particularly contracts, sales etc.) was supposed to be sorted out (in the EU) by the 2002 E-Commerce Directive, there still seems to be a lot of confusion over how the Internet works, although as we gradually get more judges and lawyers used to the Internet, this might change.
I think the only way we'll get any certainty is if a case (like one of the DDoS attacks) goes all the way to the Supreme Court or Courts of the European Union (or whatever they're called these days) and gets properly argued and ruled upon.
For those interested, the relevant part is Section 3 of the Computer Misuse Act 1990.
"(1) A person is guilty of an offence if... (a) he does any unauthorised act in relation to a computer, (b) at the time when he does the act he knows that it is unauthorised; and..." he intends "(2)(b) to prevent or hinder access to any program or data held in any computer;".
It doesn't need to be aimed at any particular data, computer etc. (4), "causing the acts to be done" is enough (5)(b) and the effects can be temporary (5)(c).
That sounds quite a bit like a DDoS attack to me (I am a law student, but not a real lawyer).
Oh, and if you plead guilty, you get at most 12 months in prison (6 months in Scotland - I guess because they don't have real computers up there). If you actually go to trial, that jumps up to 10 years. Bearing in mind that a jury system has at least an 83% uncertainty, it is actually better to plead guilty even if innocent.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, the government (in the UK) can kill you. They just can't execute you as a punishment.
The death penalty is illegal in the EU, but that doesn't stop the state killing people. The relevant right to life (Article 2 of the ECHR) is a qualified right; the state can kill you: "when [your death] results from the use of force which is no more than absolutely necessary:
(a) in defence of any person from unlawful violence;
(b) in order to effect a lawful arrest or to prevent the escape of a person lawfully detained;
(c) in action lawfully taken for the purpose of quelling a riot or insurrection."
Usually, Article 2 is engaged when the state kills someone but doesn't hold a proper investigation to make sure that the force used was no more than absolutely necessary.
I'm not quite a lawyer, but there was an interesting discussion on whether Internet postings were slander or libel in Smith v ADVFN Plc & Ors [2010] EWCA Civ 657 (see 7, and the previous High Court judgment by Eady J). Unfortunately as the appeal was dismissed by consent, and the claims were subsequently found to be without merit (due to not being defamatory or their being obvious defences), no conclusion was reached.
How about Article 10 of the European Declaration of Human Rights
The what?
Do you mean the European Convention on Human Rights (which is nothing to do with the EU, and technically doesn't trump UK law within the UK), or the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (which is EU-related) which only applies to EU bodies and member states when implementing EU law?
While, under the Human Rights Act, UK courts are public authorities must act in accordance with the ECHR, if there's UK law (either an Act, or case law) that conflicts with the ECHR, they must follow the UK law. The courts can try to interpret the law compatibly, but if they can't, there's nothing the Court can do to strike out the law. In the Strasbourg Court, the ECHR will trump domestic law (to a degree), but all the ECtHR can really do is issue fines/award compensation. The UK follows the ECHR (some of the time) more for policy reasons than any legal requirement.
In any case, the ECHR doesn't include an absolute "right to free speech". It includes a qualified "right to freedom of expression". In particular, in article 10(2), the Charter notes that the
exercise of [this right], since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.
Which obviously includes libel, contempt of court and privacy. So, not only does the ECHR not trump UK law, in a privacy/libel case, Article 10 may apply, but so does Article 8 (the "right to respect for private and family life, home and correspondence"), and neither trumps the other - it is just a balancing exercise for the Court.
Iirc the US has now done this at a Federal level with the SPEECH Act, however that only protects against libel cases where there would be an obvious 1st amendments defence in the US for the same "libel".
However, in this case, it isn't Twitter that is being sued for libel. The libel case is going on in the UK (technically E+W) and involves UK parties; Twitter is only being brought in as an innocent third party to hand over subscriber details. Twitter will likely have immunity under the SPEECH Act, so can't be sued for defamation in the US (it would probably be protected in the EU as well), but that's not the issue.
What might be more interested it see is whether, if this case gets anywhere, the Court finds that postings on Twitter count as slander or libel - the US doesn't have the distinction any more, but there are suggestions in earlier cases that transient internet postings might count as merely slander.
A Guardian journalist for the first, an MP for the second. So, yes, pretty much...
... most of which is complete rubbish.
Super-injunctions are not aimed at everyone. That is a thing called an order "contra mundum" and they are very, very rare in these sorts of cases. Of course, super-injunctions are also pretty rare; there have been three since the start of 2010, two of which lasted for about a week.
Anyway, normal injunctions only bind the parties they are filed against. This is extended with temporary/pre-trial injunctions (like these) under the Spycatcher principle, so that they are binding on anyone notified of or server with them. This may (but probably doesn't) include just being aware of them, as it usually involves being given all the confidential information as well.
