Comment Re:Don't they have something better to do? (Score 1) 201
fair use would not let you use 50 words from a 50 word book
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 Protectionism by another name (Score 2, Interesting) 209
This is just protectionism - why shouldn't American companies be able to hire whoever they want?
Comment Re:Why incorporate when Section 83(a) exempts labo (Score 1) 691
Good luck persuading a court of that - last I checked those "tax protestor" arguments had a batting average of zero.
Comment Re:Censorship depends on the country. (Score 1) 409
I'm aware that post-modernists believe it is a self-evident truth that there is no such thing as a self-evident truth.
Comment Re:Freedom versus high quality pictures (Score 1) 572
Well that's just not true - Wikipedia could accept copyrighted photos subject to an absolute irrevocable non-exclusive licence for their use on wikipedia (with attribution). A simple click-through licence would suffice.
Comment Re:So whose are the photographs? (Score 1) 526
As a matter of UK law, the gallery's position is most likely correct. How it enforces this against Wikipedia and/or the user in question is a different story...
Comment Re:Keep this story in mind (Score 1) 93
Or they could just be an innocent citizen arrested by the secret police of a totalitarian state that denies freedom to its own people?
Just a thought.
Comment Re:Better off not working for them... (Score 3, Informative) 379
You are confusing the European Court of Human Rights (relevant to this case, irrelevant to the USA) with the International Criminal Court (which the US hasn't signed up to but which is irrelevant to this case)
Comment Re:Obligatory (Score 1) 391
The problem is that the study was limited to Wikipedia articles covering mainstream science, and the quality of these is generally very good. The quality goes downhill very rapidly the further one gets away from the mainstream, whether in science, history, politics or anything else.