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Is it legal to put a "CCTV in operation" sign outside my house if I don't actually have cctv? (UK) As per title - I want to put off wrongdoers without having to go through the palaver of ensuring the camera is legal, so a sign about cctv but no actual camera. Is that legal in the UK?

There is no law against lying, only lying to gain a commercial or illegal advantage. Go for it.

Part answer to Q1: Is my conceptualization correct? No, insofar that your Points 1 to 4 are all "completely illegal" regardless of how the authorities deal with them, and the rest are not, on the face of it, crimes but presumably civil wrongs (which can be dealt with by, for example, fines or restraint / good behaviour / banning orders etc without one having a "criminal conviction"). Also: if the authorities, for whatever reason, decide against dealing with crime then it hasn't been "decriminalised" - that is the remit of the law makers, not the law enforcers. It's still a crime but with a lower political/ operational etc priority.

Online conversations are generally allowed evidence. However, EVERYTHING in the chat should be considered, as well as any later actions. Were there later conversations that said something different? Did the lease you signed have different terms? One line in a WhatsApp does not make your case a "slam dunk". It may only be one piece of evidence in a much larger context.

No It's your device, you can do what you like with it (subject to the law - you can't hit people with it. Unless they want to be hit: whatever turns you on, turns you on). However, if you do operate it outside their instructions then they would not be legally liable if it failed and injured you or someone else or set fire to the cat or whatever. The "prohibition" would limit their legal liability.

This would probably constitute illegal wiretapping and would certainly constitute a 4th Amendment search if conducted by law enforcement. Normally, the definition of whether something is "public" for purposes of an expectation of privacy is whether it could be detected by a human being unaided by technological enhancements from a place where someone could lawfully be to make that kind of observation. Some of the relevant cases are Katz v. U.S., 389 U.S. (1967) (tape recorder outside a public telephone booth was a search violating the expectation of privacy) and U.S. v. Karo, 468 U.S. (1984) (tracking device placed in barrel by authorities violated expectation of privacy). RFID signals are not "public" even if they are not encrypted with a private code because a device, such as the ones identified in the question, is necessary to receive them. The Wiretap Act, codified by 18 U.S. Code § 2511, is a federal law aimed at protecting privacy in communications with other persons. Typically, when you think of a "wiretap," the first thing that comes to mind is someone listening to your telephone calls. But the Act protects more than that. Under the Act, it is illegal to: intentionally or purposefully intercept, disclose, or use the contents of any wire, oral, or electronic communication through the use of a "device." The Act provides criminal and civil penalties for violations, although it creates various exceptions to when interceptions and disclosures are illegal. From here. In this circumstance, despite being passive, one is intentionally intercepting the contents of electronic communications through the use of a device. The fact that there was not in all cases an intent to communicate through, for example, an RFID chip, on a specific occasion probably does not suffice to render it not a communication.

NO It is decided state-by-state (for state-wide agencies like state troopers), and county by county, and city-by-city whether or not to buy and use cameras. Also, they are not usually always running. Policies as to when officers are required to turn them on vary as well as when the public and the involved officers get access to the recordings.

Technically, yes, GDPR might apply. Filming other people does involve the processing of personal data, and GDPR will apply unless this is for “purely personal or household purposes”. But exactly that will be the case for most holiday snapshots or short clips for your personal social media. As far as I understand, you do not have to worry about purely personal activities. Even if GDPR would apply, this doesn't mean it would be illegal. It means you'd need a “legal basis”, such as a “legitimate interest”. If there are just a couple of people in the background of a video, it's possible that their rights might weigh less important than your interest in shooting the video – but that would need a case by case analysis. Your legitimate interest would almost certainly prevail if you need to record a crime to which you are victim. Regardless of GDPR concerns, note that this is just a small aspect of legal concerns. Instead, also consider personality rights copyright (if art or architectural works are visible) / freedom of panorama customs and reasonable expectations of other people These issues will depend largely on the specific country or area you are travelling to. Europe is not homogenous in its perception of privacy issues. For example, consider the issue of dashcams in a car. These are considered to be quite normal in some European countries, but effectively illegal in others.

You tag the question with "criminal law", suggesting that by "illegal" you mean "is it a crime" -- that would depend on jurisdiction, but in the US or my state, it is not a crime. There are crimes that you could commit with such an account, but violating the TOS is not itself a crime. However, it is illegal, a breach of contract, as you can see from the TOS "You will not provide any false personal information on Facebook, or create an account for anyone other than yourself without permission".

Hypothetical Trial and Conviction This question deals with how a hypothetical crime would be tried. Hypothetical situation: The police find two people who have been locked in a room for the past 6 hours. In the room with them is a dead body. Murder! For the sake of simplicity, they somehow know that no one came in or out of the room during those six hours, an eye witness perhaps, but they do know that 3 people went into the room, and only 2 were able to walk out. Survivor A says survivor B was the murderer, and vice versa. All the evidence the police have neither fully incriminates one nor exonerates the other. As they have figured it, there's a 60% chance person A did it and a 40% chance person B did it. How would this case be tried? There's not enough evidence to make a solid case against one, and all the police have is a hunch. And since America's court system processes one case at a time, these two suspects would be tried separately and would likely both be acquitted as there's simply not enough evidence to convict one. So how would this be tried?

Why do you think this is a hypothetical case? The facts almost exactly match R v Rogerson ; R v McNamara (No 57) [2016] NSWSC 1207 (2 September 2016) - 3 men enter a storage unit, 2 men and one dead body leave. Each of the men claims the other committed the murder - the DPP charged both, they were tried together, the jury convicted both and they both received life sentences. For the more general hypothetical: people can be tried together if that serves the interests of justice - defendants can apply to the court for separate trials but that is not always granted (and this may serve as grounds for an appeal ... or not). There is plenty of evidence of a murder, one (at least) of the two people is a murderer - prosecutors would charge both, present the evidence and let the jury decide which, if any, were guilty.

You can't prove a negative, so they can't be convicted of perjury for lying about whether they remember; Yes, they can. The government can convict the witness of perjury by proving that they did remember. This may be difficult, but it's not impossible. Now you may say that we can't ever prove with certainty what a person did or didn't remember. But the legal standard isn't certainty, it's beyond a reasonable doubt. So a jury is allowed to draw a reasonable inference about whether they remembered, based on evidence of their outward behavior and other circumstances. As an extreme example, suppose Alice was overheard chatting freely about topic X an hour before the trial, but when asked about topic X on the stand, said she didn't remember. When presented with evidence of her earlier conversation, a jury could reasonably infer that she was lying about not remembering. Is it possible that she truly had a memory lapse in the intervening hour? Sure, anything is possible. Is it reasonable to believe that she did? Probably not. The US Department of Justice's Criminal Resource Manual has this to say on the subject: Witnesses who claim not to remember, rather than deny a fact, may be prosecuted for perjury. However, the government must prove both that the witness at one time knew the fact and that the witness must have remembered it at the time he or she testified. United States v. Chen, 933 F.2d 793, 795 (9th Cir. 1991). If the dates of the transaction and testimony are sufficiently close, memory may be inferred. Instances in which the witness remembered other events that occurred at the same time or earlier than the event in question, or mentioned the event either immediately before or after his testimony, would be probative of the witness's memory at the time of the testimony. The two witness rule does not apply to prosecutions based on false memory lapses, and circumstantial evidence is sufficient, since there is no direct evidence possible concerning what the defendant actually believed. Gebhard v. United States, 422 F.2d 281, 287 (9th Cir. 1970). There's a similar issue in all laws that deal with a person's knowledge or intent. Suppose Alice hits Bob with a stick and he dies. To convict Alice of murder, it must be proved that by hitting Bob, she intended to kill him. Can we ever really know what was in her heart? Maybe not, but if there is evidence that shortly beforehand, she told someone that she was going to kill Bob, it would be a reasonable inference that this was her intention.

He is probably guilty of negligent homicide or involuntary manslaughter, at most (a minor felony), and is possibly not guilty of a crime at all. The primary distinction between classes of homicide is mens rea (i.e. intent). The only affirmative act he took was to move the pillow. He did so both without intending to or knowing that he would kill Jane (the intent necessary for murder), and also, without clear actual knowledge that he would be creating a risk that Jane would die (a reckless state of mind that would support a conviction for manslaughter). Also, note that Walter himself, at this time, is not engaged in a felony, so he is not guilty of felony murder. We can presume he is present with the consent previously given of the owner of the property and did not mean anyone any harm. Likewise, this is not what is meant by "extreme indifference" for purposes of a murder statute, the paradigm of which is shooting randomly into a crowd knowing that someone will almost certainly be killed without knowing or intending that any particular person will die. The mental state necessary for negligent homicide is the equivalent of "gross negligence" in a civil case and is called "criminal negligence" in a criminal case. To be criminally negligent a person must fail to perceive a substantial and unjustifiable risk that a certain result will occur, and the risk must be of such a nature that the defendant's failure to perceive it constitutes a gross deviation from a reasonable person's standard of care. If a jury found that a reasonable person ought should clearly know that moving a pillow put Jane at risk of dying, then he might be guilty of criminal negligence. But, if a jury found that a reasonable person would not know that moving the pillow put Jane at grave risk of death, his action would not be criminally negligent. There are also at least three questions of causation which is not entirely independent of the question of negligence. First, generally an act is only considered a cause of a consequence if it is a foreseeable result of the action. If Jane's vomit caused death is not a foreseeable result of moving the pillow, then her death might not be legally caused by moving the pillow. Second, how likely is it that she would have died even if Walter had never entered the room. There are lots of ways that the pillow could have been jostled during the night leading to the same result. If it likely would have happened anyway, Walter's involvement might not be the legal cause of the death. Third, how much fault should be attributed to Jane? This is closely related to the second question. If her death was primarily caused by her getting dangerously high and placing herself in a vulnerable position, perhaps Walter's involvement is not a meaningful cause of the death. A New Mexico court has held that the defense that the victim was negligent has value only if it establishes that the victim's negligence was the sole cause of the accident. State v. Maddox, 99 N.M. 490, 660 P.2d 132 (Ct. App. 1983). But, what about Jesse's negligence? Under a relevant standard criminal jury instruction in New Mexico: The State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant's act was a significant cause of the death of __________________ (name of victim). Evidence has been presented that the negligence of a person other than the defendant may have contributed to the cause of death. Such contributing negligence does not relieve the defendant of responsibility for an act that significantly contributed to the cause of the death so long as the death was a foreseeable result of the defendant's actions. However, if you find the negligence of a person other than the defendant was the only significant cause of death, then the defendant is not guilty of the offense of __________________ (name of offense). Caveat: A number of states impose strict criminal liability on drug dealers, often for murder, if someone died from using a drug sold by them, but often it has to be a child, and often the drug has to be the proximate cause of death, e.g. due to an overdose or impurity in the drug. I would presume that Jesse and not Walter supplied the drugs to Jane, that Jane is an adult, and it is not obvious that the drug itself (as opposed to the vomiting due to the manner in which the drugs were used) was the proximate cause of death, so a statute like this might not apply in any case. This brings us to the hard part of the question: Without the pillow Jane rotates on her back and starts to vomit and cough, still sleeping. At first Walter tries to react, running to the other side of the bed to help her, but then he stops and decides to do nothing as she dies. Note that if Walter had moved the pillow without knowing that he was creating a risk, left the room ignorant, and then this happened, surely Walter would have no legal liability for Jane's death. If Walter develops the necessary intent for criminal liability, this probably doesn't happen until he observes that she is starting to choke on her vomit and might die. Even then, he does not intend for Jane to die and probably doesn't even know for certain that she will die from his inaction, so he is probably, at most reckless, if he has a duty to rescue for criminal law purposes. Generally, under both civil and criminal law, there is no duty to rescue, even if you can do so without any risk of harm to yourself. But, there is an exception, at least in civil liability, for a duty to rescue that arises from the fact that you put the person at risk of peril through your affirmative actions. Does this apply here, at all, or in a criminal case? The first question is the exact language of the homicide statute. Some homicide offenses require affirmative acts, while others can arise from acts or omissions where there is a legal duty to act. Every crime requires some voluntary act or omission, and the voluntary act itself was not a crime and perhaps was not even a tort, at the moment it was taken, because Walter did not realize that his act created a risk of harm. He create a peril, but he did so innocently. A pretty standard formulation is that an omission is only a crime when the law creates a legal duty to act, but this is, of course, a question begging standard as it doesn't clarify whether there is a legal duty to act, which is at issue here. As the previous link notes, creation of a peril can give rise to a legal duty to act, but only sometimes. (4) Duty arising from creation of peril. If a person acts culpably to imperil another, he or she has a legal duty to rescue the victim. The cases are split on whether a duty to rescue arises if someone innocently or accidentally imperils another. This case would fall in the category of someone who innocently or accidentally imperils another, in which the cases are split, which which the linked article cites the following authority: Compare Commonwealth v. Cali, 247 Mass. 20, 24-25, 141 N.E. 510, 511 (1923) (defendant under duty to try to extinguish a fire that he accidentally set to his house and thus was guilty of arson when he did not) with King v. Commonwealth, 285 Ky. 654, 659, 148 S.W.2d 1044, 1047 (1941) (defendant who, in lawful defense of a third person, shot and wounded an attacker was under no duty to seek medical attention for the wounded assailant). A commentary that is part of a California standard jury instruction (for involuntary manslaughter, not murder for which this kind of liability is presumably not available) makes the following observation: A legal duty to act may also exist where the defendant's behavior created or substantially increased the risk of harm to the victim, either by creating the dangerous situation or by preventing others from rendering aid. (People v. Oliver (1989) 210 Cal.App.3d 138, 147-148 [258 Cal.Rptr. 138] [defendant had duty to act where she drove victim to her home knowing he was drunk, knowingly allowed him to use her bathroom to ingest additional drugs, and watched him collapse on the floor]; Sea Horse Ranch, Inc. v. Superior Court (1994) 24 Cal.App.4th 446, 456 [30 Cal.Rptr.2d 681] [defendant had duty to prevent horses from running onto adjacent freeway creating risk].) These examples would suggest that an innocently or accidentally created risk is sufficient to create a duty sufficient to support involuntary manslaughter liability for an omission under California law, and would probably lead to involuntary manslaughter liability in the case in the question as well, under California law. New Mexico, unlike California, does not have a standard criminal jury instruction or really definitive section of its criminal code that clearly resolves this question, although the fact that California which uses a murder, voluntary manslaughter, and involuntary manslaughter distinction in the same way that New Mexico does, limits criminal liability for omissions to involuntary manslaughter suggests that New Mexico would as well. The New Mexico case State v. Greenwood, 2012 -NMCA- 017, 271 P.3d 753 (N.M. App. 2011), touches on the issue, suggesting that there may be liability only for involuntary manslaughter (or certain specialized crimes based upon a relationship such as that of a nursing home to a resident of a nursing home) based upon an omission, and that the liability for an omission can only arise when there is a legal duty, but almost implies that only contactual duties are sufficient. It does so at paragraph 35 which says: Importantly, even if the LINKS contract relating to Jared were to have been renewed and to have been in force at the time of Jared's death, we are not convinced that it would be the sole basis or even a controlling factor in determining Defendant's legal responsibility under the Act. Defendant's criminal liability must exist solely based on an omission— a failure to act when she had a legal responsibility to act. See Deborah A. Goodall, Penal Code Section 22.04: A Duty to Care for the Elderly, 35 Baylor L.Rev. 589, 594 (1983) (stating that " authorities have long agreed that before an omission can constitute an offense[,] there must first be a duty to act" ); see also People v. Beardsley, 150 Mich. 206, 113 N.W. 1128, 1129 (1907) (" The law recognizes that under some circumstances the omission of a duty owed by one individual to another, where such omission results in the death of the one to whom the duty is owing, will make the other chargeable with manslaughter. This rule of law is always based upon the proposition that the duty neglected must be a legal duty, and not a mere moral obligation. It must be a duty imposed by law or by contract, and the omission to perform the duty must be the immediate and direct cause of death." (citation omitted)). But, this could be dicta because it was a case where any legal duty would arise under contract rather than for another reason, and as is the case in many smaller states, there is simply no case that has ever been decided in New Mexico which is squarely on point. Under British criminal law, in similar circumstances, a homicide conviction was vacated: R v Khan & Khan (1998) CLR 830, confirmed that there is no separate category of manslaughter by omission unless the omission constitutes a breach of duty to act. The defendants supplied a 15-year-old prostitute with twice the amount of heroin likely to be taken by a regular user. The defendants left her unconscious in the flat, returning the next day to find that she had died of the overdose. Had medical assistance been called, the girl would probably not have died. The unlawful act was supplying the drug but the death was caused by the quantity injected by the victim. The trial judge invited jury to consider liability on the basis of the defendants' failure to summon medical assistance. On appeal, the conviction was quashed because the brothers had not accepted a duty to act before she took the heroin. A dissertation on when criminal liability is imposed for omissions in Scottish law can be found here. New Mexico, whose laws really should govern, has just two homicide statutes: § 30-2-1. Murder A. Murder in the first degree is the killing of one human being by another without lawful justification or excuse, by any of the means with which death may be caused: (1) by any kind of willful, deliberate and premeditated killing; (2) in the commission of or attempt to commit any felony; or (3) by any act greatly dangerous to the lives of others, indicating a depraved mind regardless of human life. Whoever commits murder in the first degree is guilty of a capital felony. B. Unless he is acting upon sufficient provocation, upon a sudden quarrel or in the heat of passion, a person who kills another human being without lawful justification or excuse commits murder in the second degree if in performing the acts which cause the death he knows that such acts create a strong probability of death or great bodily harm to that individual or another. Murder in the second degree is a lesser included offense of the crime of murder in the first degree. Whoever commits murder in the second degree is guilty of a second degree felony resulting in the death of a human being. Walter doesn't qualify for any of these prongs of the statute. § 30-2-3. Manslaughter Manslaughter is the unlawful killing of a human being without malice. A. Voluntary manslaughter consists of manslaughter committed upon a sudden quarrel or in the heat of passion. Whoever commits voluntary manslaughter is guilty of a third degree felony resulting in the death of a human being. B. Involuntary manslaughter consists of manslaughter committed in the commission of an unlawful act not amounting to felony, or in the commission of a lawful act which might produce death in an unlawful manner or without due caution and circumspection. Whoever commits involuntary manslaughter is guilty of a fourth degree felony. Clearly, Walter also does not qualify as guilty of voluntary manslaughter. There is no quarrel or heat of passion. So, either Walter is guilty in New Mexico of involuntary manslaughter, or he is not guilty of homicide at all. New Mexico also has an unusual, and rather merciful "excusable homicide" provision at New Mexico Statutes § 30-2-5, that should also be considered: Homicide is excusable in the following cases: A. when committed by accident or misfortune in doing any lawful act, by lawful means, with usual and ordinary caution and without any unlawful intent; or B. when committed by accident or misfortune in the heat of passion, upon any sudden and sufficient provocation, or upon a sudden combat, if no undue advantage is taken, nor any dangerous weapon used and the killing is not done in a cruel or unusual manner. Arguably, Walter falls under "excusable homicide" part A, as moving the pillow was a lawful act done without unlawful intent and that is what caused the death.

If that which you describe in your comment ( Facebook post as only basis for warrantless search) is, and can be shown, to be the only basis for the search, and there was no evidence of a crime in plain view when they arrived.....then yes, it is likely the search and all evidence acquired from the search would be excludable. As to whether the individual could still be prosecuted, that depends if a case could be built independent of the evidence collected during the search.

The general rule is that in the opening statement, the lawyer may describe what he expects the evidence and testimony to show: We will present Mr Smith, who will tell you that he saw the defendant miles away at the time of the crime But cannot make statements of fact as such. I don't see why this rule would be different for a pro se defendant. In a closing argument, as i understand the rule, the lawyer may and often will say things like "As witness X testified, there was no time to stop" but is not supposed to introduce new alleged facts not supported by the evidence. However, in a closing, a lawyer can and often does draw conclusions from facts supported by testimony. "My client was proved to have been in the next town 20 minutes earleri, so obviously he could not have committed the crime." Again, i don't see any reason why these rules would be different for someone acting pro se.

This is largely congruent with* the doctrine of laches. The basic idea, under common law, is that you can lose rights by failing to assert them. This is generally important for many reasons, but specifically in the case of appeals: The argument should have been brought before the trial court. Justice is not a game, but it's important to recognize that the party trying to raise the argument had an opportunity to do so already. They have given up their right to raise this argument, and extending them the privilege of doing so is (for the following reasons) not good for the system. Courts of appeals are typically not well-equipped to evaluate factual evidence. It is not their area of expertise. Witnesses or evidence may be less available. It's just not practical to try to adjudicate factual issues on appeal, most of the time. If anyone could get an appeal by bringing new factual arguments, then everyone would do that. You'd bring your strongest argument before the district court, and then if that fails, bring the second strongest before the circuit court. That way, you get an extra trial. This is inefficient. Allowing factual arguments on appeal would encourage attorneys and their clients to strategically bring different facts before different courts. This kind of forum-shopping is harmful because it has little to do with who has the stronger overall case, and more to do with who has the better lawyer. * "Congruent with" is not the same as "an instance of"; this rule is not formally an application of laches. It just happens to share the same justification.

Most likely, they chose enough victims to ensure a long prison term while having plenty of additional victims to charge if something went wrong at trial. Plus limiting the number of victims limits the amount of repetitive testimony and evidence the prosecutors had to introduce proving the death of each victim. If you charge with 19 counts when there are 492 victims and something goes wrong at trial, whether you think but can’t prove that the mob paid off a juror or whether you just get an oddball juror that votes to acquit, you can always pick some of the remaining 473 victims to bring charges. The prosecutors could have failed in 24 straight trials for 19 charges of manslaughter and still been able to bring charges a 25th time (though that would have been highly unusual). If you charge a defendant with manslaughter, you have to prove the death of a particular person. So there has to be evidence that Bob Smith went to the club, Bob Smith’s body was recovered and identified, Bob Smith was autopsied and the cause of death was smoke inhalation, etc. That gets repetitive after a time and jurors start thinking of the victims as numbers rather than people. Limiting the number of charges makes it much easier to make the victims seem like distinct humans to the jury. You can show pictures of the victims at trial and jurors can recognize particular individuals not just “1 of 492 dead people”.

There are all manner of reasons that evidence can be excluded at a trial, most of which are set forth in rules of evidence. If the evidence was not admitted on the grounds of relevance and the charge was speeding, I presume that the reason that it was found not be to relevant was that it was not possible from a video to determine how fast someone was driving and there was no dispute in the case over who was driving. If the defendant could have articulated some reason that the video was relevant to those points, perhaps it could have been admitted. But, as if often the case, pro se defendants are usually not articulate enough to set forth a legally relevant reason that evidence should be admitted. Unless the defendant could show that the video showed something allowing a jury to determine whether or not the law was violated, it probably wouldn't be relevant and I can't easily imagine how it would be relevant, but perhaps there was some special facts or circumstances that might show, for example, that the speed gun was actually picking up another vehicle.

Can I copyright a homework assignement? Suppose I have to write a paper for a class in college. Am I allowed to copyright the paper (provided I did not sign my rights away already) that I turn in? Is there any thing prohibiting this in copyright law that I am not seeing?

You automatically have copyright protection for what you create. A collection of numeric answers to math equations probably would not qualify (lack of requisite creativity), but certainly anything that counts as a "paper" is protected.

The situation in Texas is unclear. It is worth mentioning Texas as a state where the law may require statutory authorization in order to copyright state documents. Although the statute does not explicitly state such as a requirement, it can be inferred from an attorney general opinion. At a bare minimum, the Department of Health, the State Preservation Board, the Water Development Board, the Department of Motor Vehicles, and county governments all have statutory authority to hold copyrights. In your specific case, there's an additional complication. Something is only a work of the State of Texas if one of the following is true: 1) it was created by a government employee as part of their job duties, or 2) it was a work for hire. It's quite likely that neither of the above is true for a student newspaper, rendering the question of Texas-owned copyrights irrelevant.

No. You can’t steal their test questions and claim you “came up with them yourselves.” That’s copyright infringement. The ownership of a copyright does not depend on whether the copyrighted material is published or not. The creator of the material owns the copyright the moment they create it.[1] http://www.legal-sherpa.com/legal-sherpa-school/blog/copyright-ownership Copyright ownership is instantaneous, when a work is created and it is in fixed form its author immediately becomes the copyright owner and is afforded copyright protection. Read more here.

Do you have an explicit permission by the artist? Does the artist give a blanket permission to anyone which covers this kind of use of their work (a license)? If no, then you commit a copyright violation when you use their work for your blog. This applies to practically any country which signed the Berne convention which is almost everywhere in the world. Having no commercial interest is usually not an excuse to violate copyright. Regarding which jurisdiction applies when you, your website and the copyright holder are in different countries: I opened a new question about this.

Can he use another commercial product that is copyrighted, e.g. a map of a location (the map is a political map and has nothing to do with trees), for his tree research purposes, if such a map won't be part of the book he works on? Yes. Copyright protects particular expressions of ideas and knowledge, not the ideas and knowledge themselves. Using a map for research purposes when the map or a modified version of it does not appear in the final work does not make the final work a "derivative work" covered by copyright.

Let’s work it through Is the work copyright? Yes. Are you making a copy or a derivative work? Yes. Do you have permission? No. At this point, it is prima facie copyright violation. However, various copyright laws have defences for breach. You don’t say where you are but as the USA is the most permissive in this regard we’ll use the USA. If it’s not legal there, it’s not legal anywhere. If it is legal there, it’s still likely to be not legal everywhere else. is it fair use? Almost certainly not. Wizards of the Coast (the copyright owner) already do this. While this service is free for creatures from the Monster Manual, it does drive traffic to their web site where they sell stuff. They also licence (presumably for money) others to do the same. Your usage would negatively affect the copyright owners market. This counts against fair use. Because it’s already being done, your work has virtually nil transformative value. This counts against fair use. You are copying a substantial part of the work. This counts against fair use. You are not using it commercially but neither is it for educational use. This is unlikely to matter. On balance: not fair use. TL;DR This is copyright violation.

To answer the question in your title: Yes, software licenses are copyrighted. They are written works that involve (significant, expert) creative effort to create. The best solution would be for Grammarly to hire a lawyer and say "we want a new EULA. We think this one covers a number of points our current one doesn't". Most legal documents will be copyright for the same reason (there may be a few that are so stereotypical that there is essentially no creative effort in putting them together).

Algorithms are not subject to copyright. A particular implementation can be copyrighted, but an algorithm itself can't be copyrighted. Someone re-implementing the algorithm with their own code has done nothing to give you copyright claims against their work, and is not bound by any software license you use. That's what patents are for.

Are contracts legally bound when acceptance is mailed, or only once received? Kumaran develops novel lampshades. In January 2016, he developed a new lampshade. On 1 May 2016, he emailed Bobby and Chew, both wholesalers, to whom he had previously sold lampshades. In his email, he asked each whether they would be interested in becoming the sole distributor of his new lampshade. On 5 May 2016, Bobby and Chew both emailed Kumaran independently, each stating that he was interested in becoming sole distributor for the lampshade and requested further information. On 7 May 2016, Kumaran emailed Bobby: “I offer you the post of sole distributor of the lampshade at a basic 10% commission. If I hear nothing from you by 14 May 2016, I will assume that this is acceptable to you.” Bobby immediately posted a letter, by registered mail, to Kumaran’s home in which he accepted Kumaran’s offer. The letter did not arrive until 16 May 2016. In the meantime, Chew, having heard nothing further from Kumaran, posted a letter to Kumaran in which he offered to become Kumaran’s sole distributor for a 20% commission. Kumaran received Chew’s letter on 15 May 2016. Kumaran immediately telephoned Bobby and told him that the post of sole distributor was no longer available to him. Bobby insists that there is a binding contract to appoint him as sole distributor. Is Bobby correct?

There is a relevant rule, the "posting rule", according to which an acceptance is effective once posted (this is a quirk of acceptances). This would be as soon after 7 May 2016 as Bobby sent his letter, presumably well before the deadline. So yes, a professional lawyer would be needed. If Bobby is in Australia, it might be more complicated; if Bobby is in Norway, it's simpler because they don't have the posting rule.