MPs and Lords can't break injunctions. Parliament has a thing called the sub judice rule that stops MPs from discussing ongoing cases. Those MPs that have broken injunctions have broken that rule as well. Parliamentary Privilege just means that no authority outside Parliament (such as the Courts, Crown, Government) can discipline or interfere with stuff that goes on inside.
Hyper-injunctions don't exist - or at least, aren't anything interesting. Three examples were given by John Hemming, one wasn't even a court order (just a voluntary undertaking not to talk to John Hemming). In the other cases (from 2005, iirc), the orders seem to have specified that the individual couldn't talk to anyone "including" their MP. Normal injunctions prohibit the defendant from telling anyone (other than instructed lawyers) - the MP doesn't have to be specified to be included). So either Parliamentary Privilege extends to telling an MP (in which case, the Courts can't do anything to stop you) or it doesn't, in which case, any injunction is a "hyper-injunction".
The rights part is complete rubbish. The second part is, to a degree, true. The purpose of a super-injunction is to prevent anyone who is going to be notified of it (and thus brought within it) from being "tipped off" beforehand. i.e. if you summoned the newspaper to court to get an injunction, they'd realise what it was about and publish before their lawyers got there, then claim public domain. However, in some of the cases the newspapers are present but it is the person who is threatening to leak the information (in some cases, using blackmail) who isn't present. If everyone is present, a super-injunction isn't needed.
It's amazing how much misinformation and rubbish is being spread on this topic, you'd think the entire press hated this stuff or something.
Under a thing called the Spycatcher principle a temporary (pre-trial) injunction (which most of these are) is binding not only on those it is filed against, but anyone notified of it.
I'm not sure what counts as being "notified", though - being aware of the injunction might be enough, but it is unlikely to be so. Most likely they've been trying to identify Tweeters as they suspect the first few to tweet the story were involved with the relevant newspapers.
Also, injunctions aside, it can still be a criminal offence to publish or say anything which might interfere with or prejudice active proceedings in court... that's the other side of Contempt of Court.
Quoting a parliamentarian puts you in the clear under English case law. Quoting anything or anybody else does not.
Only if you're accurately quoting from Parliamentary proceedings or debates, and can prove you're doing so "in good faith" and "without malice".
Also, it's not case law, it's from the Parliamentary Papers Act 1840, which was passed after Hansard was successfully sued for something.
FTA: However, he (Lord Neuberger) warned that modern technology was "totally out of control" and society should consider other ways to bring Twitter and other websites under control.
Firstly, he didn't say that. So, it's already pretty clear that you haven't looked at the context. Lord Judge (the Lord Chief Justice) did say those words, but in the following context:
...everybody knows about defamation; some people even know about the Press Complaints Commission; and some people even know that most newspaper editors do not like to go foul of the Press Complaints Commission, notwithstanding some of the articles to the contrary. But they know about defamation; everybody knows that if you get it wrong, the damages will be very substantial. They also know that modern technology is totally out of control. Anybody can put anything on it. I suspect that they
would pay much more attention to an article in a newspaper or on the media than they would to anything that anybody can put out on modern technology. I think there is a significant difference.
Basically, what he's saying is that modern technology is out of the control of the law (which, if anything, this mess over injunctions - they're not super-injunctions - has demonstrated). But he's saying that it doesn't really matter! This was at the end of a speech where he was talking about how it was necessary to start using technology "to prevent the misuse of modern technology". It is currently beyond the law, and he - as the head of the English judiciary - wants to bring it into the scope of the law, strangely enough. This may not be desirable from our points of view, but I don't think we can criticise him for wanting this.
Of course, it isn't really your fault for taking the line out of context - the UK tabloids have been doing everything they can to discredit our judges for some time (especially when it comes to privacy). They mostly focussed on that one line, ignoring the 100+ page report (which is an interesting read) that basically said all this fuss over "super-" and "hyper-injunctions" was stopped over a year ago and the press are just making stuff up. [They managed to find 3 privacy super-injunctions granted since January 2010; two lasted for a few days, the third was removed on appeal - hyper-injunctions never really existed in the first place.] For some reason, the press don't want to report this, maybe because they keep losing privacy cases due to hacking into people's telephones, using spy-cameras, and publishing any dirty celebrity story they can get their hands on. No, of course they're being impartial in their reporting.
Maybe it's silly and naive of me to think this possible, but it would be nice if people would actually look at the facts on this issue.
[And yes, I've spent most of the last week split between researching this stuff and trying to knock some sense and facts into people discussing this.]
There was a wonderful line in the recent (and very encouraging) Independent Review of IP and Growth run on behalf of the UK government:
The review strongly recommended against any form of copyright extension; however, that's not likely to change UK policy - lobbyists are much more convincing than academics.
