Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:What a surprise (Score 1) 329

You are an idiot. There are plenty of sites advocating the abolition of the monarchy, and plenty of sites advocating the end of Parliamentary democracy and its replacement with fascism, communism, anarchism, Trotskyism, take your pick.

The courts have spoken and they disagree with the previous poster. What they say counts, and if you can't be bothered to read the judgment I referred to that's your problem.

Comment Re:What a surprise (Score 3, Informative) 329

That post is not remotely correct.

Some of the items on the list are laws enacted after the Human Rights Act, but they are not exceptions to it - the Human Rights Act has priority.

Others - sedition and advocating the abolition of the monarchy - were criminal offences two hundred years ago, but there have been no prosecutions in recent times and the courts have acknowledged that the idea any prosecution would survive an HRA challenge is "unreal" (see Lord Steyn's judgment in the ex parte Rushbridger case).

Comment Re:Headline grossly misleading? (Score 5, Insightful) 159

absolutely correct. The case was not about whether MPAA could sue Newzbin for damages - it is clear that under English law it can. But to do so, the MPAA would need to show its members suffered loss, and the MPAA could then only recover for their loss. The members' loss has no direct relationship with Newzbin's profits - it could be more than Newzbin's profits; it could be less than Newzbin's profits.

In fact pretty hard to show what the MPAA members' loss is - and this case was about a crafty attempt by the MPAA to avoid that difficulty.

The argument was that Newzbin's profits actually belonged to the MPAA members (in the same way that if you steal my bike, the bike still belongs to me, and if you steal my cash, I can have a proprietary right in your bank account of the same amount). Would be a great result for the MPAA, as they would then simply take the all profit and not need to show any loss. The slight problem was that there was no legal authority for such a claim, and so they lost

Bob

Comment Re:Read their complaint again (Score 4, Informative) 305

I am a lawyer. The previous post is wrong - the usual rules of copyright apply whether or not you've accepted terms of service.

Piriform's objection is not very clearly stated, but there is a problem if the Bleachbit developer is encouraging people to import winapp.ini - the information in it is copyrighted and this is likely an unlicensed use. It would be prudent for Bleachbit to tell people not to use its import functionality to import Piriform's original winapp.ini, and better still if the software rejects attempts to do this.

Whether importing third party (non-Piriform) rules is acceptable depends upon the terms on which those rules are made available. If they're posted in a forum whose rules provide the files can be used only in Piriform products then Piriform has an arguable case (that Bleachbit is procuring a breach of contract/copyright) but that's a more difficult argument for Piriform to make, as they have to show the terms of the contract/copyright license are effective.

Bob

Comment Re:Some insight into conveyancing: (Score 2, Informative) 227

Your firm needs to tighten up its money laundering procedures - that is an insufficient level of client due diligence. If you are not confident your client is who he says he is then you should not act. If something were to go wrong, your firm would face civil proceedings and it (and potentially you personally) could face an LCS investigation or even prosecution.

Comment Re:Right to return wares (Score 1) 543

I think you are right. I'm not a German lawyer, but on the basis of European law she has a couple of excellent arguments:

First, under the Distance Selling Directive she has 30 days to return the software and receive a refund (how precisely this applies to downloads is unclear, but it certainly applies).

Second, under Council Directive 93/13/EEC, unfair terms in consumer contracts are unenforceable. A hidden term that the consumer pay a fee for software that is normally free is likely to be regarded as "unfair".

I assume Germany has implemented these Directives into local law - it certainly should have done. So she should refuse to pay under the Distance Selling Directive, and have the Unfair Terms Directive as a fallback.

Amazing so many people are so confident she has to pay.

Slashdot Top Deals

Money is the root of all evil, and man needs roots.

Working...