This change to the law does extend (some) copyrights by 20 years, and in some cases, indefinitely (in the sense of for a currently undefined period, rather than for ever), and in a few cases, pulling works previously in the public domain back into copyright.

The Regulations in question do several things, and there is a lot of misinformation going around about this (including in the summary above; I haven't read the CNN article).

The new EU law extends the copyright and performance rights (which are different things that usually go to different people) in certain sound recordings by 20 years. But as a compromise, adds new reversion etc. powers for the performance rights only, for the last 20 years only. So if someone performs for a sound recording today, and waives their performance rights, in 50 (to 100) years they might be able to do something.

The recent release (probably) wasn't anything to do with the change in the law, but the way the existing law words. The copyright in the sound recordings lasts for 50 years (technically, as with all of these, 50 + the rest of that year). However, if the work is legally published or performed in public during that period, the copyright lasts an extra 70 (was 50) years. So had Apple Corp. released these sound recordings next month, the copyright (in the sound recordings, but not in the underlying songs; they last the full "life + 70") would have expired on 31 December 2013. But by releasing them this month, the copyright will last until 31 December 2083 (assuming no changes in the law).

It is hard to see the decision to publish in December 2013 (verses any other time in the last 50 years) as anything other than a way to maximise the copyright duration, and thus the book value of the copyright.

But yes, if the work wasn't published, "control" over the sound recordings would have resorted to whoever holds the copyright in the underlying songs - which may be some of the individual Beatles or might be Michael Jackson's estate, as I understand he owned some of the copyrights.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_adoption_in_the_United_Kingdom - oh look, it's the same names. John Hemming, Christopher Booker. Funny that... it's almost as if there's no real story there, just something being pushed by a few individuals on a crusade.

Like preventing adults from viewing porn without having to register as a pervert by british authorities first.

Nope. That's not happening.

And of course now they extend these laws to any inconvenient webcontent whatsoever.

Nor that, really...

The Guardian left its co.uk domain because of the pressure of the fascist government reigning in the UK.

More likely due to not wanting to run the risk of breaking UK law; obviously they would have been able to challenge it in court (and might have won), but it was easier to move. They still have their headquarters in the UK, obviously.

I'm not sure if there are any specific accusations; yes, the UK Government spies on people (including its own). Yes, many of us aren't happy about it, and are trying to sort out roughly what they can and can't do. Which is why I didn't question the "surveillance" part of what you said. Although we have done quite a good job of keeping that limited to the intelligence services, rather than other public bodies.

If you're going to criticise the UK Government for bad policies, go ahead (I certainly do). But please try to get real ones. Like new rules that would install automatic notice-and-takedown systems on all online comments/posts, or giving police and/or local authorities curfew and dispersion powers, or removing appeal options in immigration cases, limiting the right of judicial review, threatening to repeal the Human Rights Act, removing legal aid in a huge range of cases, denying prisoners the right to vote...

They refused to give the child to other members of her family because they were not related by blood. Interesting point of view. And they did send her back to italy but are giving the child free for adoption in UK.

... according to the author of the original article. Who has a history of publishing misleading accounts of English family law cases, almost certainly wasn't in the court room, and probably has got most of his information from an informal conversation with a solicitor in the new case (challenging the adoption).

Which is why it is worth waiting for more facts before leaping to conclusions.

They are taking the child out of his culture and are forcing it to live in a fascist surveillance state with no more human rights left whatsoever.

I'm all for criticising the current UK Government and its political position on human rights, but the UK Government is not fascist and has a pretty strong human rights record (over the last 15-60 years). The child will have the standard ECHR human rights.

Before you get too outraged about that story, the only facts we have at the moment about it come from a Telegraph writer and an MP who both have a history of misreporting family law decisions (they're are part of a group dedicated to changing the English family law system), and who have both been singled out in High Court judgments for doing so. At the moment the story is designed to be as outrage-inducing as possible, while short on facts (particularly given that most of them will be confidential/sealed).

The basis of the story sounds pretty shocking (a court-ordered caesarean), but if you can accept that sometimes a caesarean is necessary or in a person's best interests, and can accept that some people (due to their health) are not able to make medical decisions for themselves, it isn't impossible that this could be a reasonable decision.

His episodes tend to have "big red buttons" which fix things, but they tend to be worked into the story right from the beginning and make sense, rather than being a magic fix-everything solution from the last five minutes.