Not just in Germany; it was pushed on all of the EU by France (iirc) via Directive 2001/84/EC "on the resale right for the benefit of the author of an original work of art". It's a good example of how "intellectual property", far from being some form of property actually breaks the basic principles of copyright law.
What's particularly scary about the UK implementation (I haven't really studied the directive itself) is that the money is taken by the auction house without the artist being involved, and "held" for them there. The right can't even be waived; so (unlike the rest of copyright) there's nothing you can do to avoid it.
That's the wrong term. The life+70 is for most works, but in the EU there is a different term for sound recordings and similar things - the idea being that you can make a sound recording of something already out of copyright and it will still be protected, but it should have a lesser protection than the music itself.
Across the EU this is currently "harmonised" at 50 years (not life+50, only 50 years), but the plan is to increase it to 70 or 95 years. Under current law, sound recordings from the 60s are beginning to fall out of copyright. Looking down Wikipedia's list of 1960s music groups it isn't hard to see why this extension is being pushed for. If anything, current artists are going to lose out on this (it isn't like they'll get a 40% pay rise overnight...) as it will encourage the major studios to reinvest in their existing works (that they own the copyright to) rather than investing in new material.
For anyone interested in doing something about this issue, it is currently before JURI (the EP's legal affairs committee) and you can find a list of its members here. Please do email or write to them.
The device that has been banned is really nowt new at all. I suppose my bit of kit is illegal too..?
The ban is all down to the Music industry seeing their grim reaper on the horizon.
The device has not been banned; that would take court action. Just the advert was banned by the ASA (which, afaik, is only a voluntary, industry-operated regulatory body). Also, there's a good chance that it was one of the company's competitors which complained, not the "music industry" (there isn't really such a thing) - they're too busy lobbying politicians, arguing with ISPs, and spending vast sums of money on lawyers to defend a rubbish law at the moment.
The UK has no fair use law. Never has, although there is a big debate in the corridors of power about establishing one (not that many people actually want it; fair use is really quite a bad idea).
There is the much more limited "fair dealing", but that only applies to non-commercial research and private academic study, and in any case, doesn't seem to be a complete "feel free to copy whatever you like as much as you like" thing.
It doesn't matter that people have been copying CDs etc. for decades (people have been "pirating" for longer than copyright has existed), what matters is whether or not it is lawful. It is generally accepted that it isn't.
As others have pointed out, this is pretty much rubbish. If you look in the actual law itself (which you helpfully linked but didn't actually reference), you see this isn't really the case. The only exemption that comes close is s29 which states:
Firstly, this is not personal use. This is either for non-commercial research, or for academic study. Secondly, "fair dealing" is not the same as the US-style "fair use"; i.e. permitting any copying within this case. There is no definition of fair dealing (anywhere in law), and it has to be decided on a case-by-case basis, but the cases on fair dealing in the other sense (for criticism, reporting and review) seem to require quite a high public interest test. Basically the defence (in that case) seems to exist only to allow some scope for freedom of expression.
The other exemption that might be worth noting is s50A
but this only refers to computer programs, and making a copy must be for backing up only, and must be necessary.
But surely if they were made part of the US Government, the MPAA and RIAA would be accountable to someone? Things like the First Amendment would apply; they wouldn't be able to lie to you, steal from you or censor you without people knowing; and they would have to be open and transparent about how badly they screw over their members (or rather, those who work for their members).
Oh, wait...
What this person said, with extra emphasis.
Also worth noting that the court doesn't seem to have ordered him to pay £3,000, he *offered* to pay it (i.e. the case was settled). It may well be that no judgment is made, but I will keep an eye out for one.
I can't speak for Germany or Australia, but here in the UK we never had free speech nor do we pretend to have it. It seems to be a cultural thing, in that Europeans (and this is obviously a gross generalisation) don't care as much about freedom of speech as USians.
Of course, we're still doing what we can to roll back intrusive stuff. There's even a Protection of Freedoms Bill before Parliament at the moment, along with a new Defamation Bill (designed to tighten up libel law). The Identity Documents Act already passed (scrapping the ID card scheme) as did the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill (the first step in getting vaguely democratic elections).
Sadly, I imagine most of these won't make that much of a difference, and in any case, the government can do whatever it likes, really, but it is a start. There's also the irony that the bill on the lists next to the freedom bill is the Prevention of Terrorism Bill which effectively scraps the Human Rights Act, but that's a private member's bill, so shouldn't get anywhere.
Assange has been charged with rape, and the allegations include the use of force to overcome resistance
If I recall correctly, he hasn't been *charged* with anything - he is wanted for questioning.
Reading between the lines (and yes, I confess I only have the biased pro-Assange side that has been circulating in the UK, not the biased anti-assange circulating in Sweden and the US) it seems that if the Swedish prosecutors actually charged him, they would have to hand over all the evidence (so he could start work on his defence). If they did this while he was in the UK, he'd bring up the (his defence team claim) complete lack of evidence (and even evidence to support his side of the story) and it is quite possible the extradition hearing would collapse on lack of evidence.
