Posts matching tags 'law'
2008/2/28
Don't want your ideas and creative work to be locked up for 90 years after you die? You could always put one of these stickers on your driver's licence (as is, apparently, the done thing for organ donations in the US).
Not sure how legally binding they would be (the most likely answer is "not very"). If you really want your scrapbooks of poetry and Garageband recordings to go to the public domain, you'd probably be better off writing a will. Or you could consider releasing them under a Creative Commons licence while you're still alive.
(via Gizmodo) ¶ [no comments]
2008/1/27
As the receding polar ice caps expose land and shipping lanes, setting the scene for the next great international land grab, Iceland's University of Akureyri is offering a course in Polar Law, to prepare a generation of lawyers uniquely equipped to deal with the resulting issues:
Emphasis is placed upon relevant areas of public international law, such as environmental law, the law of the sea, questions of sovereignty and boundary disputes on land and sea, natural resources law, the rights of indigenous peoples in the north, self-government and good governance, and land and resources claims in the polar regions.
(via Boing Boing) ¶ [no comments]
2007/4/18
In Britain, the police are arresting people for accessing open wireless access points without permission:
The man arrested at the weekend was cautioned for dishonestly obtaining electronic communications services with intent to avoid payment.According to the authorities, accessing wireless networks without permission is, much like downloading MP3s and skipping ads on TV, theft:
"Gaining unauthorised access to someone else's network is an offence and people have to take responsibility for their actions. Some people might argue that taking a joy-ride in someone else's car is not an offence either," he said.Not only that, but leaving your access point open for strangers to use is strongly discouraged; not only is it taking away business from commercial service providers (a cardinal sin in Thatcherism-Blairism), but it is giving paedoterrorists a convenient rock to hide under:
"There have been incidences where paedophiles deliberately leave their wireless networks open so that, if caught, they can say that is wasn't them that used the network for illegal purposes," said NetSurity's Mr Cracknell.
Such a defence would hold little water as the person installing the network, be they a home user or a business, has ultimate responsibility for any criminal activity that takes place on that network, whether it be launching a hack attack or downloading illegal pornography.I wonder whether that would hold up in court; could someone be successfully prosecuted for a crime committed by a stranger using their unsecured network? Perhaps a new crime of "facilitating evasion of surveillance" would be appropriate?
The BBC article provides the following helpful advice to anyone with a wireless access point wishing to avoid ending up on the Sex Offenders' Register:
There are many different types of security options available - but the most basic is to give the network a Wireless Encryption Protocol (WEP) key.
While not totally secure, WEP keys do at least provide a modicum of security to thwart all but the most technically-literate hackers.Well, them and any script kiddie who can download a WEP cracking program and run it for a few minutes.
2007/4/17
The US has the world's highest minimum drinking age, at 21*. This is a fairly recent policy; it was pushed through in the 1980s, when the federal government seized control of state drinking-age laws by threatening to withhold highway funds. Now there are growing calls for the drinking age to be lowered to 18:
Supporters of the federal minimum argue that the human brain continues developing until at least the age of 21. Alcohol expert Dr. David Hanson of the State University of New York at Potsdam argues such assertions reek of junk science. They're extrapolated from a study on lab mice, he explains, as well as from a small sample of actual humans already dependent on alcohol or drugs. Neither is enough to make broad proclamations about the entire population.
Oddly enough, high school students in much of the rest of the developed world -- where lower drinking ages and laxer enforcement reign -- do considerably better than U.S. students on standardized tests.Meanwhile, on the other side of the pond, there are proposals to raise the drinking age to 21 to tackle the binge-drinking epidemic.
* This is not counting some countries, such as Saudi Arabia, where the drinking age is infinity.