His buttons are the kind of buttons where, after they're pressed, you realise that they were there all along, and obvious if you'd thought about it in the right way. Although that isn't always the case.

This latest episode sort of broke that, though; it had a Big Red Button to fix stuff, but the ended up not pressing it and coming up with a random fanservicey way of solving everything in the last couple of minutes (in an even better way). But that was kind of worth it for the fanservice.

The Swedish systems allows for this, so while it may not be corrupt, its laws are not the same as in the U.S.

If it helps, what he is accused of was also found to be rape under English law, and may well be rape under other laws, so it isn't necessarily the case that Swedish laws are different, or particularly unusual.

The accusation of rape (translated into English for the High Court) reads as follows:

On 17 August 2010, in the home of the injured party [SW] in Enkoping, Assange deliberately consummated sexual intercourse with her by improperly exploiting that she, due to sleep. was in a helpless state. ... The sexual act was designed to violate the injured party's sexual integrity.

To me that seems to have the key issues of sex and a lack of consent, that tend to be the corner-stone of definitions of rape. Whether or not there was consent (or the events actually happened) is obviously a question for trial.

I'm not an expert on Swedish criminal procedure, but the willingness of the "injured parties" to "file charges" is usually irrelevant in criminal justice systems. The state brings the charges, the "injured parties" may be witnesses, if needed.

Actually there isn't such a thing in most of Europe any more (in theory). In July the ECtHR ruled that life-long prison sentence must be reducible or it amounts to inhumane/degrading treatment (contrary to Article 3 of the ECHR). The case was Vinter v UK, you can find the full judgment here and a summary here. The best tl;dr is probably this quote from the latter:

There were a number of reasons why, for a life sentence to remain compatible with Article 3, there had to be both a prospect of release and a possibility of review. Firstly, it was axiomatic that a prisoner could not be detained unless there were legitimate penological grounds for that detention. The balance between the justifications for detention was not necessarily static and could shift in the course of the sentence. It was only by carrying out a review at an appropriate point in the sentence that these factors or shifts could be properly evaluated. Secondly, incarceration without any prospect of release or review carried the risk that the prisoner would never be able to atone for his offence, whatever he did in prison and however exceptional his progress towards rehabilitation. Thirdly, it would be incompatible with human dignity for the State forcefully to deprive a person of his freedom without at least providing him with the chance to someday regain that freedom. Moreover, there was now clear support in European and international law for the principle that all prisoners, including those serving life sentences, should be offered the possibility of rehabilitation and the prospect of release if rehabilitation was achieved.

But that has been seen by some as classic European, human-rights, wishy-washy liberalism at its finest. It doesn't that people can't be locked up for life, but if they are, there has to be some review process and some way (more than merely theoretical) that they can "earn" their release.

Unfortunately, your "statistic" to "shut people ... up for good" isn't actually true.

Suicide and Murder Rates for the US and Great Britain are about the same

According to the United Nations (warning, .xls file), the intentional homicide rate in Great Britain (the UK collects different data for England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, so I've combined the E+W and Scotland data to get a GB one) in 2011 was 1.1 per 100,000. In the United States it was 4.7. The suicide rates are similar, but the intentional homicide rates are way off; over four times as high.

That said, according to the FBI about 69% of homicides in the US in 2012 involved the use of firearms. So ignoring all firearm-related homicides, the US's homicide rate is about 1.4 per 100,000, so still higher than Great Britain's.

But none of this means anything on its own, as far as policy implications go. Working out whether bans on certain classes of firearms are necessary and/or proportionate is a very complex task, and a couple of statistics are hardly conclusive.

Your "statistic" was still wrong, though.

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On the murder of Lee Rigby, there are a few subtleties you may have missed. First the assailants killed him by hitting him with a car, and then stabbing him with knives (apparently unable to decapitate him) before anyone could react, even if they were armed - it's unclear if there were even people nearby at the time (one of the first 'witnesses' got involved after thinking it was an accident and trying to give the victim first aid). The assailants had a revolver, so it wasn't just knives; it is possible that if they had anticipated resistance from someone with a firearm, they would have shot him (rather than stabbed) and may have shot others nearby.

The suggestion that anyone would have "kicked the shit" out of them is rather ludicrous in any event. As it happened, after their attack the suspects waited calmly for the police to arrive (talking to passers-by); when the police did approach, they charged them ineffectually, were shot, and taken into custody.

I fail to see how widespread access to firearms would have made the situation any better, or how passers-by beating them up would have furthered the interests of justice.