The answer may vary depending on your state. If you're in a state that's a member of the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement,* there's a designated heirarchy for sourcing sales of digital goods: First, if you're making delivery to the customer at your location, source to the location where you make the sale. If not, source to the location where your customer will receive the product. Neither of those works for you, so you'd continue down the list to the first one you can apply: The purchaser’s address that you maintain in the ordinary course of the your business; The purchaser's address obtained during the consummation of the sale; The address where you first make the product available for transmission or the address from which you provided the service. By my reading, that means that in the absence of an address, you basically come back full circle and source the sale back to your own location. *Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming

Not a lawyer, but: In many countries, a purchased item is your property once you removed it from the premises of the seller. In practice, this rarely makes a difference. You have entered a contract with the seller where the seller has to deliver the product, and you have to pay the money, you did your part, they have to do their part. There would be a difference if the item was stolen while in the store, or damaged by fire, or if the store went bankrupt and bailiffs took the item. If these rules apply in your country, then what they did is not theft, otherwise it would be theft (in all countries, if the store removed the door from your home after it is installed, that would be theft). You paid for a door, the store owes you a door. You have a legal contract. Both sides are bound by that legal contract. They have to do what the contract says (delivering the door that was displayed in the store), if they can't, then they have to do the nearest thing that isn't to your disadvantage, like delivering a new door. Or possible a different door that was on display. They can't just declare your contract invalid because it suits them better. That wouldn't be the case if this would put the store at an unacceptable disadvantage. For example, if thieves had broken into the store and stolen ten doors, including yours, the store might get away with returning your money. Since they intentionally sold your door again to someone else, I don't think they could use this as an excuse. I'd go once more to the store and ask them whether they want to deliver a door to you, according to your contract with the store, or if they want you to get a lawyer. A letter from a lawyer might work wonders. (Or of course the lawyer might tell you that I'm completely wrong, but they don't know that, so telling them that you will hire a lawyer might be enough).

Of course you'd be in legal trouble, the contract is still valid. I also don't know why you don't consider virtual goods to be goods. Take this example: You buy a 1 year subscription for (example) netflix. The next day they cancel your subscription but don't give you the money back because its not a "real good". This should make it clear that virtual goods are goods too in the eyes of the law. Question is if police/lawyers care about it as much as for "real" goods.

In other words, you are asking if the contract is exclusive. My own opinion is that there is more than one fair reading of the contract language in isolation. One possible reading is that "for repairs to the property motorcycles" has an implied meaning "for repairs to all of the property motorcycles of Blue" and the other is that it has an implied mean "for repairs to all of the property motorcycles of Blue that it directs us to do work upon." My first step to resolve that ambiguity would be to look at the definition of "property motorcycles" in the contract, and also to any other terms of the contract that would suggest that it is an "exclusive" contract as opposed to a master "supply" contract with an indefinite amount of work. For example, if the price were a fixed one every month, not dependent upon how much work was done, that would tend to suggest an exclusive contract. Similarly, if the contract also contained a geographic scope or a non-competition term that would suggest that it was an exclusive contract. On the other hand, if the arrangement were a fee for service payment and the mechanics under the contract of arranging for maintenance were such that this was really up to Blue, it might be read differently. If the entire language of the contract read together left the ambiguity in place, it would be appropriate to look to extrinsic evidence such as the course of dealings of the parties and the discussions that went into negotiating the contract in order to determine the intent of the parties at the time that the contract was entered into in order to resolve that ambiguity. It isn't at all uncommon for the meaning of a contract term in isolation to have more than one possible reading when taken in isolation. Often, it is necessary to refer to a greater context to describe its meaning. Sometimes, the overall context will even demand that a term in a contract be given the reading that is less plausible when it is read in isolation because the overall context of the contract manifests an intent and scheme that makes the more obvious reading a poor fit to the overall scheme of the agreement.

Can they have a clause in the fine print that in laymans terms just says 'we might just not fulfill our side of the deal'. That paraphrase appears to trivialize the actual terms of the contract (of which fine print you mention you don't know in detail). Germany's Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch (BGB) at §262 entitles the shipping company --insofar as obligor-- to a choice of service, provided that the company duly informs the customer, Id. at §263. The latter section of the BGB is not explicit as to whether the obligor's notification ought to happen at the formation of the contract, although I am almost positive that that is so and is premised on the BGB itself. Since delivery at the post office and delivery at the home address are mutually exclusive (i.e., they preclude each other), by virtue of §262 the company may outline in the contract both alternatives and thereafter decide for one of these unilaterally. If the company makes its contractual [post office] alternative contingent on "being too busy with other things" and the customer proves that the company opted for post office despite not being that busy, the customer could prevail on grounds that the company contravened Treu und Glauben. See Id. at §162(2). The "I will mow your lawn" example you outline is not a good analogy. The shipping company may argue that, even if the product is not delivered at customer's home address, the customer still benefited by having to retrieve it from a location --such as a nearby post office-- that is closer from the location where the product was commercialized or manufactured. The customer would prevail only if delivery were at a location which is more inconvenient to him than if he discarded transacting with the shipping company. See Id. at § 226.

The artist and collager have a contract that states that the artist retains the copyright to the final collective work. To arrive at any other outcome, they both must agree to a new contract. One could argue that no new contract was agreed to for two separate reasons: Firstly, the request to "approve by signing next to the copyright statement" is not very specific, understandable contract language that unambiguously is intended to transfer the copyright to the collager. Whether the specific language the collager used to make the new proposal is indeed a contract is debatable. A contract requires "mutual assent", which is tested legally by how a "reasonable person" would interpret the contract - it's far from guaranteed that most reasonable people would interpret the correspondence as a mutual decision intended to transfer copyright. Secondly, a contract requires consideration - one cannot enter into a contract where one side gets unilateral benefit and the other side gets nothing whatsoever. Even if the language used would constitute terms specific enough for a contract, there is certainly no consideration involved - the collager is proposing that they get the copyright to the collective work, while the artist gets nothing. Because there is no consideration for the artist, it is not a valid contract. For these two reasons (especially the second one), the artist has a strong case that they have not entered into any other contract or contract amendment other than what they originally agreed to, which states that the artist owns the copyrights to both the original and collective works. The legal argument is that collager never proposed a valid new contract, because they used ambiguous language that did not result in mutual assent, and did not offer anything in return.

I find that Petri Mäntysaari: The Law of Corporate Finance: General Principles and EU Law: Volume II, p. 115-140 can pretty much explain the reasoning for this. It is in chapter 5.3 on Terms non-binding as intended. The contract might not contain all legal requirements for some reason, or a clause might become invalid due to law changes. Sometimes the contract becomes unenforceable for some reason or another in part or full. The salvatorian clause is there to fix the defective clause to become the closest estimate to the written form that is legal and not deficient instead of being just dropped from the contract. This can save a contract from becoming unenforceable or making it void in whole. Especially look at Page 140: If a contract term is invalid because of a mandatory provision of law, it will be replaced by legal background rules(§306(2) BGB). One of the standard ways to address the situation is to use a so-called salvatorian clause. [...] This [reinterpretation/fixing of deficiencies] would not happen without a specific contract term. (See §139 BGB. On the other hand see also §140 BGB. Compare DCFR II.-7:302 and II.-7:303) A caveat though: if the alteration to the clause needed is too big and substantial, the contract as a whole can become void and null, no matter what the salvatorian clause said. It cannot overcome some burdens and there are regularly courts (I know this for Germany) voiding contracts due to such serious deficiencies. Notes BGB is the German "Bürgerliche Gesetzbuch", an english translation exists §139 says "If a part of a legal transaction is void, then the entire legal transaction is void, unless it is to be assumed that it would have been undertaken even without the void part." Example: a sale lacking any payment is not a sale (which starts a legally required warranty) $140 says "If a void legal transaction fulfils the requirements of another legal transaction, then the latter is deemed to have been entered into, if it may be assumed that its validity would be intended if there were knowledge of the invalidity." Example: a sale lacking any payment can be interpreted as a gift if the intent was to do so (and does not grant warranty) DCFR is the EU Draft Common Frame of Reference, so the above rules are to be found in the document as follows II.–7:302: Contracts infringing mandatory rules - p. 565. Paraphrased: "if a clause in a contract violates a law, substitute the law for it, courts shall decide if that alters or voids the contract. They may fix contracts to cure them." II.–7:303: Effects of nullity or avoidance - p. 574. Paraphrased: "void contract (parts) can constitute unjustified enrichment, transfer of items might not have happened, courts may fix contracts to cure." From the DCFR document one can read what happens in absence of a Salvatorian clause, especially for UK law. II.–7:302: I. Contracts contrary to law 1 All European systems deal with contracts which contravene some rule of law, as opposed to contracts which are contrary to fundamental principles of morality or public policy. 5 In ENGLISH, IRISH and SCOTTISH law the standard texts all include chapter headings such as “Illegality”, or “Statutory Invalidity”. See further Enonchong, McBryde, Law of Contract in Scotland1 , paras. 19.28-19.36, and, for the confused development of Scottish law, Macgregor in Reid & Zimmermann vol. II, chap. 5. II. Effects of infringement 8 The general starting point in most European legal systems is that contracts violating legal rules are void. There is often, however, considerable flexibility in the law. 14 In ENGLISH and SCOTTISH law, while an illegal contract may be void, it is more often presented as “unenforceable”, in that neither specific performance nor damages are available to the parties. Thus a party may withdraw from an illegal contract with impunity. Courts will take notice of illegality of their own motion and dismiss actions accordingly (Chitty on Contracts I27, no. 16-199; MacQueen and Thomson, Contract Law in Scotland, § 7.15; McBryde, Law of Contract in Scotland1 , paras. 13.31-13.34, 19.17-19.27).). Again, however, there is flexibility in the law on contracts infringing statutory provisions. There are several cases in which the courts have considered whether giving effect to the statute requires the nullity of the contract as a supporting sanction (see e.g. St John Shipping Corp. v. Joseph Rank Ltd. [1957] 1 QB 267; Archbolds (Freightage) Ltd. v. S Spangletts Ltd. [1961] 2 QB 374, CA). English law is currently under review by the Law Commission: see its Consultation Paper on Illegal Transactions. The Commission’s provisional proposals were to the effect that courts should have the discretion to decide whether or not illegality should act as a defence to a claim for contractual enforcement. But the discretion should be structured by requiring the court to take account of specific factors: (1) the seriousness of the illegality involved; (2) the knowledge and intention of the party seeking enforcement; (3) whether denying relief will act as a deterrent; (4) whether denial of relief will further the purpose of the rule rendering the contract illegal; and (5) whether denying relief is proportionate to the illegality involved. II.–7:303: Notes 5 In ENGLISH law the general rule is against restitution but it is possible in exceptional cases where the claimant is not in pari delicto with the recipient, or the transaction has not been completely executed, or if the claim can be formulated without reference to the prohibited contract (Treitel, The Law of Contract9 , 490-504). IRISH law is similar (Clark 314-19), and so is SCOTTISH law (Stair Memorial Encyclopaedia vol. 15, paras. 764-765), although in one Scottish case where, by statute, contracts using old Scottish measures were void, restitutionary recovery was allowed in respect of a sale of potatoes by the Scottish acre, on the ground that there was no moral turpitude in such a transaction (Cuthbertson v. Lowes (1870) 8 M 1073; see further Macgregor, (2000) 4 ELR 19-45; McBryde, Law of Contract in Scotland1 , paras. 13.31-13.34, 19.22-19.26). The English Law Commission in its Consultation Paper on Illegal Transactions suggested that a court should have discretion to decide whether or not illegality should be recognised as a defence to a claim for restitution, various factors being taken into account. In addition the court should have a discretion to allow a party to withdraw from an illegal contract and to have restitution where this will reduce the likelihood of the completion of an illegal act or purpose, although it must be satisfied that the contract could not be enforced against the claimant, that there is genuine repentance of the illegality, and that it is not too serious.

Why does Title IX not apply to single-sex colleges? Does Title IX specifically exempt single-sex colleges like Wellesley? In 1990 the US Department of Justice sued the Virginia Military Institute for discrimination for not admitting women; does this provision only apply to public institutions, and not private ones?

34 CFR 106.15 covers admissions, and (e) says Subpart C does not apply to any public institution of undergraduate higher education which traditionally and continually from its establishment has had a policy of admitting only students of one sex. Subpart C, then, kind of redundantly prohibits "discrimination on the basis of sex in admission and recruitment", so that means there is no prohibition against single-sex public institutions of undergraduate education. The remainder of Title 9 applies, though. "Public" institution does not mean "government-run", it means "open to the public", which Wellesley is, although it is not government-run. I am not positive, but I think DLI is not a public school (even though it is operated by the US Army).

The Supreme Court has held, Regents of California v Bakke 438 U.S. 265, that a racial quota system is unconstitutional. The decision upheld the use of race as one of many factors, but ruled against setting aside positions that could only be filled by members of racial group ("forecloses consideration to persons like respondent"). To be constitutional, the practice must allow the possibility of hiring a person not in the racial group, thus they cannot require a person to be of a certain ethnicity, which is the situation you describe (but check the language of the ad since it probably states a preference, not a requirement). Preferences are found to be allowed in Grutter, Fisher, just as GPA or extramural activities can be considered. In Gratz it is emphasized that racial classifications are subject to strict scrutiny, thus must be narrowly tailored, and a system automatically awarding points or disqualifying applicants based on race is not narrowly tailored. The EEOC has made available this non-opinion letter addressing faculty recruitment and the "especially encouraged" clause, which more or less says this, also pointing to 29 CFR 1607, i.e. addressing the Title VII issue. 29 CFR 1607.2(C), the statutory realization of Title VII, says the use of recruiting procedures designed to attract members of a particular race, sex, or ethnic group, which were previously denied employment opportunities or which are currently underutilized, may be necessary to bring an employer into compliance with Federal law, and is frequently an essential element of any effective affirmative action program; but recruitment practices are not considered by these guidelines to be selection procedures 29 CFR 1607.3(B) requires that Where two or more selection procedures are available which serve the user's legitimate interest in efficient and trustworthy workmanship, and which are substantially equally valid for a given purpose, the user should use the procedure which has been demonstrated to have the lesser adverse impact which expresses the "least restrictive" concept of strict scrutiny.

The question didn't mention marital status, but since states formally recognize that relationship it's helpful to start there. tl;dr: The Supreme Court decided state laws that required a woman to notify her spouse were unconstitutional. Thus it's unlikely there'd be grounds for suit. Background The central mechanism of Roe v. Wade (U.S. 1973) was a balancing act between what it decided was a 14th amendment right to privacy and the state's interest in both the health of the woman and the potentiality of life. Because Roe explicitly recognized a state interest, Pennsylvania passed a statute in 1982 that required informed consent and a 24-hour waiting period. It also mandated parental consent for minors (with some exceptions) and spousal notification. This reached the Supreme Court in Planned Parenthood of SE Penn. v. Casey (U.S. 1992). There, the court upheld most of the Pennsylvania law (reinforcing its statement in Roe that a state does have an interest) but struck down the spousal notification portion. To do that, it determined the appropriate test was whether a state was placing an undue burden---a significant obstacle---in the path of a woman seeking an abortion prior to fetal viability. It reasoned that: state regulation impacts a female's liberty more than male's during pregnancy (by way of biology) if a man and woman disagree, only one can prevail not all women are equally impacted by a notification mandate (for reasons of domestic violence, etc.) Combining this with the notion that women do not lose any constitutionally protected liberty upon marriage, it decided spousal notification would be a significant obstacle and thus an undue burden. In other words, unmarried women don't have spouses to notify, so placing a notification requirement on married women creates an additional burden that the court found undue. To get back to the question, the father certainly has a right to file a suit against the female (...and it happens from time to time). However, it likely wouldn't go far. Since unmarried women were the baseline in Casey, it's unlikely there'd be grounds for either married or unmarried fathers to sue their female partners. This comes up frequently under the moniker of "Father's Rights," which has gained less traction in the U.S. than in other countries. That said, Wisconsin recently introduced a bill that would allow fathers to proceed against abortion providers.

Even though student status is not on the list of protected classes, this still might be discrimination. By proxy. Status as student can be a proxy for age, race, and/or color. Maybe even religion if there is a religious school nearby! In fairness to the store manager, when a pack of ten kids comes rolling in on the way home from school things can get pretty hectic. Rather than try to kick out the problem kids many managers will attempt to avoid the problem in the first place. Also, a sign like this might help the manager be less discriminatory. For example, let's say he lets all kids in and only kicks out the ones who are causing problems. If those problem kids are all in one protected class and it's different from the kids who don't get kicked out, the manager looks like he's discriminating based on that protected class. Discrimination by proxy can be hard to prove and I am not sure of the burden of proof in Canada. I have read that "Canadian experience" is used as a proxy in employment discrimination and has been getting some attention lately. That might be a good issue to keep an eye on as it may define proxy discrimination jurisprudence.

No The term "sword and shield" is allegorical rather than legal and may be called up in any number of contexts. Such as ... Waiver of privilege In the particular instance, Anthem was claiming that the reports were privileged and hence protected from discovery, presumably because they were prepared in contemplation of litigation - this litigation, one supposes. However, privilege is lost or waived if the privileged information is disclosed, as it was by relying on the conclusion of the report in its defense. As such, the entire suite of reports is no longer protected. Basically, if you want to keep privilege you have to keep what is privileged secret. Note, the could have lost privilege if they had disclosed the findings of the report in any way such as by press release or by simply leaving the document in a public place. In this context, the judge is stating that they cannot use the "shield" of privilege to protect a report that they have used as a "sword" to make a attack their opponent.

From Roberts' dissenting opinion: Although the policy arguments for extending marriage to same-sex couples may be compelling, the legal arguments for requiring such an extension are not. The fundamental right to marry does not include a right to make a State change its definition of marriage. And a State’s decision to maintain the meaning of marriage that has persisted in every culture throughout human history can hardly be called irrational. In short, our Constitution does not enact any one theory of marriage. The people of a State are free to expand marriage to include same-sex couples, or to retain the historic definition. (The Due Process Clause is not a guarantee of every right that should inhere in an ideal system.) In my opinion, this quote speaks as much to the second question as the first. Assume (hypothetically) for a moment that question one was not at issue. If a state defined marriage as only between opposite sexes, and the right to make a state change its definition of marriage is not in the Supreme Court's purview (in our hypo), then the state is as free to reject the validity of marriages abhorrent to its laws, performed elsewhere, as it is to deny the right to marry under its theory of marriage.

The US armed forces have used a draft of some sort in the American Revolutionary War, the American Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. This draft has always fallen on men only. Since the end of the Vietnam War, men have been required to register or a possible future draft. There have been challanges to this as a violation of the Equal Protection clause because registration is only required of men, but none have succeeded as of July 2021 In National Coalition for Men v. Selective Service System No. 19-20272 (5th Cir. 2020-08-13) The 5th Circuit court off appeals considered a challenge to the provisions of current Selective Service act (50 U.S.C. §§ 3802(a), 3809) that require male US citizens of ages 18-26 to register for a possible future draft, but not women. The Fifth Circiut wrote: Because that judgment [the district court decision holding the law unconstitutional] directly contradicts the Supreme Court’s holding in Rostker v. Goldberg, 453 U.S. 57, 78–79 (1981), and only the Supreme Court may revise its precedent, we REVERSE. ... In Rostker, the Supreme Court held that the male-only Selective Service registration requirement did not offend due process. 453 U.S. at 78– 79. The Court relied heavily on legislative history showing that Congress thoroughly considered whether to require women to register. ... Women were then barred from combat, so the Court examined the constitutional claim with those “combat restrictions firmly in mind.” Id. at 77. The Court concluded: This is not a case of Congress arbitrarily choosing to burden one of two similarly situated groups. . . . Men and women, because of the combat restrictions on women, are simply not similarly situated for purposes of a draft or registration for a draft. The fifth Circuit opinion went on to cite State Oil Co. v. Khan, 522 U.S. 3, 22 (1997) to the effect that a lower federal court may not overrule a previous Supreme Court decision, even when the facts have changed, undermining the reasoning in the prior decision. The Plaintiff petitioned the Supreme Court to hear the case and overrule Rostker, but it declined, in significant part because Congress is now in the process of deciding whether to alter or abolish the Selective Service System in light of women now being allowed to serve in all combat positions, and other changes since the Selective Service law was passed, a Congressional commission having recommended that registration be required for both men and women. The history is discussed in the Wikipedia article on Rostker v. Goldberg and in the article on Conscription in the United States. The article on "National Coalition for Men v. Selective Service System" is also relevant.

There is a good answer at the Skeptics StackExchange here. Its three most relevant references are: 42 U.S.C. Chapter 21, especially Subchapter VI (applies only to employers with fifteen or more employees every day in at least 20 calendar weeks in a year) An example case, Wilson v. Southwest Airlines Co. 517 F. Supp. 292 (N.D. Tex. 1981) Katie Manley, The BFOQ Defense: Title VII’s Concession to Gender Discrimination, 16 Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy 169-210 (2009) Wilson v Southwest held that being attractive and female is not a Bona Fide Occupational Qualification (BFOQ) for being a flight attendant, even when the company marketed themselves using female sexuality: sex does not become a BFOQ merely because an employer chooses to exploit female sexuality as a marketing tool or to better ensure profitability Most scholars believe that the BFOQ exception would not apply to Hooters servers for the same reason. The job is serving food, and the sexualized nature of the service is just the manner in which they do the job, not a requirement of the primary job itself. Hooters has never had a discrimination suit go to trial, however has been sued and settled out of court multiple times. Employment discrimination based on gender has been allowed only in cases where the primary product being sold (not merely the manner of delivery of the primary product) requires a particular gender. One example would be sexual entertainment. This would include strip clubs, modelling agencies, Nevada brothels, etc. I'll say it one other way. Simply offering attractive female service as part of a business strategy is not enough to trigger a BFOQ exception. To allow a BFOQ defence based on an employer's desired manner or means of achieving its primary business purpose would render the statute inoperative, and the BFOQ exception would "swallow the rule" Phillips v. Martin Marietta 400 U.S. 542 (1971). (This paragraph taken from here.)

Is it normal for German Landlords to intercept internet traffic? After reading https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/136543/landlord-will-be-watching-my-data-traffic-as-mentioned-in-the-lease-agreement I was wondering if this realy is common in germany? From the answer: I would say that the restrictions are pretty standard for Germany. Is it?

In a normal rental property, the tenant is in a contract with the telecommunications provider and landlord has no business listening to the communication. When the landlord does provide internet access for tenants, he/she gets into a complicated legal position. The owner of the internet connection is generally liable for things like copyright violations, hate speech, etc. coming from that connection. This law predates open-access wifi connections and even the internet. Legislation and legal precedent are only slowly catching up with that new reality.

That is private. Who you work for is not information that is disclosed publicly by any state actor in Germany, just like your taxes. In fact, that or who you are employed at is often regarded as personal and private information. Nigh impossible through agencies Public agencies like the Fiskus (tax), Agentur für Arbeit, and immigration are not allowed to give any information about a person to anyone but that person or another agency that has the right to that information. Yes, (generally speaking) the tax office may not even say that a person exists (or doesn't) and what their tax number is to anyone but the person in question.

renting a single room with three other guys each renting their own rooms means exactly what it says. What you are paying for is that room, plus shared access to the common areas. Without knowing exactly what your lease says, especially with respect to the common areas, it's difficult to give a proper answer. I suspect that the lease for your room says nothing about who can live in the other rooms. Unless the lease says otherwise, the landlord has full control of the common areas. (Compare with a large apartment building, with hallways, stairwells, lobbies, etc., which must be maintained by the landlord.) This isn't an unusual arrangement, but I've never understood why anyone, landlord or tenant, would want it. There's far too much potential for conflict. You, yourself, could be a totally obnoxious person that the other three guys can't stand, but they'd have to put up with you. Their only alternatives are to move out or to ask the landlord to evict you. Moving out would be a lot of trouble for everyone. But, depending upon jurisdiction, as long as you're paying the rent on time and not causing damage to the property, eviction could be a very difficult and long process. And eviction is hardly in the landlord's interest. It costs a lot of money and time, and might not be granted even if she did apply. Why might a landlord spend so much time at the house they're renting? I'd be concerned about the implications of a woman going out of her way to do yoga in an area rented to four men. That is the part that sounds most strange in this situation. How do I resolve this? I'd start looking for a room somewhere else.

Michigan law say nothing about landlord entry, so whatever it says in the lease is what is allowed. Various sources like this comment on the lack of such statutory regulations. There does not appear to be any relevant case law for Michigan which impose restrictions on a landlord's right to access a rental. Since there is no statutory or case law restriction on landlord's right to access his property, landlord's agent would have the same right to access. That would mean that if the listing agent were authorized by the landlord to enter, then the agent could enter, and it would not be necessary for the landlord to accompany this agent whenever entry was needed. That does not mean that a "listing agent" that happens to work with a landlord has an independent right to enter the landlord's property. The same would go for repairmen. It is actually not clear to me whether there could be blanket permission for any and all with access to the lock box to enter, since pretty much any realtor can enter a house for sale, subject to whatever the stated limitations are, and they don't call the owner for each entry. I suspect that one would not have legal grounds for imposing a particular additional restriction on a landlord's right to access and permit access to the property, since there's no overriding statute, and restrictions on landlord access mainly derive from statutes.

Congrats, you've done well to minimize your processing of personal data. But I think you're still processing personal data, and are subject to the GDPR. Serving a website necessarily involves processing an IP address. This IP address will typically be personal data. While you are not storing the IP address, the GDPR's definition of “processing” extends beyond storage and pretty much covers doing anything with that IP address. As far as I know this is not an entirely settled matter, but it's better to err on the side of caution and to assume that you are in fact performing a processing activity. Even a static web page can easily lead to additional relevant processing of personal data, for example if the HTML embeds resources from third party domains. Since your website is clearly targeted at the public, it does not fall under the GDPR's exception for “purely personal or household” purposes. So I think you do need a (minimal) privacy notice that contains at least the items mentioned in Art 13 GDPR. The main reason why some people try to avoid posting a privacy notice is because it must disclose your identity and contact details. But in Germany, that information has to be provided anyway due to the Impressumspflicht. As part of your GDPR compliance obligations, you must protect how data is processed by others on your behalf. A hosting provider will typically act as your data processor. For this to be legal, you need a contract / data processing agreement that fulfills the conditions in Art 28 GDPR. This contract binds the data processor to only use the data as instructed by you, and not for their own purposes. European hosting providers sometimes include the necessary terms in their terms of service / AGB, but you should check to make sure. Netcup expects you to accept their data processing amendment in your account settings. In the hypothetical case that you were not processing any personal data at all, the GDPR would not apply and it wouldn't require you to post a privacy notice. Other laws might still have information obligations, notably the German TMG and TTDSG.

This would probably constitute illegal wiretapping and would certainly constitute a 4th Amendment search if conducted by law enforcement. Normally, the definition of whether something is "public" for purposes of an expectation of privacy is whether it could be detected by a human being unaided by technological enhancements from a place where someone could lawfully be to make that kind of observation. Some of the relevant cases are Katz v. U.S., 389 U.S. (1967) (tape recorder outside a public telephone booth was a search violating the expectation of privacy) and U.S. v. Karo, 468 U.S. (1984) (tracking device placed in barrel by authorities violated expectation of privacy). RFID signals are not "public" even if they are not encrypted with a private code because a device, such as the ones identified in the question, is necessary to receive them. The Wiretap Act, codified by 18 U.S. Code § 2511, is a federal law aimed at protecting privacy in communications with other persons. Typically, when you think of a "wiretap," the first thing that comes to mind is someone listening to your telephone calls. But the Act protects more than that. Under the Act, it is illegal to: intentionally or purposefully intercept, disclose, or use the contents of any wire, oral, or electronic communication through the use of a "device." The Act provides criminal and civil penalties for violations, although it creates various exceptions to when interceptions and disclosures are illegal. From here. In this circumstance, despite being passive, one is intentionally intercepting the contents of electronic communications through the use of a device. The fact that there was not in all cases an intent to communicate through, for example, an RFID chip, on a specific occasion probably does not suffice to render it not a communication.

Of course she is living with you. Clothes, toothbrush, cooking and eating, sleeping, I suppose breakfast as well, that's living with you. And it's not illegal, but it is apparently in breach of your leasing contract. I'd study your contract carefully to see what the consequences are if she is living for you for more than 14 days.

Any written communication is generally admissible Subject to all the normal rules for admissibility of course. For texts between you and a third party the major issue that springs to mind is relevance. As in, how are they relevant to the dispute between you and this man? If they are not, your lawyer should have objected to them on this basis, however, its too late now. I'm curious as to how he obtained these and whether it was done legally or not. Illegality will not affect their admissibility as the exclusionary rule doesn't apply to civil matters, however, it does speak to the gentleman's character.