(via 
jwz) ¶ [no comments]
2007/3/26
A web-based sports news site is bypassing Rupert Murdoch's Sky TV's exclusive rights to broadcast the Cricket World Cup by displaying a computer-animated reconstruction of the match, from public domain information gathered by employees. The process resembles a modern version of the studio reconstructions of cricket matches on radio broadcasts before television (where announcers would "call" the match from descriptions, tapping microphones with pencils to create the sound effects), only this time, it's legal rather than technological limitations that are the motivation. And they look likely to get away with it:
Cricinfo, which is owned by Wisden, the company behind the Wisden Cricketing Almanac, uses data gathered by employees to simulate the action. The involvement of humans in the process is crucial, says Kim Walker, Head of Intellectual Property with Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind OUT-LAW.COM.
Wisden said that it had carefully consulted lawyers before going ahead with the simulations in this week's World Cup. "Cricinfo 3D is based on public domain information gathered by our scorers who record a number of factors such as where the ball pitched, the type of shot played and where the ball goes in the field," said a Wisden statement. "That data is then fed as an xml to anyone who has Cricinfo 3D running on their desktops and the software generates an animation based on this data."
(via Boing Boing) ¶ [2 comments]
2007/2/15
This year in India, anti-Valentine's Day demonstrators (mostly from the Hindu religious right) have adopted the tactic of forcibly marrying couples found celebrating Valentine's Day:
A 'rath' (decorated vehicle) prepared by the protesters, mainly activists of the Dharam Sena, for "forcibly marrying couples found celebrating Valentine's Day" was seized in Jabalpur, Additional Superintendent of Police Manohar Verma told PTI.It is not clear whether any such forced marriages have actually taken place, or whether, in fact, they would be legally binding.
(via Boing Boing) ¶ [no comments]
2006/12/7
Norway could soon see a renaissance of striptease, after the Norwegian High Court ruled that striptease is an art form, and thus exempt from Norway's 25% VAT.
It was not clear whether the three judges had conducted field research before reaching their verdict. Certainly they made a clear distinction between "banal and vulgar" striptease--in which there is physical contact between dancers and the audience -- and artistic dance.
The question of the artistic value of striptease has been raging since the late 19th century. The first professional stripper was a Parisian, Yvette, who in 1894 stood on a music hall stage and pretended to undress for bed. The artistic content came in the act of undressing rather than in the nudity. which was often brief and incomplete. American burlesque theatres borrowed striptease acts from the French. The most daring showed Salome's Dance of the Seven Veils--complete with a papier-mâché version of John the Baptist's head -- as if to underline that striptease had respectable roots.
2006/10/17
Under a new European Commission proposal, any web sites featuring moving images may soon be subject to the same regulations as broadcast television:
Ministers fear that the directive would hit not only successful sites such as YouTube but also amateur "video bloggers" who post material on their own sites. Personal websites would have to be licensed as a "television-like service".Didn't they introduce a law like this in Australia a few moral panics ago? What has been the experience there? Have web sites taken down video content because of it? Or is it tacitly recognised that the law is unworkable and that its purpose is to provide a new offence for which otherwise legitimate troublemakers can be prosecuted where expedient?
2006/6/4
There's a fairly interesting paper on the status of the word "fuck" in US law, and the irrational power that word taboos have in our seemingly enlightened society.
A trilogy of events motivated me to start this project. The first occurred during my second year of law teaching. In my Professional Responsibility course, the lesson for the day was attorney racist and sexist behavior. The case I assigned from a leading casebook was liberally sprinkled with fuck, cunt, shit, bitch and the like. Sensitive to the power of language, I recited the facts myself rather than ask a student as was my norm. After the course was over, I was reviewing my student evaluations and discovered this: "I was a little disturbed by the way he seemed to delight in saying 'cunt' and 'fucking bitch' during class. I think if you're going to say things like that in class, you should expect it to show up on the evaluation."