On normal cases within the EU (cases which aren't state v state or involving the Commission) the CJEU acts as a court of reference. When an issue of EU law comes up in a national court, that court can refer specific questions to the CJEU (such as "does Article X of Directive Y mean that in situation Z this thing is illegal?"). The CJEU then answers those specific questions (sometimes with more general guidance on that area of law) and the national court takes the answers and applies them to its final judgment. That guidance can then be used in any other national court ruling on a similar issue.

The ECtHR is a court of last resort; but it only hears matters involving states. If a person believes their state has violated their rights under the ECHR, and they have exhausted all appeal options domestically, they can bring a case before the ECtHR against the state.

In this case, there was a major issue of EU law; the application of the E-Commerce Directive (which provides limitations on liability for, among others, websites which host comment sections). Previous legal thinking was that the E-Commerce Directive was designed to cover this sort of thing (although some national courts have been rolling this back, mainly on copyright grounds). However, the Estonian courts decided the E-Commerce Directive (or rather, its national implementation) didn't apply due to the facts and didn't refer the case to the CJEU (which they might have been wrong about).

The ECtHR was very clear in its ruling that it wasn't in a position to comment on this finding; their position was to determine that, assuming the Estonian courts were right about all other things (including interpreting EU law), had there been a breach of the applicant's Article 10 rights. And they found there hadn't been.

It's worth noting that much of the cost in archiving the episodes came from the increasingly large fees the BBC would have had to pay to the various production people involved. During the 70s there was a big scare about home taping TV (the chief person at the MPAA famously telling Congress that the home tape player was to the TV industry what the "Boston stranger was to the woman home alone" or something similar) - the fear was that if people could have stuff on tape they wouldn't have to buy anything new, and if broadcasters (like the BBC) could store episodes of TV shows for decades, they would stop commissioning new works and just show endless repeats.

The UK TV industry's way out was to force the broadcasters to sign contracts agreeing to pay "storage" fees for each year they kept the films, and these increased over time. So eventually the BBC decided it was prohibitively expensive to keep them...

Of course, as pointed out elsewhere, the episodes aren't actually out of copyright - only the broadcast copyrights are about to expire. As the director of the first Doctor Who episode is still alive, it will be at least 70 years (barring reform to copyright law) until the film itself is out of copyright.

After some digging, the first episode to definitely come out of copyright may be The Smugglers (s4e1), in 2068. Possibly The Time Meddler (s2e9) in 2057 or The Aztecs (s1e6) in 2065. Copyright is complicated.

Sadly even the Guardian reported the story, parroting the Press Association's version, without thinking to check what the EC actually had to say about it.

Double jeopardy has been limited, in that there are now fairly limited grounds on which a re-trial can happen. It only applies for certain "serious crimes" and only with the consent of the DPP, and after the Court of Appeal has quashed the original aquittal due to the existence of "new and compelling evidence". More details here.

As someone who's had to try to find this sort of "new and compelling evidence" in a criminal case (although the other way around - seeking to quash a conviction, rather than an acquittal), it's quite hard to do...

The powers granted under that law can be used on anybody for any reason whatsoever.

No! The powers can be used on (almost) anyone, but only for the specific reason of questioning them to determine if they are a terrorist. If they detained him to search him, to confiscate his computers, to intimidate him, to see if he had sensitive documents on him, to get information about Greenwald etc. they were breaking the law.

Secondly, even if they did detain him for that reason, they still have to act proportionately, rationally, and compatibly with the European Convention on Human Rights. If they don't do all of that, even if they acted within the Terrorism Act 2000 powers, they still broke the law.

Yes, this law is very broad and lacks checks, but there are other laws in place to provide them.

[As an aside, they only people this power can't be used against are actual, known terrorists... there's case law on that.]

That puzzled me as well; the law specifically states that the "right to a lawyer" (which can be delayed anyway) only applies when the person is detained at a police station, not anywhere else.

What really disturbs me, though, was that the only case on this law I could find involved a guy who was illegally detained and questioned under this law (despite actually being a terrorist). The judge didn't have a problem with the lack of a solicitor noting that even if one did come along "he would have nothing to do" because the person being questioned has to answer all questions and fully comply. Somehow the judge failed to spot that the solicitor might be able to point out that, as in that case, the initial detention was illegal...

I don't think a court would go along with that, I imagine the rules on double jeopardy would come into effect as it would be effectively prosecuting someone twice for the same thing,