Tenant eviction law in Netherlands when renting is done via proxy company I live in UK and have recently bought flat in Netherlands, found agent to rent it out and yesterday they told that they have found a tenant and sent me a contract to sign. Turns out that 'tenant' that my agent has found is a company and not a person (which already feels dodgy since we agreed with agent that it will be a person), so I started doing some research. It turns out that this company ('Company X') is company that helps asylum seekers with getting accommodation (which I am happy with as long as I don't have problems to deal with). However having done some (bad) enterprises to day, I got a bit more thorough (paranoid) and one potential possibility I see is that 'Company X' which has very little assets can sign hundreds of lease contracts with lenders like myself. This company places hundreds of asylum seeker families into flats with intention to pay their rents, but with no monetary 'buffer' or due to bad management (or many other potential reasons) fails to make payments. After it fails to make payments in around 2-3 months of non payments this goes to court, then 'Company X' goes bankrupt and gets liquidated in another 3-6 months all the while flat is occupied by non paying tenants that do not have direct obligation to myself but rather to the company that is going bankrupt. Netherlands is a very pro-tenant country so question is: if payments by 'Company X' fail can I start eviction process immediately (like I would normally do with tenants) or do I need to wait for company to get liquidated and only then can start eviction process?

I got and answer from lawyer in Netherlands. To rent out to the company is not without risks. You rent out to the company and the company rents out to the actual user of the apartment. That is subletting. The sub-lessee is protected by law. So when the company fails to pay, you can end the contract with the company (you have to go to court for this), but then you will become the lessor to the actual user (=sub-lessee) then. If you feel that that is against your interests, you have to start a court procedure within half a year to end the contract with the actual user. Also note: it is forbidden to rent out to people that don't have a legal status. So you make sure you trust the company very well if you are going to rent out to them. I recommend to seek help from a real estate agent that is well known and member of NVM or other trustworthy organisation.

The ability to bargain for clauses that are more favorable varies with the type of landlord. Termination clauses are no different in this regard. If the landlord refuses to negotiate/modify early termination clauses, the tenant's subsequent decision to enter the lease evidences that he knowingly and willfully agreed to those terms. The tenant is not allowed to disavow them thereafter. Hence the importance of negotiating the clauses, although rental corporations are unlikely to be any flexible. Unless you find a flexible landlord or manage to arrange alternative housing, entering a standard 12-month lease is a risk you would have to take. Legislation typically requires landlords to mitigate damages in the event of early termination by finding as soon as possible a new tenant. However, in reality it is usually too difficult for a leaving tenant to scrutinize the landlord's efforts of finding a new tenant. The best chances to be able to conduct that scrutiny occur when the matter is brought to court. A landlord could have the incentive to find a new tenant soon if the early termination coincides with certain season. A typical example occurs in college towns, since students need to arrange housing by the time the school year begins.

You cannot evict them immediately. You can, however, decline to renew their lease when it expires if you give proper notice. From this information sheet: In NYC, an owner may refuse to renew a rent stabilized tenant’s lease because the owner has an immediate and compelling need to possess the apartment for use as his or her primary residence or as a primary residence for his or her immediate family. Under the Rent Stabilization Law, an owner may begin an eviction proceeding when the current lease expires, but only after the tenant is given written notice that the lease will not be renewed. This notice must be served at least 90 and not more than 150 days before the current lease term expires. In addition, if the tenant is elderly, is disabled, or has lived in the apartment for more than 15 years, you must provide an equivalent (or superior) apartment to them at the same (or lower) rent in a nearby area. This may be difficult if you only own one unit in a larger building, rather than an entire building. Finally, due to the ongoing COVID situation, the COVID-19 Emergency Eviction and Foreclosure Prevention Act (CEEFPA) allows tenants to submit a hardship declaration to avoid eviction. Such a hardship declaration can be filed if the tenant has experienced financial hardship due to COVID-19 or if moving would present a health risk to the tenant or a member of their family. Note that the above link is out of date; the moratorium was recently extended to January 15, 2022.

If it says "no pets" in the leasehold, then yes, that is enforceable. It doesn't have to be reasonable (in your opinion, or objectively) to be enforceable. Your choices are to either negotiate different leasehold terms, or to find a different leasehold.

on behalf means that the party of the agreement is the landlord, not the property manager. The contract both entitles and obliges the landlord, not the property manager. The property manager is not a party of the contract. So the fact that the property manager is fired completely unrelated to the existing contract. Additionally, in most jurisdictions that I know of, even if the property changed ownership (the landlord sold or gifted it, or the landlord died and it was inherited by someone) the contract would still be in force, as the change of situations would not invalidated the rights and obligations of the other parties.

To begin, it is always legal to request the signing of a contractual arrangement in this type of circumstance; however, it is not your duty to assent to this so long as the original tenant had the right to sublet or take on roommates. Without having signed the new lease, you (all the new tenants not on the lease) would just be tenants-at-will. This occurs when an occupant has rented a premises without a lease but pays rent at a set interval (typically monthly). The agreement for a Tenancy-at-Will may be either written or verbal. Just because a rental agreement is in writing does not make it a lease. Either the landlord or tenant may terminate this arrangement by giving written notice 30 days or one full rental period in advance, whichever is longer. In a situation where you rented from a renter, I would want to have the assent of the landlord, as no reason is required to terminate by either party. This should be done in writing either by certified mail or have the landlord sign it, if you are presenting it in person. If rent is paid the first of each month, notice should be given prior to the first day of the month. Many landlords are fond of tenancies-at-will because they maintain the ability to terminate a rental at any time with only a month's notice, without needing a reason. This is their prerogative for even petty reasons (e.g., they don't like your friends, or the hours you keep). This is especially true with a roommate situation, where the original lessee has a lease and is subletting rooms, because the lessor has someone on the hook for a time certain (the original lessee), but if the roommates get annoying for whatever reason to either the landlord or the lessee, you can be given a 30 day notice for a great many reasons that a lease cannot control and are not viable reasons to evict. A lease is for a duration certain, after which, the renter would either move, sign another lease, or in the case where they stayed on past the end date and continued to pay (and landlord continued to accept) rent, it would just become a tenancy-at-will. In many ways a lease protects the renter just as much as it does the landlord, because moving is expensive and (except in very limited circumstances) the renter is guaranteed being able to keep the rental until the lease ends, so long as they pay rent and do not violate the lease or local statute(s), which would subject them to eviction. This would be beneficial in a roommate situation as it takes the power to give notice or evict away from the original lessee who sublet the rooms. It is important to understand that just because there is a writing does not necessarily mean it is a lease. Many landlords who don't want the time constraint of a lease still like to affirm in writing basic issues like date of rent due, pets, etc. It is just cleaner than a verbal agreement. So, in your hypothetical, the landlord could ask the new renters to (co)sign a new lease, join the existing lease, or just sign a rental agreement as a Tenant-at-Will, even though the tenancy has already begun. The renter is not obligated to sign any writing at this point. However, if the renter refuses and if the landlord insists, the landlord would likely exercise their right to terminate by serving a 30 day notice to quit. Having already taken possession, you would also be in a good position to negotiate the terms, which could be to your benefit, so it is not necessarily a bad thing. Regarding eviction, that would only be an option to the landlord if you failed to vacate if a 30 day notice to quit was issued and you didn't move (or of course, as with any renter, if actions that would always allow the landlord the right to seek eviction occur, like failure to pay rent). I would not be concerned about showing you have a right to be there as you likely had to pay rent to move in and your check is proof that the tenancy began, and other things like having a key, etc., support your position if it ever came to that and you had paid cash. If you do ever pay cash, get a receipt. If, hypothetically, the new renters sign a lease, I would want to make sure it is for the room and not the whole so that liability (at least for rent) is limited if others default.

Short Answer Can an incomplete and unsafe building be rented to a tenant on a commercial lease if the building never received a certificate of occupancy? Yes. Unless your lease says otherwise. Your sole source of legal protections is your lease. Without knowing the detailed provisions of your lease, it is impossible to know. Long Answer The General Rule In commercial leases, to a much greater degree than in residential leases, the principle of buyer beware (a.k.a. caveat emptor) applies. Commercial leases are typically negotiated between sophisticated parties, and if the tenant doesn't want to start paying rent until the certificate of occupancy is issued despite a lease that says otherwise, then that is tough luck and the tenant is bound to the terms of the lease. Commercial leases are generally rented in "as is" condition, sometimes with and sometimes without a tenant finish and improvements allowance from the landlord. Unless otherwise agreed, in a commercial lease, the burden is on the tenant to do "due diligence" including a physical inspection of the property by a professional inspector and independent review of the zoning status of the property to confirm that the tenant's business is allowed to operate at that location, much as a buyer of real estate would. If the tenant identifies an objection during the due diligence period set forth in the lease or contract to enter into a lease with the tenant, then the tenant can choose to get out of the lease obligation. But, there is only a due diligence condition if the tenant bargains for it. The lease allocates responsibility to maintain the building in good repair and may allocated this responsibility to the landlord or the the tenant. In one of the most common types of commercial leases, called a triple net lease, virtually all maintenance obligations are the tenant's responsibility: The triple net absolves the landlord of the most risk of any net lease. Even the costs of structural maintenance and repairs must be paid by the tenant in addition to rent, property taxes and insurance premiums. Some firms, such as WeWork build their entire business model around entering into the "as is", triple net commercial leases with landlords that are the norm, and then subletting the properties to smaller businesses on a furnished, all maintenance and building services provided, gross lease basis. Many states have statutory or common law implied warranties of habitability in the case of residential leases that require that a certificate of occupancy be in place and that other conditions be met by the landlord: An implied warranty of habitability is a warranty implied by law in all residential leases [ed. in states that have such a warranty] that the premises are fit and habitable for human habitation and that the premises will remain fit and habitable throughout the duration of the lease. New Mexico, in particular, has many statutory protections for residential tenants (statutes found here). But, almost none of these protections extend to commercial leases in New Mexico, because commercial leases are not leases of dwelling units, as defined in the relevant statutes. Note that not every state even has an implied warranty of habitability for residential tenancies. Colorado did not have one until the early 2000s, and it had only very weak protections for tenants regarding habitability until the current decade. Before then, in Colorado, a defective or unsafe condition of the premises was not a defense to paying rent under either a commercial or a residential lease in the state. In theory, a county or municipal government could impose a habitability requirement on commercial leases. But, this is very uncommon because, as the examples below illustrate, there are circumstances where it is sensible, even in a fair deal, to place the burden of making property subject to a commercial lease habitable. Examples Of Situations Where This Would Not Be Required In A Fair Deal Most commercial tenants insist upon terms that say that the obligation to pay rent starts when a certificate of occupancy is issued and the tenant is allowed to take possession of the premises. But, there would certainly be some times when a commercial tenant would pay rent on property that does not yet have a certificate of occupancy. For example, in what is called a "pad rental", a business rents a basically vacant lot with only a concrete foundation and utility hookups and zoning approvals in place, and then the tenant builds a shop or office building on the pad. See, e.g., this commercial lease offer on Loopnet, a major internet site for listing property available to be leased by businesses: ABOUT 4900-5100 N WICKHAM RD , MELBOURNE, FL 32940 Rental Rate $3.79 /SF/Yr Listing ID: 15146692 Date Created: 2/11/2019 Last Updated: 3/19/2019 1 LOT AVAILABLE - Rental Rate $3.79 /SF/Yr Lease Term 20 Years Service Type To Be Determined Date Available Now Space Type Relet Lot Size 0.69 AC DESCRIPTION Pad ready site with all utilities, parking field, ingress/egress, retention, and site lighting IN. Join Goodwill, Einstein's Bagel, Verizon, Twins Car Wash, Wickham Road Music, and Nail Salon in this 100% leased new retail center. HIGHLIGHTS Pad ready site. In a commercial pad lease, typically, a tenant would start paying rent immediately and the length of time needed to get the tenant's shop built and approved for occupancy by local government officials is their problem. But, even then, the terms would depend on what was negotiated between the landlord and the tenant which would depend to a great extent on how hot the local commercial real estate market was and on the other terms. A landlord will usually offer more favorable terms (such as a provision stating that rent is not owed until a certificate of occupancy is issued) in a weak rental market, but may also decide to have very tough lease terms with a somewhat lower monthly or annual rental rate. Also, as in the example above, conditioning rent payment on occupancy or availability for occupancy, is less common in a very long term lease such as the twenty year lease being offered for the pad rental above. Something very similar is done in an existing building that requires tenant finish. At one extreme, the landlord will do tenant finish to the tenant's specifications at the landlord's expense and the tenant will only start to pay rent when the tenant takes occupancy. At the other extreme, the tenant will start paying rent immediately and do the tenant finish at the tenant's sole expense. In between, the tenant may do the tenant's own tenant finish pursuant to landlord approved plans, with the landlord contributing a tenant finish allowance that will often be less than the full anticipated cost of tenant finish work, and the rent will be reduced or waived for a set period of time which may be less than the actual or anticipated time that it takes to complete the tenant finish. This gives the tenant an incentive to not waste tenant finish dollars and to push the contractors doing the work to finish as soon as possible. In yet another example, it wouldn't be terribly uncommon for a landlord to rent a commercial space that is already occupied by squatters, or holdover tenants, to a new tenant on a triple net basis. In a lease like that, the tenant is responsible for evicting the current occupants, rather than the landlord. The promise that the leased property won't be occupied by someone else when the lease commences is called the "covenant of quiet enjoyment" (which is "a covenant that promises that the grantee or tenant of an estate in real property will be able to possess the premises in peace, without disturbance by hostile claimants."). This provision is often, but not always, included in a commercial lease, although often, courts will imply in law a covenant of quiet enjoyment into even a commercial lease, in the absence of express language in the lease stating that the covenant of quiet enjoyment is not intended to be included in the lease. Conclusion It all boils down to the terms of the lease and a reasonable construction of the relevant lease terms. The fact that there is such a thin amount of legal protection from unfair lease terms is one of the reasons that most commercial tenants hire an attorney to help them negotiate the terms of a commercial lease, in addition to, or instead of, a commercial real estate broker. Footnote: Why Is Commercial Lease Law So Harsh? The duties of a commercial tenant are much closer to, and in some cases, almost identical to, those of an owner of real property and are not infrequently for long terms such as twenty, or even ninety-nine years. Why would a landlord and tenant enter into a commercial lease in these situations, rather than having the prospective tenant simply by the property subject to a mortgage? A lot of this is tax driven. Many businesses would purchase their buildings rather than lease them if taxes were not a consideration and the commercial lease is basically a tax favored alternative to a mortgage payment. When the commercial landlord is a mortgage lender in all but name, and a commercial tenant is a building owner in all but name, it makes sense to place the legal maintenance responsibilities of a building owner on the commercial tenant. A business can deduct every dollar paid in rent from its revenues when determining its taxable income, even the portion economically attributable to land value and depreciation in the structure of the building, as it is paid. But, if the business finances the purchase of the property with a mortgage, the business can deduct the interest paid, but not the principal payments. Depreciation of improvements on real estate (for most of recent U.S. tax history, over a straight line 39.5 year depreciation period) can counterbalance some of the principal payments, although often more slowly than the principal payments are actually made. Also, if depreciation deductions wipe out too much of the business's income, those depreciation deductions are disallowed or deferred. Furthermore, the portion of the purchase price of property attributed to land value can't be depreciated at all. In many cases, this quirk of the tax law is addressed with a business structure in which: (1) a non-profit that doesn't care about the tax treatment of its income leases the land to (2) another business that builds a multi-tenant building on the property which it owns even though it doesn't own the land the building is built upon, subject to a mortgage with a long amortization period similar to the depreciation period for the building, which in turn is (3) leased to businesses that actually used the multi-tenant building by the building owner. Second Footnote On Rent Control and Cooperative Apartments Even further afield, in places like New York City that have rent control, residential tenants become more economically equivalent to apartment owners, and residential landlords become more economically equivalent to a combined mortgage lenders and home owner's association. There was a strong demand for rent control in New York City at the time that rent control was adopted, because economic necessity meant that mostly people needed to live in one unit of a multi-unit apartment building, but the legal concept of ownership of one unit within a larger apartment building that is now commonly called a "condominium" in the United States, did not exist. So, there were a lot of renters in New York City who very much wanted to be de facto apartment owners who didn't have the legal tools available at the time to achieve this goal. The other work around which was used in the Northeast before the condominium was invented was a "cooperative apartment", in which all of the residents of a particular apartment building owned the entire building and were jointly and severally liable on the mortgage on the building, but then were allocated a unit within the building in exchange for economic obligations to the cooperative association that managed the building on a not for profit basis for its owners.

How should I proceed? I am asking law friends to recommend some employment lawyers, but other than this, can I do anything else? You definitely don't need an employment lawyer for this. From a legal standpoint, the matter is very simple: If you grant their request (whether by signing or otherwise expressing your acceptance), you would be waiving any remedies currently available to you for their breach of contract. The company's attempt to override its contract with you is quite naive, but the company can always (and evidently does) try to get away with its liability nonetheless. I would not be surprised if the company subsequently tries harder to intimidate you, but that does not change your legal position & merits unless you sign the waiver the company is pursuing. Asking for your post-termination availability reinforces the notion of company's poor planning and subpar management.

Is escaping prison a crime? Is it actually illegal to escape from a prison or will it just have effect on increased sentence in practice? I heard something that in Sweden where I live it is not illegal to escape, but is that no matter what you did?

Chapter 26 section 7 of the Swedish Penal Code points to a possible consequence of prison escape: If the sentenced person seriously violates the conditions for the serving of the sentence in a prison, the date for conditional release may be postponed. Such a postponement may amount to at most fifteen days on each occasion of use. Aiding an escape is a specifically-identified crime, but apparently the act of escaping is not, though is would have a negative consequence (we would say that such a treatment is an "infraction", not a separate crime). This article in fn. 7 indicates that it is not a crime in Germany, and The Interwebs tells me the same thing. Mexican law explicitly declares that there is no penalty for prison escape (Article 154, with translation from here) To the prisoner that to escape (from prison) will not be given any penalty, except when it’s in complicity with one or more other prisoners and they perform violence on other people, in which case the penalty is six months to three years in prison. It is a specific crime in the US (governed by individual jurisdictions). The state of Washington in RCW 9A.76.110 makes general prison escape a class B felony. Adjacent provisions increase the severity of the crime if the person is a sexually violent predator (9A.76.115), reduces the crime if it is escape from detention (not pursuant to a conviction), and further reduces the crime if it is just escape from custody (e.g. escapes from the drunk tank).

united-states Under US law, any citizen may hold a person caught in the process of committing a felony (which kidnapping surely is) for the police. A soldier has no special authority. Indeed under the Posse Comitatus Act, the military has more restricted authority in such matters than citizens in general. However note that the book doesn't say the soldier was justified. I do not find it implausible that a soldier might have believed that the military had such authority.

“Never” is a very big word… If a burglar stabs someone in claimed self defense, then we have evidence that this was an armed burglary, so that won’t go down well for that burglar. And your rights to self defence are greatly diminished if you caused that situation illegally. So should you get into the situation, try to run away if at all possible. If you had any chance at all to escape your self defence argument will not be accepted. The only possible situation with self defence is if you are threatened with illegal violence that cannot be justified by the fact that you are a criminal. For example you enter a home, two people with guns inside catch you, bind you to a chair so you are no danger at all, and instead of calling the police they announce they will kill or maim you. This is of course very unlikely to happen.

Any country is free to decide what actions are considered to be crimes, and what crimes are prosecuted depending on whether you perform the action in the country, outside the country, and depending on whether you are a citizen, a resident, both, or neither. They can also decide what are accepted defences in court and which are not. Any other country is free to decide under which circumstances they will ever extradite someone to that first country. Now you have to check the laws of the individual countries.

In the U.S, at least for some time in our not too distant history, there were a substantial number of jurisdictions that allowed people to "read in" to a law degree, meaning exactly what @cpast said in his comment - that people who were so inclined and with the intellectual aptitude to understand old english common law and modern stare decisis (essentially, appellate precedent), as well as statuary and regulatory texts, could simply study their way to a law degree. It was assumed (quite rightly) that if one could manage to pass a 2-4 day bar examination that they should be considered eligible to apply for a license to practice through admission to the bar just as legitimately as those people who earned their juris doctorate. This is keeping in mind that passing the exam does/did not guarantee licensure/being sworn in, as in depth background checks and ethical fitness analysis are also conducted which form the final determination for fitness to be admitted. California was, for a long while, known as the most challenging state's bar exam to pass. For a long while, it was a true "read in" state, meaning anyone had the right to take the bar exam. Because of this, the California Penal system actually turned out quite a few amazing street-smart criminal lawyers; men, who spent years in prison reading the law, who came out to take and pass the bar exam. It is also true that in CA, as well as other states, conviction of crime (even felonies) does not necessarily mean exclusion from licensure based on failure to pass the background/fitness inquiry (it can, but it isn't automatic if you can establish rehabilitation). Excluding crimes of moral turpitude, such as perjury, embezzlement, certain thefts where a fiduciary duty existed (those were the only crimes that were considered automatically exclusionary), one could be allowed to make a plea of rehabilitation to the Board of Bar Overseers ("BBO"). Crimes that account for the bulk of prison sentences, like aggravated violence, drug dealing/trafficking, etc. are not crimes of moral turpitude. However, there are no longer any states in the U.S. where you can truly "read in" to the law. @Jason Aller is exactly right, that in the early 80's the ABA, as well as the association of accredited legal institutions (not to be robbed of their mortgage of the mind) lobbied and cajoled the practice right away. There are still the states that allow an education of apprenticeship, whereby rather than being self-taught, you are allowed to be mentored by a senior attorney with a certain level of experience, where they would attest that you worked a certain number of hours (usually each week or month – typically something akin to full time) under their tutelage. Each of the states Jason Aller cites has some form of this. After a certain number of years, those individuals are allowed to sit for the bar. However, that does not mean they can be lawyers ... even if they pass. I recently read a journal article discussing how each year more and more states seem to further delimit who can be lawyers, for the sole purpose of not wanting to create too much competition in the profession. Background analysis now puts a great focus on financial responsibility: meaning if one's credit score isn't up to par they can be shut out of the practice because it's argued that if they cannot be financially prudent with their own finances, they cannot be trusted to manage client funds. About a quarter of all people who take the bar on the first shot fail. Those who don't pass by the 3rd try usually never do, and if they do, they are unlikely to practice as they are unlikely to get jobs (unless they hang out a shingle, so to speak). Most states require having graduated from an accredited law school. Massachusetts has at least one unaccredited law school (it was two, but I believe one just got accredited). A grad of that school can only be licensed in MA, nowhere else, except maybe one or two other states. More and more states are also deciding not to let lawyers from other states practice in their jurisdictions by "waiving in", which is where you can pay to get licensed and transfer your scores (instead of experienced lawyers having to take the bar again) from reciprocal states. It is a club where membership is purposely limited and continues to be more and more exclusive (and not in a good way). You can probably see from all these trends that there is a big push to keep people out, for no other reason than fear of competition. If this trend holds, it seems likely that the apprentice's right to "read in" will sooner, rather than later, become altogether a thing of the past too. Law school education is undoubebly valuable in that it teaches you how to learn in a socratic way. It shows you how to spot issues and understand archaic text, and helps you to understand the rules of procedure in a theoretical and comprehensive way. However, for most, what it does not do is teach you how to practice law. When I was in law school, I was lucky enough to go to a school with the choice of a clinical semester or year (I also broke the rules and worked full time as a law clerk, year round, from year one). Many schools had no clinical programs. Students who weren't able to do these things didn't know what a pleading was or how to draft one, had never seen a motion for summary judgment, had no idea how to take or defend a deposition &ndash all things lawyers must be good at doing and that are not taught in law school. At that time, over a decade ago, the machination of legal scholars had contemplated adding yet another year to law school curriculum, to require a clinical year, so that graduates did have a clue what practicing law was all about. Opponents argued that instead the 3L elective year should just be traded from classroom to clinical (rather than adding another year and another 40-70 thousand tuition dollars). Neither side could agree so neither has become the norm. But what has happened since then is that more and more states have limited the right to take the bar exam by right, from having learned the law thru the practice of "reading in", which had already become the highly regulated practice of "documented apprenticeship". My guess would be that those persons who learned by apprenticeship may not be as adept at picking apart cases or legal research as a law school grad (but may be), but they would almost certainly be more informed in the actual practice of law. Here is a fairly comprehensive article about the U.S. states that allow it, and what their rules are for completing the apprenticeship "degree". It cites that of nearly 90k people taking the bar, 60 took this route. From the perspective of a practicing lawyer with what I like to call "a mortgage of the mind", I find this trend pretty disheartening. One shouldn't need to pay a quarter-million dollars to gain the knowledge and right to sit for the bar.

There is no absolute rule in such cases. It is often a matter of negotiation between the state and federal authorities, and failing agreement, a matter of which authority has the prisoner in custody. Often the question of which crime is more serious or carries a longer sentence is an issue in such negotiations.

I can’t speak for Indonesia but if you did this in Australia you would be a criminal. You either committed fraud or are an accessory to fraud. You would probably be considered an accessory at and after the fact which means you are subject to the same maximum penalty as if you had committed the fraud yourself - 10 years in jail. In addition, you are liable to repay the money taken, jointly and severally with your ‘friend’. However, if they can only find you, you cannot recover from your ‘friend’ as you were engaged in a joint criminal enterprise. Scams such as you describe are distressingly common and many people fall for them. As such, assuming the court accepted your story (because you might actually be the fraudster and have just made it up) you would be unlikely to get close to the full sentence and if you caught the judge on a good day, might even escape jail. If you are lucky, the jury might acquit, even though, on the facts, they shouldn’t - juries do what juries do. If you’re really lucky the police might decide not to prosecute.

Yes, this is illegal. If by "across the state" you mean some distance away but in the same state then the exact law will depend on which state you are in, but as a rule any "conversion" of property to the use of another counts as theft. In this case your aunt has "converted" the property to the use of your Nan (funny legal phrase). The fact that the people doing this are your relatives makes no difference. (When asking about the law here you should always say which state you are in.) Although theft is a crime, you could also start a civil case to get your property back without involving the police. The details depend on where you are, but try googling "(your state) small claims court". Many states have a process for collecting low-value debts or other property without needing lawyers. You need to have a firm conversation with your aunt about this. Tell her that you want your property back, and don't back down. Also call your Nan and explain this to her as well; she may not have realised that she is in possession of stolen property, which is usually a separate crime. If you want more advice on how to get your property back without starting a family row then you might ask on the Interpersonal Skills SE, but it might be better to start with "When are you planning to return my property?" and leave "You are a thief" as a last resort. Edit: As Eric Nolan points out in the comments, you may be a minor. If you are under 18 then your aunt has authority over you that she wouldn't have if you were older. For instance, if she is concerned about your use of video games impacting school-work then confiscating your console and putting it out of your reach would be perfectly legal.

Employer overpays, then reduces next paycheck to "compensate." Suppose that in the United States, my employer overpays me on a check and the money is taxed at a higher rate because of it (including social security withholdings), then on the next paycheck my employer reduced my paycheck to make up for what they overpaid me. It would seem that I just had to pay tax on money I never actually got paid. What legal avenues could I explore to recover the money I seemingly paid in taxes on income I never actually received?

Any tax overpayments will be refunded after you file your tax return next year. Accidental overpayment is just one way this can happen. Another common situation is when a person works for only a few months at what looks like a high annual salary. They'd be taxed as if they were making $120,000 / year, for example, but they only work for three months, so their income ends up only being $40,000. They get money back at tax-return time.

