>> "when the UK requests extradition it's asking to extradite someone whose actually committed a crime worth extraditing over - things like murder and so forth"
>"You're applying your own moral judgment to which laws are important. That's not how the law works." //

Copyright infringement is a tort, a civil wrong. It's not even a crime.

The UK shouldn't extradite Her Majesties subjects to the USA to decide if he committed an act which the USA finds criminal when the act happened on UK soil and is known to be legal and considered to be non-infringing.

>"therein lies the problem for climate change deniers - they don't have any"

Surely no one denies that there is climate change, that's a matter of record. I assumed the point at issue was 'human accelerated adverse climate change'. No?

The likes of Attenborough and Cox make assertions on their shows. As they don't generally present evidence, produce hypotheses, moderate theories and test predictability of those theories (within the program) the scientific element is limited - unless I've missed a major tranche of programming. Indeed this is one of the most frustrating things watching "science" programming for me, there seems to be so little time spent on the scientific method for which the genre is named.

If a science program can be made by young earth creationists then why shouldn't it be aired. The science (for a Popperian) is in the falsification after all, the opposing camp then can make a show giving their evidence and presenting how this falsifies the others hypotheses and proves theirs.

>"Impartiality does not mean blindly reciting the viewpoints of opposing sides in any debate (something the BBC are already wont to do)."

What does it mean then. How do you report a viewpoint impartially without reciting it (by which presumably you include quoting it or playing back the holder of the viewpoint itself reciting it)?

>"So, what do you call people who reject the heliocentric solar system?"

I call them physicists.

Never heard of relativity? You can choose any point for the center that you wish, they're all fine.

So your argument is that as the BBC is not like other entities, doesn't have to act commercially and so doesn't IYO pander to a lowest common denominator, then it should be treated just like other entities that have to act commercially?

Those who want to watch live TV are forced to pay the BBC by government enforced monopoly. Because of this the BBC must be as transparent as any other regular provider that the government force you to use in a similar way, an LEA, health board, police service or whatever.

>"IMHO the BBC is a public funded body that functions as an independent news service by royal charter, it is not an organ of government and thus should not be subject for FOI requests just like any other news service"

The dependency may only go one way - though I'm pretty sure the Culture Secretary has input in to BBC decisions (at arms length, like how USA moulds our laws) and that there are [loose] regulations in place concerning programming content. However other services aren't able to get the government to make laws to enforce payments to them even for those who don't use the service. Imagine if Sky News were the BBC then even if you never watched Sky you'd have to pay a subscription!

As the BBC is government mandated and using public money (they get a large stipend from the treasury too as it happens) then I feel that they should be as open as the law allows. All programming costs, internal structures, policy statements and such should be available to the license fee payer.

No, commercial entities don't have to open themselves up in this way but in their case the fee payer can choose an alternate provider. One can't choose an alternate provider to which to direct your license fee if you want to watch live TV.

>getting a server room near the outside for direct venting means giving up window offices //

Depends how creative your architect is. E.g. you could have recessed roof lights (eg down to top-floor-minus-one) that provide outside wall for a top-floor server room.

Perhaps it's actually historical - a subroutine is a generic term for functions, say, or an objects methods, reusable blocks of code. We called them subroutines back when I learnt BASIC iirc; also pretty sure that we referred to subroutines when I studied assembly (which was much more recent).

Perhaps you could share with Opera Unite and just mirror the automated pages online somewhere?

>*incessant mentions by high-profile users on TV news and shows* //

Don't watch TV and you'll never hear them; nor will the people making those mentions be high-profile to you. Rinse and repeat and those people are no longer high-profile at all.

There's a European directive - the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive - that makes this illegal in Europe, http://www.out-law.com/page-10583.

>*trademarks _must_ be defended, or you lose them* //

I think this is actually a myth - certainly in Europe, not sure about the USA & elsewhere.

Moreover, you can give anyone a license to use your marks without making a charge. The point is not to allow the terms to pass in to general use - to become a verb for example - that's why Google never talk about "googling" as a term for 'using a search engine'.

If it weren't a myth then mega-corps would be forever getting out of trademark infringement proceedings by having created a tiny little "business" somewhere hidden that the mark owner never knew about and saying that the owner therefore wasn't protecting their marks and so should lose them.

In Europe at least you must simply use the registered trademark (and pay your fees) to retain it - 'The ECJ has said that the handing out of free drinks labelled 'Wellness-Drink' was not "genuine use" of the Wellness trade mark in the drinks category. The EU's Directive on trade marks says that trade marks can be revoked after a five year period in which no "genuine use" of it was made.' (http://www.out-law.com/page-9718)

Also this relates well: "It said that the Zappa name had only been used as part of a domain name of a website based in the US but accessible from the EU. That website had not used the trade mark to sell or advertise products for the EU market, though, and so was not used in trade." (http://www.out-law.com/page-11202)

IANAL

>including fan artwork //

They don't have rights to prevent people being inspired by their works. This sort of [attempted] infringement of the publics rights should be treated as harshly, if not more so, than the original infringement. In Europe I think this would read pretty well on to an attempt to circumvent a persons human rights (according with ECHR).

>character names //

A name is generally considered too short to be a work for the purposes of copyright. They could be trademarked but then it would be fine to use them for non-commercial, non-trade uses or for categories outside of those in which the marks are registered. So, for example, Ian Mckellen is not infringing copyright by having "i'm gandalf and magneto" on his tshirt and provided he produced it himself I doubt you'd be able to pin a trademark infringement on him either.

>*I wish they had more old content on line to watch* //

This I do not understand. They can clearly easily put content up online, but then broadcast shows of their own should just stay available perpetually.

[rant]
Then of course you hit the cronyism whereby instead of the BBC creating shows now they license the content from people working [now indirectly] for them effectively paying twice to get what they could have gotten before and coming away worse off in having restricted licenses. Case in point is something like Gardeners Question Time - long time BBC show, or so you'd think, it's a simple panel show where the public come and ask 4-5 experts questions and it all gets recorded for radio ... you'd think BBC would have the skills and infrastructure to do something like this cheaper than anyone. Indeed I'm pretty sure they do. But instead they pay a production company to produce it (at what has to be higher cost, so they can make their profit) and then the BBC can't do what they like with the content because they only buy the rights to air the show and make it available for a small period (at remember a profit added cost over producing it and having full rights). According to Wikipedia the production company only came in on things in 2009. Are BBC incompetent to create such a simple show (for which they must even own the name) or are they paying money for something they shouldn't be.
[/rant]

>*given that you need a licence to own a TV,* //

You got it right in the first line - you don't need a license to own a TV. You need a license to operate equipment that is capable of receiving broadcasts. You can own a TV but not have an aerial (or other means) and choose to watch content delivered, for example, on DVD or via a media box.

You're even allowed to watch iPlayer without having to have a license so long as you don't "watch live".