Three legally trained minds--a law student, a law enforcement officer, and a federal judge--each heard the word fuck and suddenly lost the ability to calmly, objectively, and rationally react. If fuck has power over these people, what are the limits of its influence?It has some interesting factoids, such as:
Of particular interest to the lawyer-lexicographer is the suggestion of an Egyptian root petcha (to copulate). During the last Egyptian dynasties, legal documents were sealed with the phrase, "As for him who shall disregard it, may he be fucked by a donkey." The hieroglyphic for the phrase--two large erect penises---makes the message clear.The author of the piece (which is titled, simply, "Fuck") makes it clear that he regards word taboos as irrational and unworthy of a place in rational discourse, and as such never avoids using the word where there is an option. Oddly enough, he also seems to refuse to put quotes around it, even when discussing the word "fuck" itself rather than what it refers to, as if doing so would be an unacceptable surrender to the Prim And Proper Language Police.
(via Boing Boing) ¶ [no comments]
2006/5/26
The British government is finally considering legalising low-power FM transmitters, of the sort used to transmit sound from MP3 players to FM radios. In the UK, anything that transmits on licensed frequencies (such as those used for FM radio), at any power level whatsoever, requires a licence from the Secretary of State; (In contrast, in the US, it is legal to use transmitters below a certain power level without a licence.) With the popularity of iPods and their ilk, the law hasn't been enforced as rigorously as it might be; the devices started appearing quite openly in shops on Tottenham Court Road a year or two ago, with the retailers, when questioned, hemming and hawing about the legality of using them.
Any change in the law to legalise the devices will require them to "meet strict technical standard to minimize interference to other radio users". Presumably these will include making them robustly unmodifiable to prevent them from being adapted into high-power FM transmitters, which are in demand by the large numbers of pirate radio stations across the UK.
2006/1/20
Hertfordshire police raid reality-TV show, seizing a fur coat belonging to lead singer of 1980s glam-pop group Dead Or Alive and catty transvestite, Pete Burns, after he claimed that it was made of gorilla fur; the police have warned Burns that he may face five years in prison if it is, in fact, made of gorilla fur, which is prohibited under endangered-species legislation. Hardcore animal-rights advocates PETA praise the Hertfordshire Constabulary's actions, as this is exactly the sort of thing police should be making a priority; that and prosecuting meat-eaters for murder and pet owners for false imprisonment and such. Meanwhile, blogging magistrate Bystander is not amused:
We are told, often correctly, that some of our fellow citizens are afraid to leave their homes, that drug crime is rampant, and anarchy rules our sink estates. So the 'Wildlife Officer' (what's wrong with having a few 'lowlife officers'?) sits down with museum experts to investigate the provenance of a coat. Yes, that's right, a coat. Meanwhile, in court today, I have been forced to adjourn a number of cases because the 'overstretched' police haven't provided information to the CPS in time to allow a trial to proceed.
2005/11/17
You learn something new every day. Apparently, in England, it is illegal to sell anything that looks, smells or feels like a piece of fruit but isn't:
Novelty candles that look like strawberries or apples are a legal no-no, and shops that sell them can be heavily fined (up to £20,000) because of the danger of children eating them.I wonder if that's enforced, and whether you have the Fruit Squad raiding import shops in shabby high streets and seizing bunches of plastic grapes and such.
I guess this means you won't be seeing fruit-shaped fairy lights or banana-shaped mobile-phone cozies in England any time soon. It's a good thing that there's no law against selling things that look like sushi but aren't
2005/9/21
The anarchic, anyone-can-edit model of Wikipedia may soon be tested in court; the Council of Australian Jewry is considering suing Wikipedia for allowing a vandalised article to be published on its site. The vandalised article, on recently deceased Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal, contained unsavoury sexual accusations.
If it does go to court and their case stands up (and the idea of an anonymous wiki with no personal responsibility does not feature in most defamation laws), it could be the end of the wiki, or at least of the pseudonymously editable one. Wikipedia could continue on either being moderated or requiring all contributors to have verified identities kept on file and assume legal liability for their edits. Which would be somewhat of a chilling effect, though it could be argued that that's how the real world works, and the present Wikipedia is no more legally sustainable than the original Napster was. And so, another piece of the utopian anarchy of the internet (you know, that ungoverned interzone that interprets censorship as damage and routes around it) may soon fall to the encroaching tide of harsh reality.