The first step of a non-governmental debt collector would be to sue you and obtain a money judgment (if this debt collector is legitimate, something the comments touch upon). A tax debt is different, if this is a legitimate tax debt. There is usually an internal tax collection agency process that must be exhausted, resulting in an assessment of taxes which then results in a non-judicial imposition of a tax lien, upon which what is sometimes call a distaint warrant authorizing execution against assets pursuant to the tax lien is issued by a court in Oregon. Outside Oregon, the Oregon money judgment or the distaint warrant would have to be domesticated into California as a foreign judgment, which is a basically administrative process that might be possible to do without notice to you (I'm not a California law expert on these fine matters of procedure). Once there was a money judgment domesticated into California, your wages and bank accounts could be garnished, your property could be seized pursuant to writs, and liens in your personal and real property could be perfected and foreclosed upon. Of course, if this outfit is a sham, with a fake debt, this is unlikely to happen, and they might give up, or you might sue them for violating debt collection laws or engaging in fraud, or a law enforcement agency might do that based upon your complaint. It might take a civil action of some sort to set aside in invalid judgment, if it was invalid, but the process of setting aside an invalid foreign tax debt is very complicated even for an average small firm lawyer. Lack of notice of a lawsuit is generally a strong defense to a private sector debt, but is not always such a strong defense to certain kinds of tax debts (and the process for different kinds of tax debts is quite different).

If the employee has the choice - bonus and membership, or no bonus - then I expect the offer to be legal. Since it is a real bonus and part of your salary you will have to pay income tax on it. What might be illegal, but not your concern, is if your company tells investors how well the company is doing, and how well the membership scheme is doing, when in reality 80% of members are employees paying effectively nothing.

The relevant legislation is the Employment Act 1996, but in plainer language ACAS describe that they can make deductions for the following reasons: the employee's contract specifically allows the deduction it was agreed in writing beforehand they overpaid the employee by mistake it’s required by law, for example Income Tax or a court order the employee missed work because you were on strike or taking industrial action The first two provide pretty wide latitude into what they can make deductions for so long as it's in the contract/a written agreement The employer can't make deductions that would result in your wage dropping below minimum wage except in the following circumstances: tax or National Insurance something the employee has done which their contract says they’re liable for, such as damage to a vehicle through reckless driving repayment of a loan or advance wages an overpayment made to the employee made by mistake buying shares, other securities or share options in the business accommodation provided to the employee – find out more about accommodation deductions on GOV.UK something the employee uses – for example union subscriptions or pension contributions I'm not sure if it matters whether the employer is a private individual or a company Nope - for these purposes an employer is an employer To look at your specific examples: but assume that the employee is not doing a very good job No.. incompetence can get you sacked or fired - but it can't get your wages docked. At least not unless there was some performance-related-pay element to your wages already in the contract. But that would be difficult, it would have to be quantifiable. There's a reason why such structures typically have a base salary with performance-related elements paid as bonuses, because it's easier to simply not pay extra if thresholds aren't met than it is to deduct from a base wage. snoozing on the job Again not unless that was specified in advance - and that would be an oddly specific thing to include. Most likely they'd just get fired, in the majority of employment scenarios taking unauthorized sleeps on the job is going into Gross Negligence territory if there's a pattern. taking personal phone calls Taking personal calls is something that's more likely to be covered by a contract or company policy - but again it's more likely to lead to disciplinary action or sacking than wages being docked. You'd have to get into measuring how much time was lost in order to dock the appropriate amount etc. late into work You'd think this would be a slam dunk - you're late and therefore not meeting your contractual obligations. But in reality the same requirements as above apply - there needs to be explicit agreement in advance of the deduction in either your contract or other written consent for an employer to dock wages. It's probably more common than the other examples for such a provision to exist, but it still needs to be there.

I am not a lawyer. I am not your lawyer. The Labour Program has issued an interpretation on the definition of "wages", and specifically includes commission. In section 166: “wages” « salaire » “wages” includes every form of remuneration for work performed but does not include tips and other gratuities; and in Section 183: “vacation pay” « indemnité de congé annuel » “vacation pay” means four per cent or, after six consecutive years of employment by one employer, six per cent of the wages of an employee during the year of employment in respect of which the employee is entitled to the vacation; And assuming that the employer and employee are, in fact, in an employee-employer relationship, it is likely that he/she will be entitled to 4% of the wages during the year of employment, including commission.

What legal options do I have here? It depends on how much you are owed. If it is less than $5000 (in a city court) you can sue them in small claims. If it is more than that, you'll have to sue them in a different court. Do I have a claim to salary if I quit? Yes, absolutely. You quitting does not relieve the business of its obligation to pay you for work you have already performed. In some states, they may also be required to pay you for accrued leave (sick/vacation time). You should not have to work for a company that does not pay you, we got rid of slavery a long time ago. I'm nearly positive I would not have a claim to the 100% discretionary bonus. Maybe, maybe not. This depends on your contract and what you've been told. If you were told (in writing) that you would be given $X amount for a bonus for work performed in 2018, the bonus may no longer be discretionary because the company obligated themselves to pay it via a promise. Bonuses may be harder to argue in court, but if you have sufficient documentation that you were promised this bonus then you may have a claim to it. If you do decide to go to court with this, gather up as much documentation as you can before quitting, print it out and save it to bring to court or to your lawyer. Make sure to get as much as possible, for example if it is an email, get the whole chain, as much of the headers as possible, etc. If you have voicemails, see if you can save them or record them for later. Do not wait too long, have a lawyer draft up a demand letter the moment you quit outlining exactly everything you are owed, including the bonus, vacation, sick days, etc. Deliver this via certified mail. Don't let them say "well we'll get you taken care of next week/month/pay day". There are statutes of limitations (I don't know what they are for NYC) but you should be making an effort to collect, not waiting on them. After you quit, they don't have an incentive to pay you anymore (even though they are legally obligated to).

Given that they told me I would get back pay and I worked conditional on that information, am I entitled to it? You are entitled to backpay in accordance with the terms you accepted from HR. The employer's refusal to pay you from October 1st is in violation of Austria's Allgemeines bürgerliches Gesetzbuch at § 860a. At this point you have fully complied with the conditions on which your continued employment was contingent. From then on, the employer's belatedness in revoking its commitment to backdate your start date to October 1st is not cognizable: Prior to your full compliance with the conditions of academic nature, there was no possible way for you to be aware of the employer's repudiation of its obligations regarding the October-December compensation. The employer's failure to timely notify you of the unilateral change is especially notorious and hard to justify. Your employment & relocation to Austria suggests that the employer had --and waived-- ample opportunity to inform you that any work you perform prior to addressing the contingent aspect will not be compensated. Even if the employer ventures with a dubious allegation of that sort, it is unlikely to survive § 1152.

The fact that you're not a native speaker of English doesn't alter the legal situation. If you literally had no understanding of English but for some reason you signed a piece of paper, then you might argue that there was no agreement in the first place, but obviously you do speak some English. Most people don't actually understand what contracts mean (on both sides). Contracts are still enforced, based on what the contract says. The move-in data is proposed, not firm, and it even indicates what the charges are if your circumstances change and the dates have to change (whereas is their circumstances change, they wouldn't have a basis for charging extra). It also does say that there will be no refund if you change your mind. So the piece of paper says "No refund". The problem seems to be that there's an "agent" whose statements you relied on, who is ultimately responsible for this problem, and s/he implied that you could get a refund. It's not clear what kind of "agent" this is (is he working for you, or for the owners?). You'd have a somewhat different legal basis depending on which it is, but you could sue someone in either event, assuming that you could actually persuade the court that you were given false information which you relied on. The statement "they will refund your money if the guy doesn't move out by the 16th" is false; the statement "they may refund your money if the guy doesn't move out by the 16th" is true. If the latter was the statement that you relied on, then you knew (or should have known) that that isn't a promise, it's just a guess, and if you read the piece of paper you know that it's a promise with no basis. So I would say it comes down to establishing what promise was made to you. Arguing that the agent "made" you sign isn't going to get you anywhere (unless you can prove actual coersion).

Which agency or government body should a tourist to Antarctica report to? When a tourist party goes to Antarctica whether part of a trip organized by a travel agency or a adventurous party going by themselves, who should them report to? Is there anything as immigration laws governing Antarctica? Does any country require that their own citizens or any person that will one day ever enter their territory as tourist or resident report any travel to Antarctica?

This has been addressed over at Travel StackExchange: Does one need a visa to visit Antarctica? and Non-AT country citizen visiting Antarctica by non-AT country registred vessel (yacht) — do I need a permit and why? To summarize and expand on those two links: If your home country is a signatory of the Antarctic Treaty, or your expedition departs from such a country, or your ship is registered in such a country, you generally will require a permit from the appropriate authorities in that country in order to visit. These are needed so that these countries can comply with Article VII.5 of said treaty: Each Contracting Party shall, at the time when the present Treaty enters into force for it, inform the other Contracting Parties, and thereafter shall give them notice in advance, of (a) all expeditions to and within Antarctica, on the part of its ships or nationals, and all expeditions to Antarctica organized in or proceeding from its territory; ... In general, cruise ships that travel to Antarctica will take care of these permits for their passengers. However, if you are traveling by private vessel, you will need to apply for such a permit in the pertinent country or countries. If, on the other hand, you are neither a citizen of, traveling on a vessel registered in, or departing from a country that is a signatory of the Antarctic Treaty, it is basically terra nullius for you. You can travel there without any permission whatsoever. It is, however, not recommended. Note also that most of the countries that are in any way "close" to Antartica are signatories to the treaty. I suppose you could leave from Madagascar or Namibia if you really wanted to avoid getting a permit. Edit: The laws that govern actions in the Antarctic are individual to each country. This means that if you do something in the Antarctic that you shouldn't have done, and your expedition is for whatever reason governed by one of the AT signatories, it is up to the law enforcement officials of that country to prosecute you. As an example, let's take Canada. As part of the ratification of the Antarctic Treaty system, Canada enacted the Antarctic Environmental Protection Act. The laws in this act require any Canadians or Canadian vessels visiting Antarctica to acquire a permit; prohibit mining; prohibit activities that harm or disturb native plants or animals; prohibit damaging historic sites; and regulate many other things as well. Penalties for violating these laws include fines up to 2,000,000 CAD for individuals and up to 12,000,000 CAD for corporations. Individuals can also be imprisoned for up to five years. (These are the maximum penalties for second & further offenses; penalties for first offenses are generally lower.)

It is illegal to threaten to report a person for violating the law (it is illegal to threaten a person). There are laws in California that limit official cooperation with ICE investigations, therefore the police will not arrest a person for being an illegal immigrant. This is basically a limit on use of state and local resources, and the state has the power to control its purse strings. The state has no power to mandate that individuals not report a suspected or imagined violation of federal law to federal authorities, and there is no California law purporting to have that power.

You don't need to "report" it to anyone in the US or do anything else. The US doesn't have any national registry of marriage. Any marriage or divorce conducted anywhere in the world is automatically recognized anywhere in the US (with some exceptions like polygamous marriages); the same is true in many other countries. How does the U.S. find out, for tax or insurance purposes? Obviously there's a little box that says [] Married but how would they know if I lied if I'm not registered in the United States? They don't, and don't need to. (The same is true for marriages in the US -- they don't directly "know".) You are required to use an appropriate filing status for your marriage status at the end of the year for each year's tax returns. If you don't, you are committing fraud. There are lots of things that you can intentionally lie about on tax returns, and they may not immediately "find out"; but when they do, you are in big trouble. Am I legally required to report it when I return? No. Would the Canadian/provincial government inform the U.S./state government? No.

It is possible in principle, in the US, under the Bureau of Prison Treaty Transfer program, so that one could serve your time in Australia for example -- but not New Zealand, which isn't part of a bilateral or multilateral treaty with the US: here is the list. Canada and Australia are on the list via the Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons. New Zealand is (by choice) not a participant.

What you're asking about is extraterritorial jurisdiction, and it will depend on the country and crime(s) involved. As an example, under Australian law, it is a crime to engage in sexual activities with minors barring specific exemptions, which are not relevant to this example. There are countries where the age of majority is less than that in Australia. If you were to travel to this country, you are not necessarily committing a crime there. However, Australia's sex tourism laws make it a crime to do this anywhere in the world. This is enacted (I believe) under the foreign affairs power of the Commonwealth Government. It will largely depend on the legal system of your country, as to whether laws have extraterritorial effect. In general, however, laws do not have extraterritorial effect unless explicitly stated.

The territorial scope of the GDPR is defined in Article 3. It covers "personal data of data subjects who are in the Union", whether they are EU citizens or not. So to answer your questions: 1) are EU users, but moved to USA a few years ago, and signed-up on my website? They are not in the EU, so are not covered. You don't need to know if someone is an EU citizen, just if they are currently in the EU. 2) went for holidays in USA, signed-up on my website, and then came back to EU? (note - potentially skipped any Consent questions at sign-up, because IP was from USA) If someone moves into the EU while using your service then they fall under the GDPR for the time they are in the EU. If their home address is in the EU then that is covered, and monitoring of their behaviour while in the EU is also covered. Your other two questions are about VPNs. If a VPN is used to evade IP address geolocation and you have no other clue about where someone is then you can't be blamed for not knowing where they are (although I'm not aware of any actual case law on this topic). But if someone with a USA IP address gives a home address in the EU then you should probably treat them as being in the EU to be on the safe side. Basically, if you don’t know if they are in the EU or not, you should treat them as if they were.

Does this mean all countries law applies to it? Basically yes. If the videos are in english and are about science in general does this mean if some country some day bans ( imprisonment ) science videos or use of a specific colour in videos can they extraterritorialy enforce this imprisonment if they are in some other country like USA or India? With respect to criminal cases, only if it can arrest that person or convince another country to arrest and extradite that person. Generally speaking, countries will only extradite someone if it is a serious offense under the domestic laws of the country of arrest as well as the country requesting that the person be handed over, and also only if the crime occurred in or was targeted at the requesting country. Sometimes the arrest is not legal in the place where it is made. For example, in this case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court (the quote is from the official syllabus to the case): Respondent, a citizen and resident of Mexico, was forcibly kidnapped from his home and flown by private plane to Texas, where he was arrested for his participation in the kidnapping and murder of a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent and the agent's pilot. After concluding that DEA agents were responsible for the abduction, the District Court dismissed the indictment on the ground that it violated the Extradition Treaty between the United States and Mexico (Extradition Treaty or Treaty), and ordered respondent's repatriation. The Court of Appeals affirmed. Based on one of its prior decisions, the court found that, since the United States had authorized the abduction and since the Mexican government had protested the Treaty violation, jurisdiction was improper. Held: The fact of respondent's forcible abduction does not prohibit his trial in a United States court for violations of this country's criminal laws. U.S. v. Alvarez-Machain, 504 U.S. 655 (1992). I mean can a country just bring to jail any youtuber outside its borders ( using its national language as the language of the video ) who uploads content of international appeal because of some law? If the country can manage to arrest the person, yes. There are high profile cases from Saudi Arabia where that has happened. See, e.g., here and here (a blogger and his sister arrested in Saudi Arabia, while his wife and children flee to Canada), here (journalists for Lebanese periodical arrested in Saudi Arabia in relation to years old publications) here (more journalists arrested in Saudi Arabia), here ("A male Saudi Arabian teenager has been arrested in Riyadh over a series of online videos of conversations between him and a female Californian streaming-video star that went viral."), here (Yemeni blogger), and here (Washington Post journalist tortured and killed in Saudi Arabian embassy in Turkey at the direction of a senior member of the Saudi Arabian royal family). Also can a country just hold liable for youtube's data privacy practices a youtuber outside its borders and enforce the judgement if the practices of both youtuber and their chanell and youtube is legal in their home country? A country can hold anyone liable for anything its domestic laws allow it to hold someone liable for, and can enforce that judgment against any assets it can exert power over. Some countries with similar legal systems recognize each other's court judgments widely. Countries with very different legal systems often don't recognize each other's judgements. For example, most European countries do not recognize U.S. money judgment for torts (i.e. civil wrongs such as personal injury awards). Similarly, the U.S. does not recognize most foreign defamation judgments, and does not recognize most judgments of Saudi Arabian courts. One last thing is wether inclusion of ads make a difference? Usually not. But it can matter for purposes of assertions of lawsuit liability over someone outside the jurisdiction seeking to impose liability for something that harmed someone in their country. If conduct amounts to "doing business" in the country seeking to impose liability or amounts to a "purposeful availment" of the laws of the country seeking to impose liability in some why, an imposition of extraterritorial liability is more likely, and that tends to happen more in cases where there are ads that are commercial targeting the people of the country where the courts seek to impose liability.

The short answer is, in absence of a treaty or convention governing travel, then the law of the country over which the plane is located governs for the time the plane is in overflight. Laws of a jurisdiction (a country, or a state) are generally taken to extend upward from their boundaries (and downward for the control of mineral rights, etc.). There are a number of jurisdictional cases where service of process (presenting a defendant with a copy of citation starting a civil suit) or an arrest has taken place on-board aircraft where the action had to take place over a given country or state to invoke jurisdiction. As mentioned in the first sentence, there is nothing to prevent countries for entering into a Treaty or agreement that would alter the basic scheme, but absent a treaty or convention, the basic scheme of boundary extension would apply.

How do I promote my idea using a video without the risk of it being copied? I plan to create a video to promote my idea for an app. Quite similar to how Google's Pokemon Challenge Video turned into Pokemon Go. I would like people to see how my app would look like and how it can be used when it is finished. I guess I am a little paranoid on people actually copying my idea. Do I have to get a copyright for my idea or can I do something else?

Ideas are not subject to copyright protection. See 17 USC 102: In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work If you want protection, keep your ideas to yourself and create a concrete expression in the form of a program, which is protected by copyright.

In Australia at least I am not sure that the usage you describe has ever been legal. The University of Melbourne Copyright Office sets out when you may copy a television program for personal use and fair dealing for research and study. In short for personal use, you may: use any format you like - if you can find a working VCR; go for it. Not lend or sell the material; it must be for your own private use. This means you must be there when it is displayed and it must be in a private place. For example, you can invite friends to your place or go to a friends place and watch it together. The thing you are copying must be legal - you must have bought the original, have a current pay TV subscription (at time of recording) or it must be a free-to-air broadcast.

There are multiple issues with what you are trying to do, including issues with copyright, personality rights, and data protection. You are trying to use other people's content and likeness for your advertisement. Unless you are certain that you can do this in your relevant jurisdictions, without their consent, this sounds like a very bad idea. At least under GDPR, “but they made it public” is not an excuse. Personal data is personal data regardless of how you acquire it. The GDPR also has a very broad concept of identifiability that goes beyond direct identifiers or PII. If you want to use other people's personal data, you need a legal basis, and must provide them notice about your processing. Consent (informed opt-in) is one legal basis, legitimate interest (opt-out) another. You are suggesting to avoid this by blurring PII, but you may also have to blur other content that is indirectly identifiable. Real anonymization that meets the GDPR's definition is a really hard problem. In some cases, a legitimate interest is able to avoid such problems. E.g. if I make a video with commentary about a Tweet, it would likely be OK to show surrounding personal data like the responses including the identities of the various accounts, to the degree that this is relevant to the commentary and/or necessary for proper attribution. However, that commentary likely has strong protections under freedom of expression. At least from an European viewpoint, a tutorial, demo, or advertisement would not have a freedom of expression argument that would shift a GDPR legitimate interest balancing test in your favour. Instead of blurring almost everything in your video or working on GDPR compliance, content licenses, and release forms, you should consider a different solution: create dummy content just for your videos. You can use your own content, and maybe add a dummy profile.

What is the legality of someone putting a virtual hot spot on your property without permission? I know we are in uncharted territory but how would this compare to setting up a contest that would require going on your property without permission? The existence of a game does not authorise entrance to private property, barring some agreement with the owner. That is - if it is trespassing without Pokemon Go (or, for that matter Ingress), then it is trespassing while playing them. That being said, the creators of the game are free to place their in-game targets anywhere they please, and it is hard to imagine a scenario where they would be liable for their users' actions, unless they have not taken reasonable steps to prevent their users from doing so - Niantic clearly instruct their users to respect the law and also, only require that their users be within a certain distance of these points, not actually be at them. Is it currently legal to say Go to person X house and touch a tree? If not, does the current law extend to augmented reality? Nope, unless it can be done without entering private property (which includes the airspace above the property, to some extent). And there are no special cases for augmented reality. Now, there is some possibility that if they create a private nuisance - by being too loud, or by otherwise interfering with the use of the property - owners of a property could bring a claim in tort against players for doing so - or charges for a public nuisance, when done in a public area.

It would be terribly risky for you to simply link another company's terms of service. What if they take their server down? What if they change their terms? You would not even know when exactly the changes were made. Copying their terms means you might run into copyright issues on the text. Either pay a lawyer to write your ToS for you, or see if you can find something in the public domain.

Copyright is hard. The movie has a copyright, and so has its ship model. This is the original copyright. The boardgame has a token. That thing has its own copyright, no matter if it's a parody of another thing or not. The copyright holder might not be the boardgame maker, but it is under copyright. In any way, parody is fair use, so no harm here. The model has a copyright, but also infringes on the film's copyright as it is a derivative of the film. If the film copyright holder wants, they can have it taken down and sue the maker. In any way, this model is available under a specific license. The model license is clearly Non Commercial. The CC-A-NC license can't be changed to one that is commercial. You can only add more No categories. The questions: 1 - No. Your work is a derivative work of both the model AND the boardgame. You don't parody the boardgame. 2 - You need a license from not one but at least two sources: the model author and the boardgame copyright holder. You might even need a license from the original film company. 3 - YES. He made the model, he can license it as he wants, but the license might be ineffective: He might have coverage under an explicit fan license with the movie company to make the model (allowing sharing under such other license) or not (when it might be silent acceptance of fan works, am implicit license or just plain lack of knowledge of the infringing model) - determining if the company wants to pursue is not your legal battle. Your battle is more likely with the copyright holder (of movie and boardgame) anyway because you lack a valid license from them. "I used this infringing model and breached the license I got it under" is... a very precarious point in court. 4 - No. You used the other work, you can't get out of the CC-A-NC license by altering the item. It'll always be a derivative work of the model you put in. You only get copyright in the changes. The resulting item has shared copyright with the original model maker. He gave you a license to do that, but the unbreakable condition unless you get a different license is: You can't ever sell this, you HAVE to tell them that I was part of this design.

This may well be infringement, but I agree that you should start by reaching out to the instructor. You don't want to pay a lawyer if the matter can be be adjusted peacefully. In the US there is a special limited exemption to copyright for "use in classroom instruction" which might apply in such a case. I am not sure if there is a similar provision in Canadian copyright law. But the instructor is likely to change his practice if you notify him of your objection, even if he has the technical right to use the photo. At least it is worth finding out. If he won't, then you can always consult a lawyer.

Under the DMCA(United States Federal Law: Digital Millennium Copyright Act) and its Safe Harbor provisions, yes, Youtube is protected from copyright claims, provided they comply when they receive a notice. But....the DMCA that gives Youtube (and its parent company Google/Alphabet) this shield is US law, but Youtube does large amounts of business in other countries, making it liable in those countries, which don't necessarily have the same protections. Case-in-point, the EU. Under some other nation's law, Youtube may be liable for infringement if they wait to be notified. Alternatively, part of the agreement that was being hammered out between Youtube and the content companies might very well be some sort of indemnity agreement, that protects Youtube from the content companies so long as they uphold their end of the agreement. Additionally, even if Youtube isn't liable for the copyright infringement itself, since they serve ads on such videos, they could conceivably be sued under the theory of "unjust enrichment". (Similar to the logic that the EU is currently trying to get Google to pay their "link tax" for Google News on). There are also non-legal considerations to consider: Benefit to Self: Youtube is now selling/renting copyrighted content such as movies and TV shows as well. By becoming a distributor, it's in their interest to not also allow free versions of what they are selling on their platform. Cost-to-implement: As Ron Beyer points out, a call center/email center/mail room to receive the DMCA notices would be an enormous cost. What's more, it's a continuous, recurring and likely-growing cost. Youtube/Google is also not short on software engineers. It's much cheaper to pull some devs off of their current project for a couple days, implement a solution and call it a day, with occasional maintenance, especially as they are going to be paying those engineers' salaries anyway. Business Relationships: Youtube/Google make most of their money from advertising (and off of user data, but that is often tied to advertising in the other direction). The content companies are often their customers. Angering your customers is generally not a good idea. Ultimate Desires/Future View:Youtube doesn't care about the lost content. They don't care about the fight. If the copyrighted material is blocked, their users are far more likely to find something else than leave the site; if the material is blocked before uploading, most users won't even realize it was ever there. As such, Youtube doesn't care if copyrighted content is blocked, as that is not their main market.

What happens to early votes if a candidate dies prior to the election? If I absentee/early vote for a candidate in early October but that candidate dies prior to the November 2nd election, what happens to my vote? Do I get to vote over? Does that vote go to the VP candidate? Does my vote go to the new candidate chosen by the party? I've looked at the 20th amendment but it only makes mention of "president-elect". President-elect in my understanding means that candidate has already been elected in the general election on Nov. 2nd. Is there any case law?

You don't vote directly for candidates. You vote for an Elector in the Electoral College. If the candidate that the Elector has pledged that they will vote for dies before the Elector meets at the Electoral College, they can vote any candidate of their choice. This happened in 1912, when the Vice-Presidential candidate James Sherman died one week before the election.

I can't speak for Latvian law, but it's not unusual for someone to be expelled from or denied entry to a political party in the UK for supporting a rival party at the same time. As one example, Alasdair Campbell was expelled from the Labour Party after he admitted voting for a rival party in elections. From that link, Labour Party rules say that someone "who joins and/or supports a political organisation other than an official Labour group or other unit of the Party" will "automatically be ineligible to be or remain a Party member". So it's not about voting, which is secret, but about supporting a rival party. Similarly, at least one member has been expelled from Labour for supporting the Scottish National Party on social media. Such decisions may have an element of the political (using it as a pretext to getting rid of someone you don't like). But there is no suggestion that such an action is illegal, if it is in the party rules. Political parties have a lot of discretion as to who is allowed to be a member, and who they expel. It's not like buying a gym membership where you are entitled to gym services or your money back; legally you sign an agreement to follow the rules when you join, and joining doesn't entitle you to much.

House Rule XI(m), p. 19, states the power of committees and subcommittees to issue subpoenas. (1)…a committee or sub-committee is authorized (subject to subparagraph (3)(A)) …to require, by subpoena or otherwise, the attendance and testimony of such witnesses… (3)(A)(i) Except as provided in sub-division (A)(ii), a subpoena may be authorized and issued by a committee or subcommittee under subparagraph (1)(B) in the conduct of an investigation or series of investigations or activities only when authorized by the committee or subcommittee, a majority being present. A subcommittee could therefore authorize the chair of the subcommittee to issue subpoenas with no vote at all. Otherwise, the (sub)committee must "authorize" a subpoena, which conventionally means "vote on the motion". There is no requirement that the entire house must vote on subpoenas. There is no question that POTUS did not obey the demand of the House subcommittee. The argument that will most likely be proffered is not that the House violated its rules, but that the House rules exceed constitutional authority in issuing the subpoena. As pointed out in this analysis, this is not a well-established and settled question of constitutional law. There is no rule that requires a full House vote on all subcommittee rules established by a subcommittee that forwards articles of impeachment to the full House. That is, a subcommittee does not have to get prior approval of the full House in order for a subcommittee to conduct business and recommend an action to the full house. Instead, the House simply votes yes or no on the particular articles, following the rules for House votes.

Yes Presidential pardons only deal with breaches of Federal law. So, if the punishment is a fine then that penalty is waived. However, if the fine is punishment for breach of state law, the pardon does not touch it - he would need a pardon from the relevant state Governor(s). But Anthony Levandowski is not being punished with a fine, he was punished with a jail term. What he owes Google is damages for breach of contract or a tort, both civil matters and almost certainly under California law, not a punishment for an offence. This is not something he can be pardoned for by a President (if under Federal law which is unlikely) or a Governor (if under state law). His actions constituted both an offence against the state, which can be pardoned, and caused damage to another person (Google) which can’t. He owes this money as a debt just as if he had bought something from them or borrowed money from them.

united-states What is the process for an ordinary citizen to get a national referendum on the ballot? It can't be done. There are no national referendums in the United States and there is no means by which they can be held. Many states individually provide for state initiatives, referendums, and recall votes (and sometimes even local ones), but this doesn't exist at the national level. On rare occasions, Congress passes a law calling for a referendum on terms of its choosing in territory outside of any U.S. state, usually on the issue of whether that state shall become a state or otherwise change its legal status. The most recent one was in Puerto Rico. These also cannot be proposed or placed on the ballot by ordinary citizens, and are sometimes binding, but sometimes only advisory in nature. Can ordinary citizens propose national referendums? No. Is there any history of ordinary citizens getting national referendums on the ballot? No.