However, once he is in Sweden, they can hold him, pending trial, in solitary confinement. Then the US applies for extradition, Sweden delays the trial until that is heard and the first thing Assange (or we) know is when he's on a plane to the US (Sweden seems to have a lot more relaxed extradition treaty with the US that the UK). It is my understanding that a large part of the defence argument was that proper procedure had not been followed (hence the first EAW being ignored and a second needed). I'm all for people being put on trial for alleged crimes, but there's a reason we have due process and procedures, and why they should be followed.
I'm not sure any entire series were lost as in some cases episodes survived due to people making unlawful copies at home (or in some cases, the actual tapes being "stolen" by producers etc. to save them), but yes; there are dozens, possibly hundreds of episodes of UK television from the 60s and 70s that no longer exist in any format.
It's somewhat similar to how they destroyed 1950s and 60s television tapes.
That wasn't due to archiving, or even expensive tape, though. That was due to copyright. In the 70s and 80s there was a big scare that home taping would kill the TV industry (MPAA sponsored, of course) and that as Networks could store shows on tape, they might just replay them over and over again, driving down the need for new material. So the TV producers' and actors' unions (or whatever they were) made strict rules about how long material could be stored for and how many times it could be shown. The result of which was that after a few years it became far too expensive to store the material. Most of the tapes weren't actually reused, but destroyed (by fire, iirc).
Incidentally, Doctor Who survived quite well; full audio exists for all episodes, and most at least have stills of every few seconds (ironically, due to copyright infringement and home taping..). Some other shows (such as Z-Cars and Steptoe and Son) were hit a lot worse.
The case is fair enough - it is the reporting that is rubbish. Which isn't really surprising; journalists tend to ignore the details when anything legal happens.
From what I can tell, he pleaded guilty to 4 charges under the CMA 1990; and 1 under the Proceeds of Crime Act (2003?).
I would imagine he was charged under section 1 CMA which makes it an offence to cause "a computer to perform any function with intent to secure access to any program or data held in any computer" provided that one knows "the access he intends to secure ... is unauthorised". I think it is quite clear he did this (if the facts are to be believed). There is no requirement under s.1 that he intends to do anything illegal once he has gained access, the unauthorised access is enough. I wouldn't be surprised if he was also charged with something under s.2.
Sadly I know very little about the Proceeds of Crime Acts, but I imagine there is an offence in one of them to profit from a crime; i.e. by then selling the imaginary chips he broke that law (possibly somewhere in Part 7 of the PCA 2003).
Either way, there wasn't any "theft" or "stealing". That requires property; and imaginary chips don't seem to count as property. Of course, the CMA has greater punishments available anyway...
You're american aren't you? I know because everyone else uses the SI system. No sane non-american would suggest going back to your medieval system.
Not entirely true. Myanmar (Burma) and Liberia don't use SI units either ("SI system" is rather tautological as the S stands for "Systeme"). I'm sure it gives Americans great comfort knowing they're in the company of such powerhouses of scientific research and technological advancement.
[Yes, I accept there is a degree of hypocrisy in what I'm saying as I live in a country that is still fighting to keep miles and pints (real, Imperial pints, not US pints which are smaller) - but I'd happily vote for scrapping them if I could.]
As I tried to explain in the linked article, "authorisation" wrt websites seems to be a really problematic area. I think due to a lack of case law (or statutes; probably a good thing) no one is quite sure how websites work legally. While some Internet stuff (particularly contracts, sales etc.) was supposed to be sorted out (in the EU) by the 2002 E-Commerce Directive, there still seems to be a lot of confusion over how the Internet works, although as we gradually get more judges and lawyers used to the Internet, this might change.
I think the only way we'll get any certainty is if a case (like one of the DDoS attacks) goes all the way to the Supreme Court or Courts of the European Union (or whatever they're called these days) and gets properly argued and ruled upon.
For those interested, the relevant part is Section 3 of the Computer Misuse Act 1990.
"(1) A person is guilty of an offence if... (a) he does any unauthorised act in relation to a computer, (b) at the time when he does the act he knows that it is unauthorised; and..." he intends "(2)(b) to prevent or hinder access to any program or data held in any computer;".
It doesn't need to be aimed at any particular data, computer etc. (4), "causing the acts to be done" is enough (5)(b) and the effects can be temporary (5)(c).
That sounds quite a bit like a DDoS attack to me (I am a law student, but not a real lawyer).
Oh, and if you plead guilty, you get at most 12 months in prison (6 months in Scotland - I guess because they don't have real computers up there). If you actually go to trial, that jumps up to 10 years. Bearing in mind that a jury system has at least an 83% uncertainty, it is actually better to plead guilty even if innocent.