Update: I have been informed that any such lawsuit would be a non-starter. For one, one cannot legally libel, slander or defame a deceased person, and secondly, the Scientologists have already tried this sort of thing and failed.
2003/1/30
Won't someone think of the children? Under new laws unveiled in Britain to protect children from the paedophile menace, having sex in one's private garden will be a crime, punishable by up to six months. Sex in one's home is still legal, however, even with the blinds open. If you're in Britain, now may be your last chance to legally have a bonk in your backyard (though wouldn't it be too cold for that sort of thing?)
2003/1/28
If you're in the US and you've ever used a peer-to-peer network and swapped copyrighted files, chances are pretty good you're guilty of a federal felony. It doesn't matter if you've forsworn Napster, uninstalled Kazaa and now are eagerly padding the record industry's bottom line by snapping up $15.99 CDs by the cartload. Be warned--you're what prosecutors like to think of as an unindicted federal felon.
The law even grants copyright holders the right to hand a "victim impact statement" to the judge at your trial, meaning you can expect an appearance from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) or the Business Software Alliance (BSA), depending on what kind of files were on your hard drive. You'll no longer have that hard drive, of course, because it'll have been seized by the FBI, and you'll be in jail.
The NET Act works in two ways: In general, violations are punishable by one year in prison, if the total value of the files exceeds $1,000; or, if the value tops $2,500, not more than five years in prison. Also, if someone logs on to a file-trading network and shares even one MP3 file without permission in "expectation" that others will do the same, full criminal penalties kick in automatically.
No peer-to-peer users have been prosecuted yet, but there is a lot of pressure from the RIAA on the Department of Justice now to begin such prosecutions. Which means some poor bastard is about to get crucified. (via FmH)
2003/1/16
A crushing blow in the Eldred vs. Ashcroft case. US Supreme Court upholds copyright extension, paving the way for copyright as a perpetual property title, and the evolution of "intellectual property" into a new feudalism. After this, it is likely that nothing will ever enter the public domain in the US. At this rate, it will take global nuclear war, alien invasion, comet strike or the near-extinction of the human race to do anything about it.
2002/5/14
Felt-tip pens and Post-It(tm) notes as copy-prevention circumvention devices. (void where prohibited by law) (via Slashdot)
2002/1/29
The World's Oldest Multinational Corporation: Speaking of unswerving religious sanctions, Pope John Paul II has instructed Catholic lawyers to refuse divorce cases. How binding is his decree? Are Catholics still absolutely required to subordinate their consciences to the Church in all matters or face excommunication?
(This reminds me of how the Catholic church has been taking over hospitals, often dominating entire regional markets, and eliminating services which the Vatican doesn't approve of, for patients of all cultural persuasions.)
2000/6/18
Switzerland prepares to formally legalise marijuana, a substance which is rapidly gaining an aura of safe, middle-class respectability. (BBC News)
1999/11/8
Cambridge academic debunks "crypto menace" myth. (NewScientist)
Think what England was like when the government didn't really exist: anyone with any wealth or property had to design their house to withstand infantry-strength assault. That's not efficient. National governments and policemen will survive the electronic revolution because of the efficiencies they create.
If I were to hold a three-hour encrypted conversation with someone in the Medellín drug cartel, it would be a dead giveaway. In routine monitoring, GCHQ (Britain's signals intelligence service) would pick up the fact that there was encrypted traffic and would instantly mark down my phone as being suspect. Quite possibly the police would then send in the burglars to put microphones in all over my house. In circumstances like this, encryption does not increase your security. It immediately and rapidly decreases it. You are mad to use encryption if you are a villain.