The 24th Amendment states: Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax. Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. But, no one in incarcerated in prison (and hence loses the right to vote) merely for failing to pay taxes. Usually, one is incarcerated in prison on tax charges for fraud in connection with one's tax obligation which is different from failure to pay. (A misdemeanor conviction does not result in the loss of an ability to vote, even while in jail.) Refusal to pay, on grounds other than lacking the money (inability to pay isn't a criminal offense), when done without full compliance with other tax return filing obligations, is tantamount to tax litigation abuse and abuse of process, not mere failure to pay a debt.

The constitution does not actually forbid "abusing a position for financial gain", and thus it is left to the political process to address any such actions (voting for a different candidate), or the legislative process (defining certain acts as forbidden) – or, the impeachment process. The court system in the US does not have the power to decide on their own what politicians can and can't do, if there is no underlying law. It is within congressional power to define limits on the act of any politician, for example Congress could pass a law requiring the President and Vice-President to have no business interests or stocks during their term of office; they could require that of cabinet members or members of Congress. Such a law would, of course, either require presidential approval or else sufficient support in the houses of congress to override a veto. There are various limits on what government folks can do. 18 USC 202(c) is an example of a limit on the limits: Except as otherwise provided in such sections, the terms “officer” and “employee” in sections 203, 205, 207 through 209, and 218 of this title shall not include the President, the Vice President, a Member of Congress, or a Federal judge It is possible that a president could engage in a criminal act such as theft, and that is not permitted and would be grounds for impeachment. The president does not, however, have the power to e.g. unilaterally send all government hotel business to a certain hotel company, nor can he declare that 10% of all government expenditures must be deposited in his personal bank account, so the mechanisms whereby corrupt rules of certain other nations can get away with that is that those executives have vastly more power in their countries than POTUS does. With congressional support, though, such acts could come about. If it did, it would not be too surprising if SCOTUS ruled based on common law and considerations of justice that such a law / act was illegal, but it would not be a textualist argument.

Analysis. This question has never been squarely resolved by case law. An analysis would look to the U.S. Constitution (the pertinent parts of which are restated below) and case law under it, to determine if Congress has the authority to enact such a law or not including whether laws currently on the books affect it. Caucuses and primaries are used by political parties as part of their process for determining their Presidential nominees, and the only constitutional acknowledgement that they exist, or are subject to federal regulation is in the 24th Amendment. Political parties also have a 1st Amendment freedom of association interest in choosing their nominees as they see fit, subject to reasonable regulation in an area of law that is not well spelled out in case law. On the the other hand, caucuses and primaries are government regulated, mostly at the state level, because their results have an officially recognized role in Presidential elections under state laws regulating elections for Presidential electors, and primaries are generally conducted at state expense by state and local government officials, rather than by political parties acting autonomously. And, states have wide expressly granted discretion regarding how they conduct Presidential elector elections subject to the authority of Congress to prohibit various kinds of discrimination in the conduct of elections and to set the date of Presidential elections (a right that Congress has chosen not to strictly enforce allowing early voting, for example). New Hampshire does have the authority to say what a political party must do to have its nominee recognized on its general election Presidential ballot, and when it will conduct its state primaries. But, it does not necessarily have the power to determine whether or to what extent a national political party will consider the results of that primary in the process of selecting its nominee for President. The Democratic party, for example, would probably be within its rights to award no delegates to its national convention based upon New Hampshire's primary election participants based upon the New Hampshire primary election, and to instead award New Hampshire delegates solely as "superdelegates" who serve ex-officio, or based solely upon an entirely privately funded and operated Presidential caucus it held in New Hampshire at a date of its choosing. The flip side is that New Hampshire might be within its rights, probably, to decline to put a Democratic party national convention chosen nominee on its Presidential elector ballots, a retaliation, although arguably that would deny the rights of its citizens to vote in the Presidential election over which the federal government has more regulatory authority. The exact details of any situation leading to litigation would matter a lot, and it isn't possible to predict with any great certainty how a challenge would come out, although it is possible to articulate what provisions of the U.S. Constitution (and with more research, what court cases (maybe a dozen or two are arguably pertinent), federal statutes and state statutes) would be pertinent to the decision. It is possible to advocate for an outcome within the range of legally relevant authority, but, in practice, a negotiated compromise that would not push up against the hard constitutional limits of the constitution, relevant statutes and cases would almost surely be reached before it came to that point. For example, while New Hampshire might arguably have the right to refuse to put the Democratic nominee on the ballot because it didn't consider the results of its first in the nation primary in choosing its nominee, I very much doubt that New Hampshire officials would actually go that far, if push came to shove. On the other hand, if Congress passed a law stating that the District of Columbia shall hold the first in the nation primary, as it is probably expressly authorized to do under the 23rd Amendment, that federal law would probably pre-empt New Hampshire's law on the point. Relevant Provisions Of The U.S. Constitution As Amended Article I, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution might be relevant. It states: The times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing Senators. Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution might be pertinent, it states in the pertinent part that: The Congress shall have power . . . To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof. Even more directly, Article II, Section 1 which states, in part, that: The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his office during the term of four years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same term, be elected, as follows: Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector. . . The Congress may determine the time of choosing the electors, and the day on which they shall give their votes; which day shall be the same throughout the United States. Article VI states in the pertinent part that: This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding. The 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution might apply. It states: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. The 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution might apply. It states: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. Sections 1, 2, and 5 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution might apply. These sections state: Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. . . . Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state. . . . Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. The 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution might apply. It states: Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution might apply. It states: The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. The 23rd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution might apply. It states: Section 1. The District constituting the seat of government of the United States shall appoint in such manner as the Congress may direct: A number of electors of President and Vice President equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a state, but in no event more than the least populous state; they shall be in addition to those appointed by the states, but they shall be considered, for the purposes of the election of President and Vice President, to be electors appointed by a state; and they shall meet in the District and perform such duties as provided by the twelfth article of amendment. Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. The 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which is the only one expressly recognizing the existence of primary elections, might apply. It states: Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax. Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. The 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution might apply. It states: Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States, who are 18 years of age or older, to vote, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of age. Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. Collectively, these sections of the U.S. Constitution give the federal government considerable legislative authority to regulate state elections for federal offices.

When does the government charge for fraud I was just curious, how often does the government actually prosecute cases of fraud in court? Are there parameters that they usually follow when deciding to take a case to court?

"Fraud" is a broad term. In the first 9 months of Fiscal Year 2015, the US Government prosecuted 5173 white collar crimes, according to Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. This includes mail fraud, bank fraud, conspiracy to defraud the US, identity theft, health care fraud, wire fraud, and others (listed in the link). Federal prosecutors have a large amount of discretion in when to bring charges. See The Department of Justice Policy on Charging and Sentencing and Title 9 of US Attorney's Manual, Section 27 (Principles of Federal Prosecution). These are not laws, but internal department guidance to prosecutors that outline the factors they should consider when making charging decisions. There is quite a lot of detail in these guidelines, but at the highest level, they are summed up by this paragraph from the Attorney General's memo: Accordingly, decisions regarding charging, plea agreements, and advocacy at sentencing must be made on the merits of each case, taking into account an individualized assessment of the defendant's conduct and criminal history and the circumstances relating to commission of the offense (including the impact of the crime on victims), the needs of the communities we serve, and federal resources and priorities. The US Attorney's Manual gives very specific guidance regarding the prosecution of various forms of fraud. For example, Title 9, Section 43 covers mail and wire fraud. Here is an excerpt: Prosecutions of fraud ordinarily should not be undertaken if the scheme employed consists of some isolated transactions between individuals, involving minor loss to the victims, in which case the parties should be left to settle their differences by civil or criminal litigation in the state courts.

Fraud may be a crime, or a tort (civil wrong): only criminal fraud can be a "felony". The Washington criminal laws about fraud are here, and they are all fairly specific, such as selling or destroying encumbered property (which is a misdemeanor anyhow), or conducting a mock auction. Most frauds are misdemeanors, though forgeries are in the felony category. It also includes identity thefts, again the emphasis being on false documents. Based on your description, this is not a crime, it is a civil wrong, meaning that she will have to sue the guy to get her money back. The Attorney General's office will not get involved unless there is a widespread state interest (for example, very many Washington residents being victimized), and then the involvement would be suing on behalf of the victims. That said, if the swindle was carried out by phone, then that is potentially a violation of a federal felony law, 18 USC 1343. It would not matter if the parties are in the same state, because phone service counts as "interstate commerce". So the details of phone involvement matter. Saying that you "have to" charge for processing a refund is not per se fraudulent and texting someone that "I'll have to charge an extra $2,000" doesn't make this wire fraud. But there is some potential for a federal wire fraud angle.

Does using the courts in this way violate any law other than the individual sanctions for improper suits? Not really. Such an organization would probably have to be classified as some form of non-profit other than a 501(c)(3) in most cases, however, since politically motivated litigation usually doesn't qualify as a charitable purpose. In particular, is there any way to go after the money being fundraised for an activity that seems on its face to be of fraudulent intent? (I.e. filing cases with 0 chances of winning just to be able to dupe people into thinking their money can be used to help win an unwinnable fight?) No really. If they took money and spent it on the personal benefit of people related to the founders that might be fraud. This is essentially what happened in a non-profit purportedly established to help pay for a border wall. But using the money for a stated purpose of the entities that outsiders see as futile is probably not fraud or a violation of state regulation of entities that are not for profit. If there was such a way, would it be the state or federal government pursuing the case, or could any private actors have standing? A state attorney general's office generally has broad supervisory standing to confirm that entities which are not "for profit" are conforming to state law and their governing documents. Donors might have private causes of action for fraud if there were fraudulent misrepresentations made to secure funding that both the state AG and the Justice Department could also enforce criminally. But, the conduct described does not appear to be fraudulent.

A warrant is never automatically issued. A warrant (I assume you mean arrest warrant) can be issued under court orders, if there is probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed. If a court orders A to pay money to B and A does not, A can be arrested. A court will not sua sponte make such an order without some petition by a harmed party. So B could sue A for the amount owed, and the burden is on B. There are criminal laws that pertain to check bouncing, for example in Washington under RCW 9a.56.060 it is a crime, but not every check-bouncing is a crime. You have to have "intent to defraud", "knowing at the time..that he or she has not sufficient funds". If convicted you will be fined, and may be imprisoned. Even in the case of a fraudulent intent, there is no automatic warrant (the police do not know what has come to pass). B does not "press charges", but they can complain to the police who may investigate and find that there is evidence of fraudulent intent (which can lead to an arrest warrant). They may also conclude that the evidence of fraud is insufficient.

It depends partly on where you are. If you're in the foreign country and they have a law compelling you to answer any questions asked by their government or some company, they you have to answer the question. Whether lying has any legal repercussions depends on the laws of the country, so you'd have to narrow it down a bit. If you're in the US, the only context where you can be compelled to answer a question is when ordered to do so in court (giving testimony), and you have 5th Amendment immunity from being forced to testify against yourself. If you are granted immunity from prosecution, then they can compel you to testify (answer the question). If a foreign entity asks you whether you are a US citizen, you can decline to answer. You can also make up any answer you want, and generally not run afoul of US law (though you could run into problems in that country). There are state and federal laws about making false statements in official investigations, which would not be applicable to what you describe. There is no general law that says you must always tell the truth. However, making a false statement could be part of the crime of fraud, so it would depend on the context of your statement, i.e. are you misrepresenting your citizenship in order to get something of value. In light of the topical update, again there may be country-specific penalties in country for lying about citizenship, and tax evasion is against the law here, which is true whether or not you lie. FATCA specifies a duty to disclose (sect. 6038d), which is not tied to truthful reporting of citizenship (in other words, there is no point in lying to the bank because non-reporting is still a crime). But: this law probably brings the lie with the scope of 18 USC 1001 ("Martha's Law"), which makes it a crime to conceal a material fact "in any matter within the jurisdiction of ...the United States". This means and has been held to mean not just that you can't lie to federal officers, you can't lie to anyone who reports your information to the federal government. FATCA also says "we don't care if it's a crime to report being an American in that country", so inconveniences certainly are not a defense.

One reason is that in a German civil suit, the cost for lawyers and for the court (court isn't free) is set according to the value that the parties are arguing about, which would be the value that one party demands, minus the value that the other party is offering to pay. Then the cost is divided between winner and loser according to the percentage of the value the claimant was awarded. So if I ask for €1,000,000 and I am rewarded €10,000 then the cost is calculated based on my €1,000,000 claim, and since I was rewarded only 1% of the claim, I'll pay 99% of the cost. The defendant will pay my €10,000 and 1% of the cost, that is my lawyers, their lawyers, and the court. With these rules, asking for the sky and then not getting much is a very, very bad strategy. On the other hand, if a huge company sues me for €10,000 then they can't snow me under with an army of lawyers: The court will get only a small amount of money for the case, so at some rather early point the judge would tell the huge company: Stop right now; I'm not paid enough money to listen to your army of lawyers.

Fraud wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain So, you knowingly deceived the US government in order to make a financial gain by not paying the right amount of tax. Sounds like fraud to me. Specific penalties for the IRS are here. Of most relevance is Title 26 USC § 7201 Attempt to evade or defeat tax: Any person who willfully attempts to evade or defeat any tax imposed by this title or the payment thereof shall, in addition to other penalties provided by law, be guilty of a felony and, upon conviction thereof: Shall be imprisoned not more than 5 years Or fined not more than $250,000 for individuals ($500,000 for corporations) Or both, together with the costs of prosecution Note that this is per offence. If you have done it for 6 years that is 6 offences so the maximum you face is 30 years and $1,500,000 plus the costs of prosecution. In practice, how bad can this get? This bad. You need a lawyer now.

If a random attorney at the direction of a judge has standing to challenge actions within executive branch jurisdiction, why didn’t a judge prosecute the banks guilty of criminal fraud leading to the 2008 financial crisis when Obama ordered the DOJ to not prosecute? This is a misunderstanding of the issue. Judge Sullivan is not "prosecuting" Mr. Flynn. Judges do not have the power to prosecute people. Instead, Sullivan (argues that he) is trying to decide whether or not to grant the government's motion to dismiss. Normally, this is a very open and shut question: If the government doesn't want to prosecute someone, then it would make no sense to try and keep the case in court, so it's typical for these dismissals to be rubber stamped. The complication in this particular case is that Mr. Flynn has already pleaded guilty. Because he was in federal court, on a federal charge, pleading guilty is a rather involved process. His plea included very explicit statements under oath about the specific conduct he allegedly committed, and that conduct directly matches up with specific required elements of the alleged crime. After Mr. Flynn had already made those statements under oath, the government told Judge Sullivan that it did not believe it had enough evidence to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. Judge Sullivan now wants to hold a hearing to determine whether he can or should believe the government, and if not, what if anything he can or should do about it. Finally, the DC Circuit issued a writ of mandamus ordering Judge Sullivan to immediately grant the dismissal. Sullivan is now appealing that order. In this sense, then, the dispute is not directly about Mr. Flynn's case, but rather about the level of discretion to which Judge Sullivan is entitled in performing his official duties. By issuing the writ, the DC Circuit necessarily determined that Judge Sullivan was not legally entitled to hold the hearing which he wanted to hold. That is what the en banc re-hearing is about.

Fences around the laws; vote swapping I don't know whether this is on topic because I'm not asking what the laws are but what the laws should be. On the 2nd thought, I can phrase it as a factual question: Is criminalizing suspiciousness constitutional? There are quite a few laws that make harmless acts criminal for the sole reason that such acts make law enforcement suspect the person of something else. Let's call such laws "fences" around the actual intents. These fences in effect circumvent the principle of presumption of innocence, and more: even if the person proves his innocence of the real cause of the fence laws they still can be found guilty of breaking the fence law. Example: it's illegal in CA (and probably most other states) to have an open container of alcohol in a motor vehicle. This is clearly a fence law around DUI law: there is no harm when a sober person drives while another one drinks in the back seat, but the driver still may be punished. Example: I was made recently aware that it's illegal to share with other people a photograph of a completed voting bulletin. Apparently even some congressmen weren't aware of that and publicly shows pictures of their votes. This is a fence against purchasing votes, although it also effectively prevents vote swapping, which is perfectly legal. It would seem that this particular fence law also interferes with the citizens' right to vote by vote swapping, which is a whole other constitutional issue. I am sure one can quote far more examples of the above. Thus the questions: Are the above "fence" laws constitutional? If so then should, in your opinion, legislature engage in creating laws for the sole purpose of circumventing presumption of innocence for the cases involving other laws? For the 2nd example in particular, is it constitutional to interfere with voting right by criminalizing the only known method for voting via vote swapping, which has been found legal by 9th circuit court a few years ago?

Ballot photos Anti-ballot-photo laws may not be constitutional. Two of them have been struck down for violating the 1st Amendment. Rideout v Gardner Case 1:14-cv-00489-PB Indiana Civil Liberties Union Foundation, Inc., d/b/a American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana v. Indiana Secretary of State, et al., Case 1:15-cv-1356-SEB-DML California's has been amended by the legislature to allow disclosure of a filled-in ballot as long as it isn't part of violating some other law (like vote buying). Open container laws Open-container laws have never been held to be unconstitutional. These are state laws, and states have broad freedom to legislate as long as they don't violate their constitution or elements of the Federal Constitution that have been incorporated by the 14th Amendment. My guess is that they would be upheld because they would pass rational basis review: they are rationally related to a legitimate government interest. Here is an example of an open-container law surviving a constitutional challenge. State are encouraged to pass open-container laws by 23 USC 154. If a state does not have an open container law, they receive less federal highway funding. This kind of condition was upheld by South Dakota v. Dole.

There is no law against lying in these circumstances. In fact, for a very modest sum, security companies sell dummy CCTV cameras to make this lie more convincing. However, trespass only happens if people have been warned so this works for literate people who speak English and see the sign. That leaves a very large group of people who would not be trespassing even with the sign. A further problem with a sign on the house is that people have no idea how far away they have to get in order to stop trespassing. In addition, legitimate visitors (uninvited or not) are not trespassers. It seems that people are coming onto your property because they are thirsty. A better way to deal with this is go to your local hardware store and replace the tap with a vandal proof tap that has a removable head. Keep that inside and put a sign next to the tap saying "Refrigerated Water $2 - knock on front door".

Not all illegal things are crimes. Lack of evidence. They are asked to testify, and they say "what I said in my book was a lie". There is no general law against lying, except when under oath. Statute of limitations. Saying "10 years ago I did smoke drugs" means that any offence is no longer prosecutable. Lack of details. Which jurisdiction were they in? When did they commit the act, how many acts? You cannot be arrested for being a "bank robber" or a "murderer". You are charged with "robbing Bank X on 123 Fake Street the Thursday 25 April 2018" or "murdering Jim Thio in January 2017". Otherwise the defendant would have a hard time defending himself (how to prove that you have not killed anyone at any time?) All of the above combined with prosecutorial discretion in the form that any possible prosecutor will most likely determine that bringing charges would be just a waste of time and resources. UPDATE February 2018: Just for the sake of completeness, a reference to the situation of Jacques Cassandri, who did boast about a serious crime(a robbery in a Societe Generale vault in 1976) in a book. Unfortunately for him, he made some kind of mistake/miscalculation and the crime had not yet expired, so he has become an example of someone being prosecuted by confessing a crime in a book.

This would be a violation of 18 USC 1361, which prohibits destruction of federal property. See also the DoJ legal notes on this crime. The act does have to be willful, so dropping a cup accidentally is not a crime. If for example the act is mustaching Obama's portrait, the damage would probably rise to the quarter-million dollar fine and 10 years in prison level. It would of course be at the discretion of the (new) DoJ whether to press charges.

It would not work. There is apparently a common misconception in Georgia that this would be the case, based on Article IX, Section II, Paragraph III (b)(1) of the Georgia constitution, which says: No county may exercise any of the powers listed in subparagraph (a) of this Paragraph [including police protection] or provide any service listed therein inside the boundaries of any municipality or any other county except by contract with the municipality or county affected. What many people miss is the clause right before that: "Unless otherwise provided by law." Georgia courts have held that the law does provide otherwise when pursuing someone for a traffic offense: The plaintiff contends that when the collision occurred, the policeman-deputy sheriff had no authority to be pursuing the Mitchell car because he was outside the county in which he had a power of arrest. While ordinarily a peace officer has power of arrest only in the territory of the governmental unit by which he was appointed, there are two exceptions to the rule present in this case. Code Ann. s 92A-509, which deals with arrests for traffic offenses, provides by implication that certain officers (including deputy sheriffs) have arrest powers for these offenses outside their appointed territories. City of Winterville v. Strickland, 127 Ga. App. 716, 718, 194 S.E.2d 623, 625 (1972). What that case decided in 1972, the principle was in place well before the boys began their hijinks. I don't know of any state where the law is different, though the answer would be different if the boys crossed into another state.

I'll use Washington state as my source, but laws will be similar in other states. RCW 9A.76.020 outlaws obstructing a law enforcement officer, which this would be: it is a gross misdemeanor. In using lethal force, you would have committed first degree murder, under RCW 9A.32.030. There is a defense that can be used, per RCW 9A.16.050, that homicide is justified when: In the lawful defense of the slayer, or his or her husband, wife, parent, child, brother, or sister, or of any other person in his or her presence or company, when there is reasonable ground to apprehend a design on the part of the person slain to commit a felony or to do some great personal injury to the slayer or to any such person, and there is imminent danger of such design being accomplished. Law enforcement officers have access to justifiable homicide defenses as well under 9A.16.040, for example (b) When necessarily used by a peace officer to overcome actual resistance to the execution of the legal process, mandate, or order of a court or officer, or in the discharge of a legal duty or (c) When necessarily used by a peace officer or person acting under the officer's command and in the officer's aid: (i) To arrest or apprehend a person who the officer reasonably believes has committed, has attempted to commit, is committing, or is attempting to commit a felony The outcome of the case would hinge in part on whether the officer's arrest and use of force was lawful. To take two extremes, if the guy on the ground had just killed a dozen people and was aiming to rack up another dozen kills, the officer's arrest would almost certainly be held to be legal and his degree of force justified. Your personal belief that the suspect was compliant and unarmed might be refuted by the facts. On the other hand, if the guy on the ground had slept with the officer's sister and the officer wanted to rid the world of this vermin, then the arrest and force would almost certainly be held to be not legal. It can be legal to use deadly force to resist unlawful arrest. See John Bad Elk v. United States, 177 U.S. 529, where the court held that if a party resisted arrest by an officer without warrant, and who had no right to arrest him, and if, in the course of that resistance, the officer was killed, the offence of the party resisting arrest would be reduced from what would have been murder, if the officer had had the right to arrest, to manslaughter The court also said where the officer is killed in the course of the disorder which naturally accompanies an attempted arrest that is resisted, the law looks with very different eyes upon the transaction when the officer had the right to make the arrest from what it does if the officer had no such right. What might be murder in the first case might be nothing more than manslaughter in the other, or the facts might show that no offense had been committed. This ruling has been somewhat eroded, in US v. Simon: We recognize that law enforcement officers are frequently called on to make arrests without warrants and should not be held, so far as their personal security is concerned, to a nicety of distinctions between probable cause and lack of probable cause in differing situations of warrantless arrests. It is for this reason we believe that the force of John Bad Elk has been diminished The upshot of this is that (assuming no warrant), leeway is granted to officers in assessing probable cause (I'm not sure anybody really knows at a general conceptual level what constitutes "probable cause". The court seems to imply that the remote hearsay used as the basis for the arrest would not have been sufficient for a warrant, but it was "reasonable grounds" for believing accused had committed a crime). Your premise that the officer is about to shoot would have to be substantiated by some fact, such as a declaration "I'm gonna kill you". Otherwise, your belief that the officer was about to commit unjustified murder would itself be unjustified. With better fleshing out of the circumstances, you could manufacture a justified-homicide scenario.

In Wisconsin, right after the perjury law, they have a law prohibiting "false swearing". It applies if a person: Makes or subscribes 2 inconsistent statements under oath or affirmation or upon signing a statement pursuant to s. 887.015 in regard to any matter respecting which an oath, affirmation, or statement is, in each case, authorized or required by law or required by any public officer or governmental agency as a prerequisite to such officer or agency taking some official action, under circumstances which demonstrate that the witness or subscriber knew at least one of the statements to be false when made. The period of limitations within which prosecution may be commenced runs from the time of the first statement. So even if they couldn't actually get you for perjury, they could get you for violating this law. Perjury and false swearing are both class H felonies, so you can expect the same punishment. I am going to guess that the existence of this law suggests that it was needed to cover what would otherwise be a loophole in the perjury law, but I can't say for sure.

This was asked and answered by KPD on the Politics stackexchange. This issue came up in a decision from an appeals court, with a judge dying before the opinion was released, leading to the following SCOTUS opinion. The short of the answer: that Judge's vote is voided. If the result of negating the deceased Justice's vote is a 4-4 tie, then the usual procedure for a 4-4 tie is invoked, which is addressed in the Q&A you link. Of course this assumes that SCOTUS will apply this to themselves, but the issue appears to be non-controversial, as it was a fairly recent decision with no dissents noted. So this assumption seems safe.

Does reciting of Pledge of Allegiance in public schools voilate the 1st Amendment? The Pledge of Allegiance is commonly recited in public (and most private) schools in the USA. Does the current practice of reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools violate the 1st Amendment?

The First Amendment does not guarantee a right to not be offended. However, as held in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943), it does prohibit compelled speech, and a person cannot be compelled to recite the pledge. The basis is not religion: this is a general prohibition on what the government can do. ("Parental consent" comes through the school informing parents of the right to not recite the pledge, and a parent who objects will tell their child to not recite the pledge, thus consent is implicit for those parents whose children do recite -- unless the child's actions don't reflect the parents' intent).

How is banning such events constitutional with the freedom of assembly? The rights created by the First Amendment are not absolute. They are subject to reasonable restrictions as to time, place and manner, especially if those restrictions are content neutral. Restrictions narrowly tailored to protect against genuine threats public health and safety fall within the exception of the First Amendment even if they are not strictly content neutral, that is commonly described by the rubric that you don't have a right to falsely cry "fire" in a crowded theater (causing a riot that could harm people). For example, suppose that a rope bridge over a deep gorge can only support the weight of ten people, and three dozen people want to hold a protest there. A regulation that prohibited more than ten people from engaging in the protest would be constitutional. Even then, however, a lack of content neutrality (e.g., restricting punishment to false statements likely to incite a riot) can't also be a lack of ideological neutrality (e.g. restricting punishment to anti-Catholic but not anti-Jewish statements likely to incite a riot). If it were a political protest/gathering would this change? Generally speaking political protest/gatherings are still subject to content neutral regulations of time, place or manner, and those narrowly tailored to protect genuine threats public health and safety. So, for example, if there is a genuine COVID-19 risk that public health officials are trying to address, and the regulation of gatherings is not viewpoint or content based, it would be upheld as constitutional in the face of a First Amendment freedom of assembly limitation. But, if the regulation applied, for example, only to Republican and not Democratic party protests or gatherings, which is a viewpoint or content based restriction, it would not survive a First Amendment freedom of assembly challenge.

The First Amendment essentially prohibits the establishment of a list of approved vs. not-approved religions. There is a large body of First Amendment case law that relates to claimed religious beliefs, and the restriction that the government cannot prohibit a person from exercising their religious beliefs. The courts therefore avoid bright-line answers to the question. You can look at Friedman v. Southern Cal. Permanente for an example where a court found that a belief is not a religious belief, finding that veganism is not a "religious creed" within the meaning of the California Fair Employment and Housing Act. Plaintiff was told to get a mumps vaccination (which involves chicken embryo) as a condition of employment, refused, and the offer of employment was refused. The law, §12940a makes it unlawful "because of the religious creed of any person, to refuse to hire or employ the person...". Subdivision (l) says that Religious belief or observance, as used in this section, includes, but is not limited to, observance of a Sabbath or other religious holy day or days, reasonable time necessary for travel prior and subsequent to a religious observance, and religious dress practice and religious grooming practice as described in subdivision (q) of Section 12926. §12296(q) further contributes a definition of religious terms: “Religious creed,” “religion,” “religious observance,” “religious belief,” and “creed” include all aspects of religious belief, observance, and practice, including religious dress and grooming practices. “Religious dress practice” shall be construed broadly to include the wearing or carrying of religious clothing, head or face coverings, jewelry, artifacts, and any other item that is part of an individual observing a religious creed. “Religious grooming practice” shall be construed broadly to include all forms of head, facial, and body hair that are part of an individual observing a religious creed. The Fair Employment and Housing Commission then created a regulation California Code of Regulations, title 2, section 7293.1 that defines "religious creed" ‘Religious creed’ includes any traditionally recognized religion as well as beliefs, observations, or practices which an individual sincerely holds and which occupy in his or her life a place of importance parallel to that of traditionally recognized religions. The court notes that religious creed extends beyond traditionally recognized religions to encompass beliefs, observations, or practices occupying a parallel place of importance “to that of traditionally recognized religions” in an individual's life. The court then points to the leading cases from the Supreme Court related to deciding what a religion is: US v. Seeger, 380 U.S. 163 and Welsh v. US, 398 U.S. 333. And the court points out that government agencies are granted wide latitude in interpreting enabling legislation (under which the government might allow or disallow an action). It us noted that as of 2002, there were no California cases deciding what constitutes a religious creed w.r.t. FEHA and that regulation. The court then recited various statements from other California cases regarding the characterization of a religion – the main relevant point is that a religion does not have to be theistic to be a "religion". The court also reviews federal employment discrimination laws, and again considers the difference between traditional and non-traditional religions. There are many snippets in the review of the law section saying things such as that the court should find beliefs to be a religion if they ‘occupy the same place in the life of the [individual] as an orthodox belief in God holds in the life of one clearly qualified.’ We can now move to the question in §6, Is Veganism a Religious Creed For Purposes of the FEHA. This court states that The test we apply is that set forth in Judge Adams's concurring opinion in Malnak which has been adopted by the Third, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits which they say presents the best objective method for answering the question whether a belief plays the role of a religion and functions as such in an individual's life At this point, we can't reasonably guess how some individual would object on religious grounds to the vaccination mandate, but we do at least know what aspects of the law would be relevant and where the "rules" are laid down. Until someone actually alleges that they have a religious belief that prohibits vaccination, we can't analyze those arguments. The gist of the "veganism is not a religion" is it is too narrow a belief to constitute a religious belief. The court found that did not find that it is a "belief system (which) addresses fundamental or ultimate questions", and that it does not a address fundamental questions such as "the meaning of human existence; the purpose of life; theories of humankind's nature or its place in the universe; matters of human life and death; or the exercise of faith".

The First Amendment does indeed guarantee the freedom to express any idea or viewpoint, the limitation being incitement to immediate lawless action, recently reaffirmed in Snyder v. Phelps (many free speech cases have been about criminal restrictions on speech, this applied even to a suit for intentional infliction of emotional distress). There isn't a clear line that distinguishes "advocating violation of the law" and "inciting to immediate lawlessness". Saying "(You should) shoot The Man whenever you see him" would be protected expression, but "There's a cop, somebody kill him" would be incitement. It also has to be a "credible" incitement, so saying "Kill him now!" to a room full of pacifist nuns would not constitute incitement. Things said to an angry mob would be more along the lines of incitement.

The actual method of amending the Constition is spelled out in Article V – originalism would reject the position that there are other ways to amend it. We can see the result in the ratified amendments. Originalism is a theory of interpretation, not a theory of drafting, and it hold that the words of the law, be it the Constitution or a particular statute, are to be understood as would be understood by people originally. (There are numerous versions of originalism, so one can't be more precise than than until you decide whether you mean original understanding or original intent, the latter now being a minority viewpoint). It does not hold that new laws should be drafted in the language as it existed in the 18th century, as indeed they are not. Thus the 26th Amendment is written in contemporary style befitting the fact that it was drafted recently, and the 27th Amendment is written in older style befitting the fact that it was drafted in 1789. As for "changing values", each ratified amendment represents some change of values, whereby originally a right was not recognized (or was), and by the amendment, that value changes. The 18th Amendment represents on change in values, and the 21st reflects a change in that value, though not back to the status quo.

I haven't found a recent case like this where it constitutes evidence. Military members didn't have an express right to remain silent until somewhere in the 1950s, so one chances are there might be cases prior to that point. The present right is codified in 10 U.S.C. 831, which is Article 31 of the UCMJ. That said, there is certainly a well documented adverse inference effect. While jurors aren't supposed to take the silence into account (e.g. when a defendant elects not to testify or exercises a right against self-incrimination), it's a difficult thing to do, practically speaking.

The scenario in the question says that: They [3/4ths of citizens] agree that normal processes like public testimony, initiatives, referenda, elections, and recall effort have failed to make any changes that the public wants Nobody is suggesting violence or rebellion. All processes will follow pre-abolishment laws. But if "normal processes" cannot be used to make the changes desired, then "pre-abolishment laws" are not being followed in all respects. Moreover, id the current elected officials do not agree to be replaced, then violence of some degree will be needed to remove them, or they may initiate violence in the form of attempted arrests of those leading the change process for violations of those "pre-abolishment laws". So these conditions are inconsistent, they cannot all be true. Luther v. Borden There is at least one highly relevant episode in US history, adn it was explored in the Supreme Court case of Luther v. Borden, 48 U.S. 1 (1849) In connection with he opinion the Justia Syllabus says: At the period of the American Revolution, Rhode Island did not, like the other States, adopt a new constitution, but continued the form of government established by the Charter of Charles the Second, making only such alterations, by acts of the Legislature, as were necessary to adapt it to their condition and rights as an independent State. But no mode of proceeding was pointed out by which amendments might be made. In 1841, a portion of the people held meetings and formed associations which resulted in the election of a convention to form a new constitution to be submitted to the people for their adoption or rejection. This convention framed a constitution, directed a vote to be taken upon it, declared afterwards that it had been adopted and ratified by a majority of the people of the State, and was the paramount law and constitution of Rhode Island. Under it, elections were held for Governor, members of the Legislature, and other officers, who assembled together in May, 1842, and proceeded to organize the new government. But the charter government did not acquiesce in these proceedings. On the contrary, it passed stringent laws, and finally passed an act declaring the State under martial law. In May, 1843, a new constitution, which had been framed by a convention called together by the charter government, went into operation, and has continued ever since. The question which of the two opposing governments was the legitimate one, viz., the charter government or the government established by the voluntary convention, has not heretofore been regarded as a judicial one in any of the State courts. The political department has always determined whether a proposed constitution or amendment was ratified or not by the people of the State, and the judicial power has followed its decision. The courts of Rhode Island have decided in favor of the validity of the charter government, and the courts of the United States adopt and follow the decisions of the State courts in questions which concern merely the constitution and laws of the state. The question whether or not a majority of those persons entitled to suffrage voted to adopt a constitution cannot be settled in a judicial proceeding. The Constitution of the United States has treated the subject as political in its nature, and placed the power of recognizing a State government in the hands of Congress. Under the existing legislation of Congress, the exercise of this power by courts would be entirely inconsistent with that legislation. The President of the United States is vested with certain power by an act of Congress, and in this case, he exercised that power by recognizing the charter government. Although no State could establish a permanent military government, yet it may use its military power to put down an armed insurrection too strong to be controlled by the civil authority. The State must determine for itself what degree of force the crisis demands. In the Court's formal opinion, Chief Justice Taney wrote: We do not understand from the argument that the constitution under which the plaintiff acted is supposed to have been in force after the constitution of May, 1843, went into operation. T he contest is confined to the year preceding. The plaintiff contends that the charter government was displaced, and ceased to have any lawful power, after the organization, in May, 1842, of the government which he supported, and although that government never was able to exercise any authority in the State nor to command obedience to its laws or to its officers, yet he insists that it was the lawful and established government upon the ground that it was ratified by a large majority of the male people of the State of the age of twenty-one and upwards, and also by a majority of those who were entitled to vote for general officers under the then existing laws of the State. The fact that it was so ratified was not admitted, and, at the trial in the Circuit Court, he offered to prove it by the production of the original ballots and the original registers of the persons voting, verified by the oaths of the several moderators and clerks of the meetings, and by the testimony of all the persons so voting, and by the said constitution, and also offered in evidence for the same purpose that part of the census of the United States for the year 1840 which applies to Rhode Island and a certificate of the secretary of state of the charter government showing the number of votes polled by the freemen of the State for the ten years then last past. The Circuit Court rejected this evidence, and instructed the jury that the charter government and laws under which the defendants acted were, at the time the trespass is alleged to have been committed, in full force and effect as the form of government and paramount law of the State, and constituted a justification of the acts of the defendants as set forth in their pleas. It is this opinion of the Circuit Court that we are now called upon to review. ... Certainly the question which the plaintiff proposed to raise by the testimony he offered has not heretofore been recognized as a judicial one in any of the State courts. In forming the constitutions of the different States after the Declaration of Independence, and in the various changes and alterations which have since been made, the political department has always determined whether the proposed constitution or amendment was ratified or not by the people of the State, and the judicial power has followed its decision. ... The point, then, raised here has been already decided by the courts of Rhode Island. The question relates altogether to the constitution and laws of that State, and the well settled rule in this court is that the courts of the United States adopt and follow the decisions of the State courts in questions which concern merely the constitution and laws of the State. ... Besides, if the Circuit Court had entered upon this inquiry, by what rule could it have determined the qualification of voters upon the adoption or rejection of the proposed constitution unless there was some previous law of the State to guide it? It is the province of a court to expound the law, not to make it. And certainly it is no part of the judicial functions of any court of the United States to prescribe the qualification of voters in a State, giving the right to those to whom it is denied by the written and established constitution and laws of the State, or taking it away from those to whom it is given; nor has it the right to determine what political privileges the citizens of a State are entitled to, unless there is an established constitution or law to govern its decision. ... he fourth section of the fourth article of the Constitution of the United States provides that the United States shall guarantee to every State in the Union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion, and on the application of the legislature or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence. Under this article of the Constitution, it rests with Congress to decide what government is the established one in a State. For as the United States guarantee to each State a republican government, Congress must necessarily decide what government is established in the State before it can determine whether it is republican or not. And when the senators and representatives of a State are admitted into the councils of the Union, the authority of the government under which they are appointed, as well as its republican character, is recognized by the proper constitutional authority. ... ... by the act of February 28, 1795, provided that, in case of an insurrection in any State against the government thereof, it shall be lawful for the President of the United States, on application of the legislature of such State or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened), to call forth such number of the militia of any other State or States, as may be applied for, as he may judge sufficient to sufficient to suppress such insurrection. ... By this act, the power of deciding whether the exigency had arisen upon which the government of the United States is bound to interfere is given to the President. He is to act upon the application of the legislature or of the executive, and consequently he must determine what body of men constitute the legislature, and who is the governor, before he can act. The fact that both parties claim the right to the government cannot alter the case, for both cannot be entitled to it. ... ... It is true that, in this case, the militia were not called out by the President. But, upon the application of the governor under the charter government, the President recognized him as the executive power of the State, and took measures to call out the militia to support his authority if it should be found necessary for the general government to interfere, and it is admitted in the argument that it was the knowledge of this decision that put an end to the armed opposition to the charter government and prevented any further efforts to establish by force the proposed constitution. The interference of the President, therefore, by announcing his determination was as effectual as if the militia had been assembled under his orders. And it should be equally authoritative. ... The court thus upheld the verdict for the defendants, and the authority o the government recognized by the President. It should be noted that this Case arose before the passage of the 14th and 15th amendments to the Federal Constitution, and particularly the Equal protection and Sue process clauses of the 14th, and the "one man, one vote" cases later decided under those clauses. If a state government in 2020 had laws similar to the Charter Government of Rhode Island in 1840, they would be struck down as against those clauses and amendments. But unless an "abolishment" as described in the question were to be recognized and the resulting government approved by the President and Congress, it would not be lawful, and federal authority and military force could be used to support the lawful government.

In Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488 (1961), the US Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a similar provision in Maryland's constitution violated the First Amendment and could not be enforced. So presumably the North Carolina provision is similarly unconstitutional and unenforceable. It's not clear why it wasn't removed in 1971. I found references to a 2009 incident in which an avowed atheist named Cecil Bothwell was elected to the Asheville, NC city council. Opponents apparently threatened to mount a legal challenge to his eligibility under the Article VI provision. It's not clear if they actually tried to do so, but in any event, Bothwell served his full four-year term and was then re-elected for another.

Software licence where no licence is found Is it correct that I can't take the source code from an educational book and write/use in my website or use it for my own teaching purposes? Or can such code be considered "generic code" without copyright e.g. basic examples of what is new in Java 8 and the study code for Java 8 in the study guide from Oracle. It would surprise me if I could do what I want with the code, and it would also surprise me if I'm forbidden to use the code, especially if I improve the code and put it in an executable context (now the code is just printed on the page in snippets and never in an executional environment). Same question for computer science books, I suppose sometimes there is a licence found in computer science books for the source code, and sometimes we may use the source any way we like. Spec. I'm wondering about the source code in the Java study guides for the Java certificates. I find it cumbersome to use a CD and I would like simple HTMLforms with the code to practice and even run the examples where I can and step thru the code examples with a debugger if/when I don'e understand.

Written down computer code is subject to copyright. If you do not have the permission of the owner to copy it you are breaching their copyright unless your use constitutes fair use/dealing.

Your understanding of the GPL is a bit off. GPLed code doesn't generally force you to GPL the output of the program, but that's just because the output of the program is normally not a derivative work of the program. For instance, if you write a novel in Emacs, your novel is an entirely original work. The fact that you used Emacs as a tool doesn't mean that your novel is somehow based on Emacs. This generator is different. It generates sprites by putting together art assets made by the program's creator. That means that the output contains a substantial amount of content made by the program creator, which means that it would likely be covered by the program creator's copyright. If the content was licensed to you under the GPL, you normally have to abide by GPL restrictions when you redistribute the content or incorporate it into your own program. Copyright holders can, if they want, grant additional permissions to their content and allow you to incorporate that content into nonfree software. For instance, the GCC compilers have an additional permission for their runtime libraries to let you use them in any GCC-compiled code; without that permission, GCC could only be used to compile GPL-compatible code. But unless the copyright holder has granted those permissions, when program output contains large amounts of their copyrighted content you're bound by the GPL when using it. In this case, the program specifically says that the art is dual-licensed under GPLv3 and CC-BY-SA-3.0. Since the generator's output is a combination of premade art assets (the buttons just let you tell the program which art assets to combine), the output is a derivative work of those assets. You can't use it unless your use is compatible with the GPL v3 or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (either works, since dual licensing lets you pick either license).

You need to check what license the library comes with. The fact that you want to create a public domain program doesn't give you any rights to any library. So read the BSD license and see what it tells you whether and how you can use the library. For example, if you used a GPL-licensed library, you could not put your program in the public domain legally.

The Organization Does Not Own the Copyright As you were clearly not an employee of the organization, and did not have a specific contract with them, this was not a "work-made-for-hire" (WFH). Therefore, the copyright initially belonged to the author, in this case the programmer, that is you. That being so, it would require a written document to transfer the copyright to another during your lifetime. In future there should be a written agreement in such a case, spelling out just what rights are to be retained by whom. It can save lots of trouble. The organization would have an implied license to use the software. The terms of this would be defined by the conduct of the parties, and might be a matter of dispute. Probably there would be a non-exclusive license without any fee or ending date. Probably there would be no license to distribute to others unless you explicitly grant one. Specific US Laws 17 USC 101 defines a WFH: A “work made for hire” is— (1) a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment; or (2) a work specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, as a translation, as a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an instructional text, as a test, as answer material for a test, or as an atlas, if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire. For the purpose of the foregoing sentence, a “supplementary work” is a work prepared for publication as a secondary adjunct to a work by another author for the purpose of introducing, concluding, illustrating, explaining, revising, commenting upon, or assisting in the use of the other work, such as forewords, afterwords, pictorial illustrations, maps, charts, tables, editorial notes, musical arrangements, answer material for tests, bibliographies, appendixes, and indexes, and an “instructional text” is a literary, pictorial, or graphic work prepared for publication and with the purpose of use in systematic instructional activities. (emphasis added) 17 USC 201 provides that: (a) Initial Ownership. — Copyright in a work protected under this title vests initially in the author or authors of the work. The authors of a joint work are coowners of copyright in the work. (b) Works Made for Hire. — In the case of a work made for hire, the employer or other person for whom the work was prepared is considered the author for purposes of this title, and, unless the parties have expressly agreed otherwise in a written instrument signed by them, owns all of the rights comprised in the copyright. ... (d) Transfer of Ownership.— (d) (1) The ownership of a copyright may be transferred in whole or in part by any means of conveyance or by operation of law, and may be bequeathed by will or pass as personal property by the applicable laws of intestate succession. (d) (2) Any of the exclusive rights comprised in a copyright, including any subdivision of any of the rights specified by section 106, may be transferred as provided by clause (1) and owned separately. The owner of any particular exclusive right is entitled, to the extent of that right, to all of the protection and remedies accorded to the copyright owner by this title. 17 USC 204 provides that: (a) A transfer of copyright ownership, other than by operation of law, is not valid unless an instrument of conveyance, or a note or memorandum of the transfer, is in writing and signed by the owner of the rights conveyed or such owner’s duly authorized agent.

The problem is that open source licenses incl AGPL have legal force because copyright prevents copying + modifying software by default (software is treated as a “literary work” and therefore enjoys copyright protection). But copyright on datasets and ML models is very different – if it is even recognized at all. Thus, similar copyleft techniques would only work in particular jurisdictions. For example, the EU recognizes “database rights”. A copyleft license that accounts for this is CC-BY-SA-4.0, meaning that in an EU context, databases based on the original database would have to use the same license. However, database rights are not recognized in the US (facts are not copyrightable, and the “sweat of the brow” doctrine is not recognized). Thus, the CC-BY-SA-4.0 license would not have any copyleft effect with respect to databases in an US context. Independently of copyright in the database as a whole, the data in the database might be copyrighted material, for example if the database contains text or images, complicating matters further. Machine learning models derived from a data set are much more difficult. Clearly, ML models that have been trained are not a creative work and are therefore not eligible for independent copyright protection. At most, it can be argued that the model is an automatically transformed version of the input data, so that copyright in the input data implies copyright in the model.1 Perhaps hyperparameter choices could reflect some creative input. This is very much an active topic of debate. Given this uncertainty, it would be impossible to create a public license that works reliably. 1. An interesting discussion topic is the potential effect on Microsoft's Copilot ML model which was also trained on GPL-licensed source code. Instead of deriving force from copyright law, it would be possible to impose conditions via a contract, i.e. EULA-like terms that only provide access to the material after the terms have been accepted. But again, this is difficult. Contract law differs wildly between jurisdictions. For example, a contract is defined by the “meeting of minds” in some jurisdictions; by offer, acceptance, and consideration in others. But how does such a contract ensure appropriate consideration? How can acceptance be ensured if the material is publicly available? For these reasons, I think that unless broad international agreement emerges about IP protections for machine learning models, such a copyleft system for ML models is impossible. It is worth noting that the lack of such protections is probably quite good for innovation and research, since researchers are free to improve each other's work without legal concerns. The idea of copyleft is a hack to subvert the “everything is forbidden by default” system of copyright, but “everything is allowed by default” might be better.2 2. To continue the Microsoft Copilot example: some copyleft advocates like Bradley M Kuhn are sceptical about Copilot's GPL compliance, but remind us that copyleft maximalism means copyright maximalism, and that this is not the goal of open source. https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2022/feb/03/github-copilot-copyleft-gpl/

It depends on what you are selling to the enterprises. You could be selling just a licence to use the program, and retain all the rights on the source code. You could be selling the rights to the source code. For #1, the source code is yours and you can do what it pleases with it1. In fact many programs offer both an open-source licence (which usually forces the user to make its changes to the code publicly available) and a commercial one (which allows the user to keep the modifications of the source code for themselves). For #2, the source code is no longer yours so it is not up to you to decide what to do with it. 1I am assuming no other agreements imposing limits on those; for example that none of your contracts to your customers have a clause forbidding you from making the code available to the public.

Ideas (methods of playing, game mechanics, strategy, goals) cannot be protected by copyright. But any part of a creative work can. So, no copying of drawings, patterns, images, sounds, or the element. I suppose copying the software code is not an issue here, but it can, obviously, also not be copied. And nothing in your game can look like someone's else trademark.

You cannot do this through any established public license that I know of, but you could write your own. The model would be any educational use or non-commercial use license, such as CC NC licenses. The main challenge is defining the excluded classes of usage. That is why you should engage an attorney to draft this for you. I don't think there is any point in adding a $5M penalty clause. You offer a separate paid license for individuals who do not want to comply with the particular terms of your license, and set the fee to whatever you want. Saying that you're gonna fine violators is a bad idea because penalty clauses are illegal. Instead, the standard approach is a liquidated damages clause, where you state what a reasonable estimate of your damages would be. In the case of software that is available for purchase, illegal copying of the software obviously results at least in the cost of the software qua lost revenue as damages. Plus shipping and handling.

In which sense is software cracking illegal? I wonder which of the following behaviors are illegal in China: Cracking a software and using it. Cracking a software and distribute it without charging. Cracking a software and reselling the cracked version. Using software cracked by someone else. (Maybe there are other illegal behavior worth mentioning?) Background information: This post actually comes from my previous question.

The current version of copyright law in the PRC is here. Art. 10 states what is protected, which includes the standard rights of distribution, copying, modification and so on (which makes software cracking illegal). Article 22 gives the equivalent of the Fair Use limitation on copyright protection: a work may be exploited without the permission from, and without payment of remuneration to, the copyright owner, provided that the name of the author and the title of the work are mentioned and the other rights enjoyed by the copyright owner by virtue of this Law are not infringed upon for 12 specific reasons (translation into Braille or a minority national language, free public performances, quotation to make a point end so on), which includes some potentially applicable reasons (1) use of a published work for the purposes of the user's own private study, research or self-entertainment (6) translation or reproduction, in a small quality of copies, of a published work for use by teachers or scientific researchers in classroom teaching or scientific research, provided that the translation or reproduction is not published or distributed (7) use of a published work by a State organ within the reasonable scope for the purpose of fulfilling its official duties It is unclear what "State organ" refers to and it is unlikely that a university is a "State organ". It is unlikely that (1) and (6) are interpreted as an across-the-board "education exception" to copyright, but that could be an avenue for legality. The standard misconception of copyright law is that anything done for educational purposes is allowed, and the PRC law seems to have at least the seeds of such a misunderstanding. However... software protection is subject to separate regulation in Decree No.339 of the State Council, an English version being here. The regulations recapitulate the basics of copyright protection; software cracking is regulated under Art. 23, which says that anyone who commits any of the following acts of infringement shall, in light of the circumstances, bear civil liability by means of ceasing infringements, eliminating ill effects, making an apology, or compensating for losses:... (5)to alter or translate a piece of software without the authorization Art. 24 continues, saying that it is forbidden (3) to knowingly circumvent or sabotage technological measures used by the copyright owner for protecting the software copyright; (4) to knowingly remove or alter any electronic rights management information attached to a copy of a piece of software That covers cracking. Article 30 covers the situation of someone using pre-cracked software: A holder of copies of a piece of software that neither knows nor has reasonable grounds to know that such copies are infringing ones does not bear liability of compensation but shall cease the use of, and destroy, the infringing copies. Nevertheless, if the cease of use or the destruction of such copies is likely to cause heavy losses to him, the holder of such copies may, after paying reasonable remuneration to the software copyright owner, continue to use such copies. A mere user who is discovered simply has to stop, unless they should have known that the copy was illegal in which case they would be responsible for compensating the rights holder – I have no idea what the standards are for having reasonable grounds to know.

Footage of an arrest is clearly evidence: tampering with it is a crime. Notwithstanding, destroying someone's personal possessions without authorisation is a crime. Accessing a computer (which all modern image and audio recorders are) without authorisation is also a crime.

The most apparent potential offences would be under 18 U.S.C. § 1030, but these require the mens rea of "knowingly" or "intentionally" doing things without authorization, or doing so "with intent to defraud", etc. See also the Department of Justice's manual entry on this family of offences. Particularly relevant is this quote: As part of proving that the defendant acted knowingly or intentionally, the attorney for the government must be prepared to prove that the defendant was aware of the facts that made the defendant’s access unauthorized at the time of the defendant’s conduct. Given your stipulation that the person has unintentionally viewed or downloaded the material without authorization, this would not be a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1030.

I am not a lawyer; I am especially not your lawyer; this is not legal advice; if you want legal advice, hire a lawyer. Idk. But probably not. The YouTube terms of service seem to prohibit this pretty clearly: You agree not to distribute in any medium any part of the Service or the Content without YouTube's prior written authorization, unless YouTube makes available the means for such distribution through functionality offered by the Service (such as the Embeddable Player)... You agree not to access Content through any technology or means other than the video playback pages of the Service itself, the Embeddable Player, or other explicitly authorized means YouTube may designate. Now, were YouTube itself licensing the videos in question under the CC license, they might be prohibited from enforcing that term: You may not offer or impose any additional or different terms or conditions on, or apply any Effective Technological Measures to, the Licensed Material if doing so restricts exercise of the Licensed Rights by any recipient of the Licensed Material. though I'm not sure if the language in question would apply. However, it seems likely that in most cases, YouTube is using the material in question under the license to which users agreed when they created their accounts, and therefore is not bound by the term in question. All that said, it's entirely possible that the clause in the YouTube ToS prohibiting downloading does not apply for whatever reason (unconscionable in a contract of adhesion, browsewrap agreement doesn't form a contract to begin with, it's superseded by either some other agreement (part of the API EULA, etc), it's contrary to some law in your jurisdiction, etc). Just to be very clear, though, there is no COPYRIGHT CONCERN preventing uses like the one you mentioned.

Not all illegal things are crimes. Lack of evidence. They are asked to testify, and they say "what I said in my book was a lie". There is no general law against lying, except when under oath. Statute of limitations. Saying "10 years ago I did smoke drugs" means that any offence is no longer prosecutable. Lack of details. Which jurisdiction were they in? When did they commit the act, how many acts? You cannot be arrested for being a "bank robber" or a "murderer". You are charged with "robbing Bank X on 123 Fake Street the Thursday 25 April 2018" or "murdering Jim Thio in January 2017". Otherwise the defendant would have a hard time defending himself (how to prove that you have not killed anyone at any time?) All of the above combined with prosecutorial discretion in the form that any possible prosecutor will most likely determine that bringing charges would be just a waste of time and resources. UPDATE February 2018: Just for the sake of completeness, a reference to the situation of Jacques Cassandri, who did boast about a serious crime(a robbery in a Societe Generale vault in 1976) in a book. Unfortunately for him, he made some kind of mistake/miscalculation and the crime had not yet expired, so he has become an example of someone being prosecuted by confessing a crime in a book.

An EULA, or "End User License Agreement", is a contract between the software user and the software publisher. It usually protects the interest of the software publisher, e.g. you can only use it on one computer; you may not alter it or distribute it without written agreement etc. In this case, the EULA specifies that: The software may be harmful to the user's computer The user's personal data may be sent to third parties The software may used to aid or perform illegal activities The software publisher is not responsible for any damage caused by using this software First thing first, is this a valid contract? Let's take a look at the essential elements of a contract: Offer and Acceptance Intention Consideration Capacity Consent Legality Possibility of performance The Legality element specifies that the contract must not be something disapproved by law. Botnets are used for attacking other computers, i.e. an unlawful act. Installing botnets may violate the Section 3A of the Computer Misuse Act 1990 in the UK. Sharing user's personal data may also violate data privacy laws. Let us, for the moment, assume the contract is valid. Item number 4 still causes a problem: an overly broad liability waiver. While liability waivers are common and normal, one can argue that the said waiver in this case seems to cover intentional or reckless acts. Such items in a contract are deemed as unenforceable. Parental control systems and remote observation systems are different. They can be used legally, and this legal use is common. Thus, distribution of these systems is legal. Needless to say, it is very difficult to argue that virus and botnets share the same. Of course, one can still use a remote observation system in an illegal way. In this case, the software user is liable, but the software publisher is not liable because the user's behavior is beyond their control.

There is no contract between you (the licensee) and the licensor of the software. The creator of the open source software just says "here's the software, you may use it if you like, as long as you fulfil some conditions. ". No contract, no liability. I think the developer would only be liable if they intentionally created software that causes damage. (Which has happened, some open source browser plugins have recently been modified to run bitcoin mining software, or worse. I suppose the miscreants could follow all the GPL rules or whatever license is used).

Yes The relevant legal concepts are copyright, contract law and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. You are liable to be sued by the people affected for damages and/or be prosecuted by the government for the felony under either or both laws. Let's start here: "I bought a game". No, you didn't; you bought a licence to use the software in accordance with the terms of service (licence) that you freely agreed to. All modern ToS will not allow you to reverse engineer the software. If you breach those terms of service then you have broken a contract - that is what allows them to sue you. They will no doubt argue that the prevalence of cheat routines developed by people like you reduce the number of people willing to play the game - say 100,000 users x $10/month * 12 months = $12,000,000. They will also ask the court to impose punitive damages to discourage this sort of thing. Which brings us to the copyright violation. You are allowed to copy their software provided you comply with the ToS. But you didn't. Therefore you are in breach of the Copyright Act and subject to additional civil and criminal sanctions. Finally, your "cheats" access their servers in a way that the ToS doesn't authorize. This puts you in breach of the CFFA - breaking this carries serious jail time penalties. Not to mention that in the US, a criminal conviction will preclude you from many jobs, including, naturally, any with access to company computer systems. Putting aside the illegalities, cheats are unethical and ruin the game experience for hundreds of thousands of people who don't use cheats. You are a criminal - stop being one!

How to protect against claims of joint corporate ownership during a divorce? I am (happily!) married. But I am also a software engineer, and as such, try to consider every possible path of events ahead of time. I am about to start a Nevada-based LLC, although the company will be located in NY. Some of the funding for the startup is coming from grants and loans, but some of it would be coming from the joint checking account that belongs to both my wife and I. Let's make it simple. Say the startup costs $10. $6 is coming from loans/grants and $4 is coming from this joint checking account. We have no prenup. I will be running the company 100% with her having absolutely nothing to do with its management or operations. If, we were to ever get divorced (although please note: I have no plans/intentions on this ever happening!!!), I'm concerned about a situation where my wife would lay claim to owning some portion of the company. Using my simple example above, perhaps this claim would be for 20% (since we have no prenup, we split everything 50/50 and I would own 40% of the company since I/we contributed $4). Don't get hung up on these numbers, I'm just putting them here as a straw man. My question: how to protect against such a claim, if it ever arose? That is, how to protect my ~40% in the event of a divorce? I ask because I plan on filing the LLC soon.

You can't. The general rule is that all marital assists are divided in whatever way the court decides. In the absence of a pre-nup, your company (whether existing prior to the marriage or created after) is a marital asset.

This is a well established model in the UK. One route is the umbrella company. Y here would be the umbrella company. A would then either be providing services to Y or be employed by Y. You may be wondering what use it is if A is employed by Y. The answer here is that whilst A may not benefit from the tax treatment, X does not bear the burden of running PAYE etc. Further, because of regulations such as IR35, it may be that there is a doubt as to whether employment tax apply even if there is a contract for service. Essentially disguised employment means taxes are levied on the employer as if an employment existed; however, in this situation X has the comfort that if this arises they will (normally) fall on Y rather than X. Another route is the service company, where normally A himself will own it (or it is owned between A and A's spouse), take a combination of salary and dividends out (using two allowances if owned between spouses), and he will bill X or Y; companies exist which will perform all the necessary paperwork to do this (in which case Y is called a managed service company), as opposed to a personal service company (if A sets it up himself). It's not clear where you are based, but if you are based outside the UK (and possibly if you are inside the UK) there are accountancy companies that specialise in setting all this up.

Legalese is not required You can and should write a will in plain English. However, you need to ensure that your simple wishes can: Actually be understood, Actually be implemented, Don't have unintended consequences, Cover all bases. Use a lawyer I suggest that you write your simple wishes out as you have done and take them to a lawyer. A good lawyer will be able to: Draft a will and have it executed so that it complies with the law, Keep a copy of the will so that your executor can find the damn thing without having to tear your house apart, Consider the contingencies that you haven't. My lawyer charged me and my wife $150 each - 20 years latter the estate has twice as many children and would be worth several million dollars; I consider it one of the cheapest pieces of insurance I have ever bought. Contingencies Who is the executor of the will? This is the person who administers the estate until it is finalised. As written, you haven't named one: in most jurisdictions this makes the government's Public Trustee the executor. How and how much will the executor get paid? Executor's are entitled to be paid for their services. What happens if you and your wife are separated or divorced at the time of your death? Wills are not automatically terminated by these events. What if Bob is dead before you die? Or has emigrated? Or is insane? What if Bob dies in the same car crash that kills you and your wife? What if Bob dies after he becomes the trustee of the trust? Who will be your child's guardian? As written, Bob is responsible for the finances but he is not the guardian. The child would be reliant on kinship guardianship or become a ward of the state. For what purposes can Bob use the trust money? Education of the child? Vacations for the child? His own gambling problem? Can the trust borrow money? What types of investments can the trust make? Bolivian palm tree futures anyone? Does Bob need to get professional financial advice about this? Who will audit the trust to ensure Bob is behaving appropriately? Your wife falls pregnant tomorrow. Do you want to write a new will or have one that works no matter how many children you have? What if all 3 of you die in the same car crash? Who gets the estate then? Only people with no assets or dependants have a simple estate

You always run some legal risk when you drive. As long as you are insured (you have a card in your hand) and you have permission to drive the car, it does not matter who owns the car. There is a difference between the legal minimum insurance coverage and actually adequate coverage, and since you are not getting separate insurance where control the insurance levels, you theoretically run some liability risk if you have an accident and the coverage is less than the damages (insurance doesn't mean that the other guy can't take you to court for the rest of the amount). There is also a risk that the housemate will do something crazy like cancel the insurance coverage for you, or report the car stolen, so you have to decide how worried you are about that possibility.

If you form an LLC, and then someone later obtains a registered trademark in the same name, the registered trademark would be enforceable everywhere except in the markets and places where the LLC developed common law trademark rights prior to their registration. Your LLC formation would also put a bump in the road in their trademark application. You can, of course, do both, although it is unclear to me why you feel such urgency in the likelihood of an infringement, which suggests that there may be relevant facts that aren't revealed by your post.

You're asking about what is generally referred to as the "joint-participant exception." In the United States, the answer varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, as each state sets its own rules on which communications are privileged and which are not. Even in the federal courts, where the law should be relatively consistent, there is some disagreement on this question. After the Tenth Circuit recognized the exception in Trammel v. United States, 445 U.S. 40, (1980), the Supreme Court gave a vague statement suggesting that the exception does not exist, but it was not clear enough to settle the question. Since then, the Seventh Circuit has said the exception applies, but the First, Second, Third, and Ninth circuits have said it does not. So until the Supreme Court weighs in again, the answer is "it depends where you live." Keep in mind also that what is often referred to as "spousal privilege" actually encompasses two very distinct privileges: (1) the spousal communications privilege, which is a defendant's right to block testimony about his statements to his spouse; and (2) the spousal testimonial privilege, which is a witness's right to refuse to testify against his spouse. It may be that in some jurisdictions, the joint-participant exception applies to one but not the other.

Usually I would think one answer to a question is enough. But since your edits have transformed a reasonable procedural question into what appears to be a rant about unfairness of the sort which any bankruptcy court has heard hundreds of times before, I will give another piece of advice: Focus on one thing at a time. The judge at the hearing of the application will be deciding (if your question is accurate) the single point whether a house should be sold. The submission "There is an application to annul the bankruptcy to be heard on XXX; if it succeeds this application is a waste of money and if it fails there will still be time for this application before the time limit, so you should adjourn till YYY" is a reasonable one that he will take into account. Saying "The bankruptcy order should never have been made; it was a mistake by my accountants and HMRC, and a High Court Judge joined in the conspiracy" will get you precisely nowhere. Even if the judge believed you rather than the written evidence, it has no bearing on the point he is being asked to decide. More generally; besides casting your arguments into proper shape, there is another good reason to consult a professional, namely that he can tell you when to give up. The courts are bound by laws and regulations; however unfair you may think the result, at some point it is necessary to accept the reality rather than wasting time and money making points that the law cares nothing about. (And no, I see no point discussing this further in comments. This answer can be upvoted if you think it helpful or downvoted if you think it "not useful"; it isn't something to argue against.)

What kind of contract would that be? One about... arbitration? One about "I hereby relinquish my claim for payment of X?" --- children cannot be taken away from their father, no matter what. - OP That contract is void in germany because this contract not only violates public policy, it tries to modify something that is regulated by law into a way that does offer less than the law demands as a minimum. That's not allowed in Germany. Further, a clause that gives custody to the father by default is also Sittenwidrig in Germany, and thus void under §138 BGB. So would be a clause that gives it to the mother by default by the way. In a case of controversy, only a court order can assign guardianship. And only the court can take guardianship away. When the kid is born its guardianship gets assigned to the parents as guardians by §1626 BGB. While it is possible to give your partner guardianship if you're not married under 1626a BGB it is explicitly impossible to assign guardianship for any compensation to either party (e.g. the mother or the new guardian may not receive anything other than the guardianship in the specific paper) under 1626b BGB. Thus a contract that does anything else in addition to guardianship, like a prenup, voids at least the guardianship clauses. And you have to tell the court about that assignment of guardianship under ($1626d BGB). Now comes the kicker: §1628 BGB forces the parents to apply to the court to solve any problems of huge impact, such as guardianship: So technically, mediation results are fully non-binding and you can not mandate it. Also, since all marriages are through the state, it needs a formal instrument of the state to be dissolved. The only three ways that the state ever allowed this to be done after WW2 were a) annulment through a court, which only was possible till 1998, or b) divorce through a court, c) death of one of the marriage partners. Yes, it takes a judge to divorce a marriage under $1313 BGB or one of the two married to die. Because you can't divorce without a filing in court, a clause that demands to divorce in some way that is not including §1313 BGB, that clause would be void. It might be legal to have a clause that demands to try to solve issues in arbitration before filing for divorce or sorting the belongings in such a way, but it can't supplant the court requirement.

What would happen after service given but can't agree on payment method What happens after someone gets a service and then is charged but cannot pay using any of the provided methods? I came up with the question because I used a shipping company and it would seem they expect me to type out all my credit card information and send it to them in an email, which I don't think is very secure. Any suggestions? I was considering giving it to them over the phone as then I could be certain who I'm talking with.

If this requirement was not made before rendering the service, you are under no obligation to accept the term. You and the service provider must now find an agreeable method of payment. You still owe the provider but if you are compelled to pay then the provider will be compelled to be more accommodating in their allowed payment methods (cash, at least). As a general rule, if you are providing a service for any significant amount of money, you should require payment up front or at least a deposit and payments at milestones. Especially if you're 7,000 miles away from your client and put any restrictions on method of payment.

I'm pretty sure that under GDPR, you can indeed request them to send all data they have on you. If it's a complex request, they may charge you something like £10. If they have a lot of data on you, they may list the categories of data they have and ask you to pick one, rather than them having to collect and send everything. They should respond within one month, but iirc in the UK implementation, they can inform you (within that month) that they will respond within three months instead. For the rest, I only know current Dutch law. GDPR is not that different from what we already had (in general terms) and in many cases it even extends it. Under our law (WBP), you can also request a correction of the data in case it is incorrect, or deletion if they no longer need it for the purpose for which it was collected and stored. I don't really know how that works out in practice though, as Facebook can of course claim that "being able to connect you to your friends when you sign up for WhatsApp or Facebook with that number" is a legitimate purpose (in their eyes). They might also not have your full name and therefore not be able to connect your data to your request. Or, perhaps, they have only your full name (and there are probably more people with your name), so they'll have a hard time verifying that it's really your data which they would be handing over or deleting. The company is required to verify your identity before acting on your request. How they implement that is up to them. Under Dutch law, if I remember correctly, any data that can be connected to your person by any party is personally identifiable information (PII). While Facebook might not be able to find who's behind a phone number, your carrier most certainly can. Therefore, the data falls under PII protection laws and they will have to implement a way to verify you and get you your data. Finally, whether your local laws apply to Facebook, I don't know exactly. There's lots of information on this though, so you should be able to find it. Generally, countries say that if something happened within their territory (e.g. you signed up for WhatsApp while in the UK), their law applies. Companies, I've read, will instead try to claim that their main office is in SomeCountry and therefore SomeCountry's laws apply. But I'm pretty sure you'll be able to find a Facebook office somewhere where GDPR applies, so that's probably fine. While not an exact answer and while I am not sure about everything, I hope this gave you some pointers to go on!

are they allowed to immediately try to recover the debt or must they go to court first? They can try to recover the debt, either directly or through a debt collection agency. They do not have to go to court first; courts are for the resolution of a dispute and right now there isn't one. If the consumer disputes the debt (which they should do in writing) then the debt is held in abeyance until the dispute is resolved. While in this state debt collection must stop and the debt must be noted as disputed on any credit agency checks. Dispute resolution may be through negotiation, litigation, mediation, arbitration or a statutory mechanism (e.g. involving a government agency or ombudsman if applicable). If the supplier chooses litigation then they must go to the court and summons the consumer; stating the basis of their claim. The consumer is then entitled to mount a defence.

IMHO, your questions reflect several misunderstandings of how the process works. So, with your permission, I will avoid directly answering your questions and instead focus on suggestions how to best help you plot a path forward. Your counterparty has the burden of proof. If your counterparty forged your signature on a contract, then they must prove you signed it or they can not enforce it. In order to enforce the contract, they will need to sue you civilly. Then you can introduce evidence of their forgery at that time. Inform your counterparty you did not sign the contract. Then act accordingly. If your counterparty forged your signature on an extension contract then you should inform them immediately after it has come to your attention. Advise them you have no intention of complying with a contract you never signed. And that if they try to enforce the forged agreement, you will defend yourself "vigorously." Never threaten criminal charges to advance your position in a civil case. This behavior is a crime in itself. It's called extortion. If you want to pursue criminal charges at some point then do it without relating it to the civil case. The police are not your only means of pursuing criminal charges. You can also schedule a meeting with your District Attorney, State's Attorney (whatever that position is called in your state) or your state's Attorney General. In other words, you might want to approach the government's attorney responsible for prosecuting crimes in your jurisdiction. Forget about involving the police. They have given you their position on the matter. Approach the DA or AG office instead. If the DA/AG decides to use the police, she we will make that decision then inform the police how she needs to use their services. Police are wary of being used as leverage in civil disputes. That's probably the reason for their policy decision regardless of whether it's technically justified by the law or not. Your counterparty can't "fix" anything. If they claim you signed a document you did not, they will have to produce that document with your signature on it. This will presumably be your Exhibit A evidence they forged it. Disclaimer: I am a lay person and not an attorney. This writing is no substitute for proper legal advice. If you need help with a specific legal situation please hire an attorney and do not rely on anything I have written here.

If two parties agree to the terms of an exchange, then there exists an enforceable contract. A signature is not needed to create a contract. However, an intent to negotiate a contract is not, per se, a contract. Absent some specific and explicit measures (which for major deals may be codified in an MOU or LOI that itself contains contractual terms), if you can't reach an agreement on terms then there is no contract. It's up to the particulars of "the verbal agreement to start the hiring process" whether an agreement on exchange has been reached, or merely proposed. E.g., "You and I agree that I will pay you $X in exchange for Y due Z" is a contract. "You and I agree that we'd like to work together, and we'll hammer out the terms X, Y, and Z by the end of the week" is merely a proposal to contract, not an actual contract. Of course, this doesn't mean you're immune to liability for failing to reach a contract in this hypothetical: you can always be sued!

Main Question: Most likely not under Magnuson-Moss or U.C.C.. Question 1: If a charge payable before hand was not set forth in any written warranty, it is most likely not legal to deny remedy to the consumer. However, even if it was, it is possible that it would not meet the federal minimum standards for warranties as, per paragraph (d) a warranty has to provide for remedy without a charge. If there is absolutely no way for you to obtain the information to prove that a remedy is due — for e.g. no third party has legal or technical capacity to diagnose the vehicle — that is likely also a term to be found unconscionable and void, and may be found fraudulent, malicious and/or oppressive which may entitle one to collect punitive damages. (It is worth obtaining written confirmation of whether this decision is made in accord with their policies or on a line that they announce to be recorded) Question 2: Most likely same as Question 1. Question 3: Most likely same as Question 2. According to 15 U.S.C., subsection (a) of Section 2302 entitled "Full and conspicuous disclosure of terms and conditions; additional requirements for contents: "In order to improve the adequacy of information available to consumers, prevent deception, and improve competition in the marketing of consumer products, any warrantor warranting a consumer product to a consumer by means of a written warranty shall, to the extent required by rules of the Commission, fully and conspicuously disclose in simple and readily understood language the terms and conditions of such warranty. (4) A statement of what the warrantor will do in the event of a defect, malfunction, or failure to conform with such written warranty—at whose expense—and for what period of time." (5) A statement of what the consumer must do and expenses he must bear. (6) Exceptions and exclusions from the terms of the warranty. (7) The step-by-step procedure which the consumer should take in order to obtain performance of any obligation under the warranty, including the identification of any person or class of persons authorized to perform the obligations set forth in the warranty. (12) The characteristics or properties of the products, or parts thereof, that are not covered by the warranty. (13) The elements of the warranty in words or phrases which would not mislead a reasonable, average consumer as to the nature or scope of the warranty. It may, in addition to any or all of the above, be a violation of paragraph (8), (9), (10) and/or (11) based on specific fact patterns. To the 2nd point added: If the manufacturer stated that the vehicle would run at least a certain number of miles on a full charge for a certain number of miles driven or number of years, and did not stipulate it otherwise, they would have to remedy this. It is highly likely that they tried to evade making such written statement (if not written, it's not a warranty under Magnuson-Moss). If they did, and they did not define the scope of what they would have to do in the case of a defect or malfunction, they would have to remedy it by repairs within a reasonable time; if they fail, they would have to refund or replace. This does not mean that it is likely worth pursuing the matter in court other than maybe in small claims (See: ohwilleke's reply to this question for a general explanation). Moreover, most auto manufacturers put arbitration provisions in their sale contracts and/or their warranties and generally it may be required of one to opt out of it within 30 days of entering into the agreement. If that took place, first the dispute would likely need to be disputed through a qualified dispute resolution mechanism of the manufacturer, dealer, distributor and/or sellers choice depending on who gave the warranty. The specific State's lemon laws may provide for civil penalties for willful violations which may or may not be a very high bar to meet depending on the State's case law, and which is more likely to make it worth for "lemon" lawyers to take the case, but generally they are not a great deal more like hyenas of this segment of the law. It may still be worth considering for one depending on the specific facts, including State jurisdiction and the impeding nature of the nonconformity. (Please specify a State for the State's lemon laws applicable in this hypo)

Is that extortion? false advertising? or in any way illegal? Not at all. The owner of the site is simply exercising his right as outlined in the terms and conditions from when the user signed up. And giving users an option for continued use of the site (that is, for him not to exercise a right of which they were always aware) does not constitute extortion.

Is sales person required by law to give a copy of signed contract at the time you sign up for service? No. If I would ask for copy of all documents from that company are they required by law to send her these copies? No. Is there a law that mandates process on how contracts should be signed in California? There are many, however, they relate to specific classes of contract. In general, it is not a requirement that a contract be signed or even written; verbal contracts are totally legitimate. Given that every single transaction where money changes hands in return for goods and/or services is or is part of a contract it is not feasible that they all be signed. Have you bought a cup of coffee today? Did you sign a contract when you did? Here's the thing Your friend has learned several valuable business lessons: the first is some people in business will rip you off. If you are a consumer then you have (some) legal protection, however, if you are in business then the courts and the legislature expect you to look after yourself. Your friend has signed a contract. Pretty much, any court will consider that what they signed would be the entire contract unless there was compelling evidence to the contrary. Her word that the sales rep said there would be no break charges would not on its own be compelling evidence. Your friend has an obvious incentive to lie. Here is the second lesson: don't sign anything unless and until you have read and understood it; hire a lawyer if you need to in order to understand it. Now, either under the contract the company is legitimately allowed to charge these fees or it isn't. Without having a copy of the contract you have no way to tell. Thus the third lesson: always keep your own copy of everything you sign. What your friend can do is: nothing. Don't pay the bill, write to them saying that she disputes that she owes them any money at all. If you want to be provocative, suggest which court would be most convenient if they want to prove the debt. Odds are this will go no further. If they do proceed with a summons then they will need to state their case. At that point she can request through the court a copy of the contract they are relying on. If their claims are legit she can simply roll over.

Why must resignation letters in Brazil be handwritten? I resigned from two companies when I worked in Brazil and in both cases they demanded that I write a resignation letter by hand. In both cases the human resources department would not accept a letter typed then signed and they did not provide a template when I requested and did not explain why. Is there any law preventing them from accepting a typed letter, providing a template, or explaining why? My impression is that they needed a letter in my words and having it handwritten would be a evidence that the resignation was totally at my will and that I was not coerced in doing so. Is this like that in other jurisdictions (handwritten letter as evidence of no coercion)?

There is no special rule that says that a resignation has to be handwritten. Handwriting is important in very limited circumstances, such as wills. For example, if you write your will by hand and sign it, it is known as a 'holographic' will and no further formalities are required (depending on the jurisdiction). In contrast, if you type and sign your will, you must have the will also signed by one or more witnesses (again depending on the jurisdiction). If you tender your resignation by typewritten letter, and the employer demands a handwritten letter, and you refuse, then you have still resigned. The only time the employer has to agree to your resignation is in the case of a fixed-term contract. In the case of ordinary employment, you can resign at any time (by giving notice); this is a unilateral act. The employer's demand for a handwritten resignation letter is probably motivated by tactical considerations such as a concern that you may later claim to have been fired and they made you sign a form letter to get out of paying your severance pay. But it is not a legal requirement.

As a matter of contract law it would not be possible to enforce a requirement to pay legal fees without agreement. You could easily see how this would be problematic: one could just draft letters to hundreds or thousands of people and require them to pay the costs of composing the letter. My understanding is that this is common practice in the United States (see speculative invoicing). However, people are generally free to pay whatever they want to anyone they want. The other side is free to pay the legal costs, they just probably won't. In some common law jurisdictions, the concept of a Calderbank offer may be another reason to write a letter such as this; the settlement offer can be relied upon in later proceedings as an indication as to the costs that would be appropriate to award to the winning party, should the offeree unnecessarily prolong legal proceedings

Depends on your definition of "require". In case of at-will employment — where the employer can fire an employee for any or no reason (other than that being discrimination of a member of the protected groups) — it would be perfectly legal for the employer to fire an employee who does not comply with that request. But that aside, no (unless such testing was a term of the employment agreement, be it written or verbal). No party to a contract can require the other party to perform what the contract terms did not include.

That is a very broad clause, broader than the default US rule for copyright, for example. (I know the question asked about the UK, I just happen to know the US copyright rule.) It would seem on the face of it to include independent research on a subject totally unrelated to the person's employment, done off the company's premises and not during normal work hours, but while the person was an employee.. Indeed it would arguably include the copyright to a novel written off premises and during off hours. Use of "course of employment" (instead of "term") would improve the provision. so would "as a part of his or her employment" or "closely related to the subject of his or her employment". Another possible restriction would be "Using the Company's facilities and/or equipment, or during normal working hours". However, my experience is that an employer will have drafted whatever language it uses through its company lawyer, and will be quite unwilling to alter it in any way. A prospective employee will probably be faced with a take-it-or-leave-it choice unless that person is a nearly indispensable figure to the company. One could send the company a certified letter saying, "When i signed the contract agreeing to {company language} I did not intend to include any developments made off company premises, not using company equipment, and unrelated to the subject or scope of my employment. I retain full rights to any such developments." Such a letter would help establish that there was no meeting of the minds to assign such non-employment-related developments or IP to the Company. How much weight it would have if the rights to such developments were the subject of a court case I am not sure.

Yes, it also applies. However, an employment implies they agree to having employment related data stored and processed (e.g., to be paid). When there are performance related bonuses in the contract, this will likely (but IANAL) imply they agree to performance data being collected and stored appropriately. Furthermore I would assume most of such data processing (such as knowing who is responsible for a certain change, who created a file, modified it etc.) falls into "legitimate interests" of the employer, as this information may be necessary for operations. I'd assume (still IANAL) that much of the consequence wrt. GDPR is the right to have your data erased. So a company should be prepared to remove such data when an employee leaves the company, e.g., by clearing the responsible person fields upon request. At least for data where there is no legal requirement to have such data provenance. But: consult your lawyer for a proper legal opinion!

The "Severance Agreement" is a contract between the company and you. It spells out what the company will do and probably what they expect you to do going forward. Simple enough. The statement you referenced merely says that you are not being forced to sign the agreement. That's all. You don't, presumably, have the option of remaining employed at this company but you DO NOT have to sign this agreement. But if you don't, it's likely that any benefits being promised in the agreement will not be delivered to you. So specifically in answer to your questions: It protects them against a claim that they somehow forced you to sign the agreement. Likely anything that the agreement says the company will do such as pay you a certain amount of money and the like. Bottom line is that if you don't like the agreement, don't sign it. If you want the benefits they are promising in the agreement, then sign it and move on.

Given that the purpose of the bonus is to incentivize you to stay, and you are willing to do that, I see no reason why you shouldn't keep the signing bonus if you are fired. While this is not totally without ambiguity, it is at least a fair reading of the statement that a pay back applies only to a voluntary departure, and ambiguities are generally interpreted against the drafter. Also, keeping the signing bonus compensates you for having to start up at a new job only to have it promptly dissipate.

This language is almost certainly included in an attempt to make the agreement comply with the Charter of the French Language. The Charter is the legal document that sets French as the official language of the Canadian province of Quebec. Chapter 7, paragraph 55 of the Charter states that adhesion contracts, such as software licenses, must be in French, but "may be drawn up in another language as well at the express wish of the parties." Because the law seems to require a French version "as well" as the English version, it's not clear that the contracts in question are in compliance--but the language is straight out of the Charter, so it is clearly at least an attempted compliance with that law. The French is included presumably because otherwise a Francophone Quebecois end user might try to invalidate the license by claiming that his or her waiver was not well-informed.

Who owns the copyright to pictures I took of my work (not as part of my employment)? I was employed for a local glass company installing shower doors. When I was finished I would take a picture of it with my phone. My employer knew I was taking the pictures and did not object. I never signed anything saying I could not use the pictures. Long story short I no longer work for that glass company and I've started my own glass business. I'm also now in competition with my ex-employer. I've posted those pictures to show my potential customers pics of my work. My ex-employer is threatening to sue me for using pictures that I took of shower doors that I installed while employed by them. My question is who owns the copyright of those pics me or my employer? Taking pictures was not expected or demanded of as part of my employment.

You probably own the copyright, since this wasn't an explicit part of your job. However, there may be other legal reasons which preclude you from using them anyway; copyright isn't all there is. Since you are in the middle of an active dispute, you should consult an actual lawyer (which I am certainly not) for legal advice.

You have the copyright on all your pictures. He had no permission to copy any of them, so he has committed copyright infringement on a massive scale. You can just get a solicitor who will happily take him to court for you. You shouldn't be overdoing it, $750 per infringed work (per picture) as statutory damages should be fine. If you want it cheaper, the solicitor will write a letter for you that asks him to destroy all the pictures, sign that he has destroyed all the pictures, pay the solicitor's fees, or otherwise be taken to court for copyright infringement (see above). Now I am not a lawyer, so you go to a lawyer which will correct whatever I got wrong here. Just forgot: In addition to having the copyright, if he publishes pictures of people (like you and your family), he needs permission of these people. So if anything gets published, that goes on top of the copyright infringement.

Copyright does not contain the right to attribution (except with respect to authors of visual arts at 17 USC 106A). A copyright owner has the exclusive right to reproduce a work, create derivative works, distribute copies, etc. (17 USC §106). As we already answered here, when a copyright owner gives somebody else permission to do some of those things, the copyright owner can attach a condition to that permission. A common condition is that the licensee give credit to the the original creator. With respect to visual arts, the attribution right gives the author the right to "prevent the use of his or her name as the author of the work of visual art in the event of a distortion, mutilation, or other modification of the work which would be prejudicial to his or her honor or reputation." 17 USC §106A(a)(2)

You can licence your copyright under as many licences as you like to as many people as you like It's your copyright - you can do what you want with it. What you can't do is give someone an exclusive licence and then give licences to others - that would be a breach of contract with the exclusive licensee. How you let people know about the available licences is also up to you - your bio on Stack Exchange is fine.

Their code, their rules A copyright holder is free to offer their work under none, one or many licences. They can, at the same time, use their own work however they see fit without regard to the licences they have given/sold to others (except, they can only give one person an exclusive licence). As an analogy, let’s say I own a fleet of cars. I can drive my cars anytime I want. I can let Jim drive my cars anytime he wants for free. I can let Mary drive a specific car on Thursdays and only within 10km of the depot. I can let Joe drive my cars providing he pays me $50 a day. And I’m not going to let Fred drive them at all because Fred’s a jerk. Each of those is a different licence.

I assume these are digital photos that were electronically transferred (not prints physically delivered). If they were prints physically delivered, he owns those prints, since you used to own them but you unconditionally transferred ownership to him by giving them. No backsies under the law. The photos are protected by copyright law, which means that the person who took the pictures has the exclusive right to make copies, disseminate them, and authorize making copies. In order for anyone to make a copy, they need permission – a license – from you. In the world of pre-planned business deals, the copyright holder writes up a document granting B some right to use the protected material, which typically means "you can install it on your various devices but may not give copies to others". In this case, however, you didn't create an explicit written license. So if this ends up in court, the question is what implicit license you granted. The courts will not decide that you granted him the license to unrestrictedly sell or give away copies of the protected material. The most likely outcome would be that he can only keep his copy, i.e. he will not be forced to erase the copy that you sent him. What the courts would do is try to discern what license you most likely intended to grant to him. There is a provision in copyright law that allows a licensee to make backup copies of a computer program (17 USC 117), but a digital photo is not a computer program. So the lifespan of the copy that you sent would be the lifespan of the phone (I assume) that you sent it to. Since actually using a digital photo technically requires making a copy (from disk storage to computational memory), there is a legal direction (dead-end) that you could go where the photo could exist on the phone, but never be opened again. Again, the courts would have to discern what license you probably intended w.r.t. ever opening the photo – obviously you intended that the file could be opened / viewed any number of times. You could argue that the license which you granted was conditional, i.e. "you can have and use these pictures as long as we are a thing", but establishing that this was part of the license would be tricky. Free digital content often has some "as long as" condition attached to it, i.e. "you can use this program as long as you are affiliated with University of Whatever". I don't consider a conditional license to be a ridiculous interpretation, on the other hand the particular court (judge) might decide that people who sext should be forced to live with the unpleasant consequences of their decisions. If we exclude such a line of thinking, I don't see a compelling counter-argument that your ex-partner inequitably loses a right by construing the license as conditional. I don't know if there is any case law that addresses this: at any rate, copyright law would severely limit what he could do with the pictures (the tort "invasion of privacy" also limits dissemination).

This may well be infringement, but I agree that you should start by reaching out to the instructor. You don't want to pay a lawyer if the matter can be be adjusted peacefully. In the US there is a special limited exemption to copyright for "use in classroom instruction" which might apply in such a case. I am not sure if there is a similar provision in Canadian copyright law. But the instructor is likely to change his practice if you notify him of your objection, even if he has the technical right to use the photo. At least it is worth finding out. If he won't, then you can always consult a lawyer.

You need permission to copy unless fair use applies Does this mean that when someone sends you their resume, it is unlawful to pass it on to others unless the author gives permission? First note that copyright law only applies to copying. If someone were to give you a physical copy of their resume (assuming such a thing would happen in this day and age) then giving this to someone else without copying it is not copyright violation. There may be privacy issues involved but that’s another issue. Further, in the United States, there is a fair use doctrine which allows limited copying without permission in certain circumstances. This is likely to apply in a lot of situations around copying resumes. Finally, permission does not have to be explicit. For example, if you receive a resume in the course of a job application then permission to make copies for that purpose can be assumed to have been implicitly given. Can you get sued if the resume finds its way to someone the author did not intend to see it, and the author suffers some harm as a result? Under privacy law, possibly. Under copyright law, no. What you can be sued for is making a copy. It doesn’t matter where this ends up. Is distributing a resume in the context of professional networking considered as implicit consent to allow sharing with anyone under the US legal system? No. It’s explicit consent because those networking sites have Terms and Conditions that explicitly deal with copyright. For example, if you post your resume on LinkedIn, you agree to this.

Are there limits on terms that can be stipulated in an EULA? I've seen that EULAs say things like "Don't say anything bad about the EULA or this product.". What if the termination clause doesn't terminate that part of the EULA? Is the person forever locked out of freedom of speech? Is there a way to go to court or somewhere to completely wipe the EULA from oneself like if it was never agreed to? P.S. I kinda think that one day this is going to happen: We came for the kidney. What kidney? The one where you clicked Next, Next, and "I Agree."

South Park did the EULA gag, and such an agreement would be unenforceable as unconscionable. NDAs, on the other hand, are conscionable, but a EULA isn't an NDA. There isn't a specific statute that you can point to that either makes such a no-criticism agreement explicitly legal vs. illegal, so the case would have to be based on common law justice-style arguments. People v. Network Associates is a relevant case, where a clause requires permission to publish benchmarks or reviews of the software. The court found against the publisher. However, the restrictive condition was not part of the license agreement, which included a merger clause that declared the license agreement to be the whole agreement. The publisher had some hand-waving about mention of "rules and regulations" which they argued nullified the merger clause, where the court did not accept the argument. So for the moment, you need to decide whether disparaging a product is that important to you; or, become a legal pioneer and win a case in court. There is a bill, the Consumer Review Freedom Act under consideration (passed the Senate) which might change that, if it becomes a law. It pertains to a written, oral, or pictorial review, performance assessment of, or other similar analysis of, including by electronic means, the goods, services, or conduct of a person by an individual who is party to a form contract with respect to which such person is also a party and restricts a contract with standardized terms— (i) used by a person in the course of selling or leasing the person's goods or services; and (ii) imposed on an individual without a meaningful opportunity for such individual to negotiate the standardized terms. which says that that kind of contract with that kind of provision is void.

The DMCA prohibits circumvention of technological measures that effectively control access to a copyrighted work. So you can't legally "crack" the software, period -- even if you own a disc containing the software and have a valid license to use it, a license to use the work is not authorization to circumvent access controls. So if the disc is copy-protected, by my understanding of the DMCA, you're kinda screwed. (The company might be willing to provide you a replacement copy, even if only to maintain the illusion that the software is "licensed, not sold". But you can't make one yourself.) Likewise, if you have a copy of the disc but have lost the license key, you're screwed. Even if you could prove beyond any doubt that you are the licensee, there's not any law i'm aware of that would compel the copyright owner to provide you another license key. And courts have held that distribution of license keys without authorization is a violation of the DMCA. So whoever might provide you another key, if they're not the copyright holder, has broken the law. If you managed to copy the disc from a friend (without circumventing any kind of copy protection), and had your own license key, you might be in a better position. Many EULAs allow you to make a backup copy. Even if they didn't, copyright law does, so there's a possible case for fair use.

Generally, such sanctions prevent certain sorts of transactions in goods and services with nationals or entities of the nation under sanction. The exact list of transactions prohibited or restricted varies. If Open source software were being provided as a service, so that the recipient paid directly for a license, or for customization or configuration work, or for some sort of consulting or assistance, such transactions could be banned or restricted by a sanctions regime, but might not be. (If the sanctions included that particular class of transactions.) However, if it is merely a matter of an open source product being published, for anyone to download, install, and use, I don't see how that would be barred or restricted by any sanctions of the sort recently in use.

The question reads: I see an NDA as a pseudo-public document, something you need to read in detail before you acknowledge and opt-in to limit rights (discussion of topic/tech). Unfortunately for this view, the law normally sees an NDA as a private contract, except when it is alleged that it violates public policy. If an NDA explicitly or implicitly includes itself in the list of things not to be disclosed, then posting it would be a violation of the contract. In such a case the party posting the agreement would be subject to whatever consequence the agreement specifies for violation, unless that person had a valid defense. The operator of a web site where the document might be posted would not normally ne a party to the agreement, and so would not be liable for hosting it, unless some other limitation applies, beyond the NDA itself. An NDA can indeed be a significant limitation on the signer's freedom to discuss certain topics, and a person would be wise to consider it in detail, and perhaps consult a lawyer, before signing one. But that does not mean that the person should post or distribute it publicly, nor that the person is automatically entitled to consult NDAs that others have signed. There are sufficient sample NDA forms available that a person can compare an offered NDA with other possibilities, and get an idea if an offered NDA goes beyond the usual terms.

The CEO wants to "fool" users You are essentially admitting that the company you are working for is about to deceit its customers and asking whether that is legal. The relevant set of laws is rather sparse and does not give direct answers in regards to oAuth tokens or other details of that level (which is probably making your CEO think he can "handle" the arising questions). Probably the most relevant bit of legislation that applies here is The Federal Trade Commission Act (15 U.S.C. §§41-58) which prohibits unfair or deceptive practices and has been applied to online privacy and data security policies. I am pretty sure that, in practice, if the users take your company to court, it will be held liable because: users are allowing us to read their CRM data and once we get the data, the data become ours, and we can do whatever we want with it. Is this true? While the users are still allowing you to read their data it is completely up to the Terms/EULA what you can do with it. However, once you have made the users think that they have withdrawn your access (e.g. they "deleted" oAuth tokens), you are no longer authorized to read the current data (although the Terms may still allow you to use the old data you obtained when you had access). Silently continuing to access their data without their knowledge/approval is definitely a deceit. The CEO wants us to download all of their emails and store them in our database There would be nothing wrong with that if it was in the Terms. But if it is not, that would be a blatant (and easily punishable) breach of privacy. Note that you may also be held personally liable for this wrongdoing (if/when proved so). "Just doing your job" claim will not work.

You are making an argument along the lines of promissory estoppel, but this requires reliance on a promise (roughly). From Google's Developer Distribution Agreement: Google reserves the right to suspend and/or bar any Developer from the Store at its sole discretion. From Apple's iOS Developer Program Agreement: You understand and agree that Apple may, in its sole discretion, reject Your Application for distribution for any reason Apple and its licensors reserve the right to change, suspend, remove, or disable access to any services at any time. Neither company makes any representation or promise that a developer will have the right to distribute their product through these official stores. It is irrelevant that an app happens to not violate any terms of the agreement. Even if you demonstrated this, distribution of an app through the official stores is at the sole discretion of Apple and Google.

The website owner brings in an expert programmer who testifies that the user cannot have gotten to a certain part of the site (or download, etc.) without having clicked to accept the terms of service, and that this document they're holding is a true and correct copy of the terms of service as of that date. That's evidence in favor of the site, and an adverse party has to have stronger evidence in order to overcome it. If the person didn't save a copy of the terms themselves, they'll have a hard time on this. Then the other party's attorney tries to discredit the programmer by asking questions like "how do you know there are no bugs in the software which could have allowed somebody to reach this without agreeing to the terms of service" etc. Apparently, some sites don't require users to click indicating agreement. If the company has significantly changed the site, terms of service, etc. since the time the user registered, and doesn't keep any copies of old versions around, and admits this, they'll have a hard time enforcing an agreement (as they can't produce a copy of it). If the user kept a copy, the user might be able to present that. It's up to the finder of fact to decide what to believe and how much weight to give the various witnesses' testimony.

What SE can do is controlled primarily by the Terms of Service. What most matters is the section on Subscriber Content, which says: You agree that any and all content, including without limitation any and all text, graphics, logos, tools, photographs, images, illustrations, software or source code, audio and video, animations, and product feedback (collectively, “Content”) that you provide to the public Network (collectively, “Subscriber Content”), is perpetually and irrevocably licensed to Stack Overflow on a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive basis pursuant to Creative Commons licensing terms (CC-BY-SA), and you grant Stack Overflow the perpetual and irrevocable right and license to access, use, process, copy, distribute, export, display and to commercially exploit such Subscriber Content, even if such Subscriber Content has been contributed and subsequently removed by you... This means that you cannot revoke permission for Stack Overflow to publish, distribute, store and use such content and to allow others to have derivative rights to publish, distribute, store and use such content. The CC-BY-SA Creative Commons license terms are explained in further detail by Creative Commons, but you should be aware that all Public Content you contribute is available for public copy and redistribution, and all such Public Content must have appropriate attribution. This part has not changed: the purported license is still "CC-BY-SA", and the TOS does not explicitly specify a version. What apparently has changed in the relevant section is one "helpful information" link, which now points to https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/. So the interesting question arises whether that would constitute an unpermitted post-hoc change in the terms by which SE has license to my older stuff. This matter came up in a reviled Meta question; as I pointed out, the TOS also included a merger clause that This Agreement (including the Privacy Policy), as modified from time to time, constitutes the entire agreement between You, the Network and Stack Exchange with respect to the subject matter hereof. This Agreement replaces all prior or contemporaneous understandings or agreements, written or oral, regarding the subject matter hereof. Because of that, the TOS is self-contained and stuff found on other web pages are not part of the agreement. This in itself is a bit of a problem because you can't both say "we're not bound by stuff outside of this page" and say "the specific terms of the license are outside this page". That particular clause is gone, but there is an analog in the current TOS: These Public Network Terms represent the entire agreement between you and Stack Overflow and supersede all prior or contemporaneous oral or written communications, proposals, and representations with respect to the public Network or Services or Products contemplated hereunder. Furthermore, the TOS contains the following "we can change it" clause: Stack Overflow reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to modify or replace these Public Network Terms, as our business evolves over time and to better provide Services and Products to the Stack Overflow community, or to change, suspend, or discontinue the public Network and/or any Services or Products at any time by posting a notice on the public Network or by sending you notice via e-mail or by another appropriate means of electronic communication. I assume but do not know for a fact that a similar clause existed in prior versions of the TOS. So I conclude that the change is legal.

What prevents me from making a derivative of a work never fixed in a tangible medium? Suppose I'm a singer-songwriter in the United States, and at one of my concerts, I perform a previously unreleased (and in fact never-before-recorded) song. I play this song from memory and by ear; I have never written down the tune or words. Perhaps I invented this song while on tour, and I intend to make a recording when my tour is over. Over the course of the tour, there are thousands of eyewitness accounts to this song's existence and its authorship by me. Before I ever produce a recording of the song, though, a fan produces some kind of derivative recording (a cover, or a song that's simply very similar) of my song. Do I have any grounds to claim copyright infringement, considering that I never fixed the work as either a sound recording or written musical composition? (Let us ignore the fact that I could lie by creating such a fixation after the fact and saying that it predates the recording -- suppose I honestly admit as a point of pride, or am unable to deny due to long-term witness accounts, etc., that the song was never fixed prior to the creation of the fan work.) What if a fan recorded my actual performance with a camera at my show? In that case, I was in no way responsible for the creation of the recording, but a significant part of the recording's value is my music. Do I have a copyright claim to control the distribution of such a fan recording, and does the prior existence of such a recorded fixation influence the derivative-work case above?

As always, it is hard to prove a negative, but there is no copyright in a work that has not been fixed. Copyright protection subsists, in accordance with this title, in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression... (17 USC 102) Further, a fixation is only a fixation if it is "by or under the authority of the author" (17 USC 101). This post from an attorney at Vogels & Assoc. agrees that without fixation there is no copyright. Unauthorized fixation (the rogue audience filmer) and distribution of unauthorized fixations is prohibited: Whoever, without the consent of the performer or performers involved, knowingly and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain— (1) fixes the sounds or sounds and images of a live musical performance in a copy or phonorecord, or reproduces copies or phonorecords of such a performance from an unauthorized fixation; ... (18 USC 2319A, and see also 17 USC 1101) This is sometimes called a "fixation right" that performers own. It's also referred to as the "anti-bootlegging" statute. US v Moghadam calls this a quasi-copyright protection. To answer your question, where there is no fixation, there is no work to infringe, and whatever you would make wouldn't be a derivative work. Unauthorized fixation of the live performance is prohibited, and so is unauthorized distribution and reproduction of that unauthorized fixation. The performer doesn't get a real copyright in any element of the performance unless they fix it or authorize it to be fixed. Related Reading Hughes, Justin, Understanding (and Fixing) the Right of Fixation in Copyright Law (March 29, 2014). 62 J. Copyright Soc'y USA 385 (2015); Loyola-LA Legal Studies Paper No. 2014-10. US v. Moghadam, 175 F.3d 1269 (11th Cir. 1999)

No, it means you can't copy it. By default, the copyright to a work is owned by its creator, and nobody else is allowed to copy it, or create derived works, without their permission. That permission can be granted by a license. "License unknown" doesn't really tell us anything, but it certainly isn't clearly granting you permission. So you don't have permission to copy, and thus you cannot. You would have to seek permission from the copyright holder. See also If no licence is distributed with an application/source code, what license applies by default if any? (Some jurisdictions do allow for "fair use" exceptions, which allow you to copy a work without permission. You haven't said what jurisdiction you are in.)

There's usually at least a little wiggle room for a fair-use argument in copyright law, but as you're describing it, this sounds like a pretty straightforward copyright violation. A copyright holder's exclusive rights include the rights to make copies, create derivative works and publicly perform the work. Whichever way you want to characterize the podcaster's conduct, he's running afoul of at least one of these rights.

There are three questions relevant to this issue: Who owned the copyright in the first place? Was the copyright transferred? If not, was a license given to the site to use the content? In general, under most countries' laws, the person who creates an original work owns the copyright. The person with the copyright has the right to copy and distribute the work, and the right to prevent others from doing so. In some cases, such as where a work is created as a "work for hire" by certain employees under certain circumstances, the initial copyright is held by a third party. You will need a lawyer familiar with your jurisdiction and your circumstances to determine if this is the case. Finally, even if you own the copyright, you can license others to use your content. This may be in an express written document, or it may be an implied license--implied, for instance, by the act of posting it on their blog. The existence and scope of such a license is, again, something that will have to be determined based on your country's specific laws and your specific situation. The bottom line is: if you submitted articles to that blog, you can't complain that they posted them. Depending on the license in effect, you might be able to get them taken down, or you might not. You need a lawyer, not the internet, to tell you what your rights are in this very specific case.

Not copyright as such because that is about protecting a 'work' — a voice is not a 'work'. As the court said in one of the following examples, "A voice is not copyrightable. The sounds are not 'fixed.'" (You could copyright a roar or a yell — some kind of fixed arrangement of sound(s).) But some jurisdictions have recognised property rights in voices and/or that the voice is protected by the person's 'right of publicity' (the right to control the commercial exploitation of their identity, of which the voice is a part). For example: Bette Wins Ruling In ‘Sound-Alike’ Lawsuit - AP News June 23, 1988 SAN FRANCISCO (AP) _ A federal appeals court has reinstated a lawsuit filed by entertainer Bette Midler after an advertising agency allegedly tried to duplicate her voice and singing style in one of its ad campaigns. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled Wednesday that Midler could pursue her suit against the Ford Motor Co. and the Young & Rubicam advertising agency. The court said certain personal attributes - such as a voice - can be considered property rights, protected by state law. ... U.S. District Judge Ferdinand Fernandez said Young & Rubicam acted like ″the average thief″ but dismissed Midler’s suit, saying no law prohibits imitation of a singer’s voice. But the appeals court disagreed. "A voice is as distinctive and personal as a face,″ the appeals court said. ″When a distinctive voice of a professional singer is widely known and is deliberately imitated in order to sell a product, the sellers have appropriated what is not theirs." judgment in Midler v Ford Another case in the US is Waits v Frito-Lay Inc. The US Court of Appeal found that a radio commercial's imitation of the voice of Tom Waits constituted a civil tort, "voice misappropriation". I'm not aware of any cases involving computer synthesis of voices.

In your example is the spare part the subject of a design patent? I assume it is not. When you combine the spare part to create a “different product” does the finished product resemble the drawings in the design patent? If, in its intended use, the final thing is close enough to the design patent to fall within its scope then you might by indirectly infringing by inducing people to infringe. The scope of a design patent is very difficult to determine reliably. This has nothing to do with how you got the components of your product, just how the completed thing looks. Copyright does not cover products (unless it is a model of a building or a statue or mold for a statue).

They can be, and usually would be. If someone uses a a keyboard or other instrument that records a MIDI file, that file is protected by copyright as soon as it is saved. Or if some person or group perform a work and captures the performance with a digital recorder and saves it to a MIDI file, again that MIDI file will be protected by copyright as soon as it is recorded. However, if an existing recording is converted into a MIDI format, the MIDI will have the same copyright as the source recording, if any. No new copyright is generated, just as there is no new copyright for making a photocopy of a book. If the original recording was PD, so will the MIDI file be. Similarly, if a MIDI file is created directly and automatically from a score, it would have the same copyright as the score, nothing added, nothing changed. If the score is PD, so is the MIDI. But often the publisher of a score will claim a copyright on that version, even if the composition is PD. Sometimes such a claim is valid, sometimes not. It depends on how much original content the publisher added. If a work that is under copyright is recorded in a MIDI file, the file will be subject to two copyrights, the one on the composition, and the one on the recording. And if permission is not obtained from whoever holds the copyright on the composition, this will be copyright infringement. (There are, however, some cases where the law grants an automatic license to a performer for a "cover" version of a copyrighted work.) If a work that is PD is recorded in a MIDI file, the file will be subject to only one copyright, the one on the recording. This will initially belong to the musicians, or to their employer, depending on the agreements they have made. In short a MIDI recording is not legally different from a recording on magnetic tape or on vinyl, or in any other medium. The copyright is on the performance, although it protects the recording.

This appears to be very clear to me: "NPR does not allow other websites to post our content..." I cannot think of a more clear way to say "Do not reproduce our content on your site." Since you asked about licensing the right to reproduce their content, and they flatly ignored your request, I think it is safe to assume that they are not interested in licensing that right to you, even for a fee. This is also consistent with their "NPR does not allow [any] other websites to post..." language. It is always the copyright holder's right to refuse to offer any particular person (or all persons generally) a license, no matter what payment they might offer. (With the exception of statutory licenses, which in the U.S. exist only for recording covers of musical works.) They have also ignored your request to recompense them for infringement already performed. If in the future they decide to take legal action against you for your past infringement (hugely unlikely that such a hassle would be worthwhile for NPR) or seek any out of court settlement (again, quite unlikely they will care enough), I'm sure they will let you know. As they've said in their email, you are welcome to link to NPR's content. You are, of course, not welcome to spread misinformation or lies about NPR by claiming something like, "Look at this wonderful article that NPR wrote purely for us, at our personal request," or "NPR thinks that In Home Teaching Agency XXX is a great company, so we built a curriculum around their content," when NPR has never said any such thing. Any legal issue around linking would probably be a trademark offense, by wrongfully suggesting that NPR endorses you, or by misrepresenting yourself as an agent of NPR. If you don't do either of things, and just say, "Here's an article on [subject X] published by NPR," you're probably fine. If you want to be very thorough, you could include a disclaimer on your site like, "In Home Teaching Agency XXX is not a licencee or partner of NPR. Links to NPR articles are included for educational purposes only," or similar. This seems pretty excessive to me, since a reasonable person won't assume that linking to an article from a major news source suggests a partnership, but I suppose it couldn't hurt to include such a disclaimer.

Could a federal criminal defendant sue the Senate on 6th amendment grounds? Specifically, I'm talking about the part of the 6th amendment that guarantees the right to a speedy trial. I've read quite a bit about the long vacancies in federal judge positions due to the senate not holding any hearings to confirm anyone at all the levels. So, if someone's case is held up due to the court being overloaded, would they have standing to sue the senate for creating this situation?

If you want to have some fun and increase the likelihood that you will go to trial soon, you can file a motion to dismiss for failure to comply with the Speedy Trial Act. If you have co-defendants they may be the reason for delay. You could then move for a severance. On a slightly different note, since 95% of federal criminal cases result in the imposition of a penalty on the accused, you should start calculating your guidelines.

An "inquisitorial" system is one where the Judge or Magistrate actively questions the accused and witnesses to attempt to determine the facts. The Judge may also determine, at least in part, what witnesses to call in what order. An "adversarial" system is one in which each side presents its case, and the judge acts as an umpire deciding on procedure, and possibly makes the final ruling (or directs a jury to do so) but is not actively involved in questioning witnesses or deciding what witnesses to call. I don't see anything which would prevent a common-law jurisdiction from establishing an "inquisitorial" system by statute except longstanding tradition, but as far as i know no such jurisdiction has ever had such a system in place for dealing with criminal matters. The informal procedures in some small claims courts do have judges more actively involved than in other courts. I think this is also true in some family courts as well. I think I have heard of some civil-law jurisdictions which use something like an adversary system, but i am not sure of that. Certainly a civil-law country could pass a law setting up such a system if it chose to.

It is true that judges in the US have absolute immunity from any lawsuit for damages arising from their performance of judicial functions. This applies even if those actions were corrupt, malicious, or illegal. The only exceptions to a judge's immunity to a lawsuit is if the conduct alleged was not a judicial action, or if the judge was acting in the complete absence of all jurisdiction. See, among others, Mireles v. Waco, 502 U.S. 9. However, the term "lawsuit" doesn't refer to criminal charges. Footnote 1 of Mireles specifically says criminal liability isn't blocked by judicial immunity. While a judge can't be sued for damages for rigging a trial, the judge can be prosecuted for doing that.

Legally there is no problem. What you say is protected speech under the 1st Amendment as long as it is either true or a matter of opinion. However Ron Beyer's comment is a good one; while legal this sounds very inadvisable. You would be far better off hiring a lawyer. The Mr Dicks of this world make money from the widespread fear of legal action. He will probably fold as soon as he sees a letter from a lawyer threatening a lawsuit. Until then stalling doesn't cost him anything so he will carry on doing it. BTW, don't delay. I don't know about the US, but over here in the UK there are a number of ways that people like Mr Dick can make it hard to collect. Don't give him time to play shell games with his assets.

Yes It's legal: but that's more of a bug than a feature. The Constitution says this about the appointment of Supreme Court judges: he [the President] shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ... judges of the Supreme Court, ... In the Federalist Papers: No 76, Hamilton had this to say: But might not his nomination be overruled? I grant it might, yet this could only be to make place for another nomination by himself. The person ultimately appointed must be the object of his preference, though perhaps not in the first degree. It is also not very probable that his nomination would often be overruled. The Senate could not be tempted, by the preference they might feel to another, to reject the one proposed; because they could not assure themselves, that the person they might wish would be brought forward by a second or by any subsequent nomination. They could not even be certain, that a future nomination would present a candidate in any degree more acceptable to them; and as their dissent might cast a kind of stigma upon the individual rejected, and might have the appearance of a reflection upon the judgment of the chief magistrate, it is not likely that their sanction would often be refused, where there were not special and strong reasons for the refusal. and in No 78: It equally proves, that though individual oppression may now and then proceed from the courts of justice, the general liberty of the people can never be endangered from that quarter; I mean so long as the judiciary remains truly distinct from both the legislature and the Executive. For I agree, that "there is no liberty, if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers." He was wrong about the first but right about the second. Now, this is only the way he saw it and others no doubt had other views but he was focused solely on balancing the powers of the executive and the legislature. There is no consideration of what would happen if, for whatever reason, including partisanship, the executive and the legislature were tightly aligned or hopelessly opposed. Even for the time, this view seems overly idealistic and hopelessly naive. However, these are the same people who thought it would be a good idea for the runner-up in the Presidential race to be the vice-President. Indeed, Hamilton saw and was an integral part of the intense partisanship that arose in the 1790s between the Federalists and the Republicans and the first rejection of a Supreme Court nominee happened during George Washington's Presidency. This analysis shows that the confirmation rate when the White House and Senate are politically aligned is 87.2% but only 47.2% when they are different. That said, most (78%) nominees have been confirmed with the last decade being about average. The US Supreme Court has always been partisan. Indeed, it's only since the Second World War that the idea that it shouldn't be has taken root. In earlier days, the Supreme Court was not populated by jurists - it was the domain of politicians, some of whom moved back and forth between the bench and the Capitol. In Brown v Board of Education 4 of the 9 judges had been Congressmen or Governours and some had never been on the bench of any court before their appointment to SCOTUS. So, yes its totally legal but no, it probably isn't what the founders intended but yes, it has ever been thus.

Is an attorney permitted to ask questions like those in either paragraphs two and three? Yes. That does not mean that they will be considered relevant or even appropriate, though. Is the witness allowed to decline to answer such questions for reason of irrelevance, or other grounds? Yes. In general, though, it would be safer for the witness to state an objection (be it on the basis of irrelevance, confrontational, asked & answered, as to form, etc.) and answer the question nonetheless, rather than simply refusing to answer it. By simply declining to answer a question regardless of the basis for refusal, the witness risks affording a crooked lawyer the opportunity to falsely generalize that the witness was uncooperative. One exception to the idea of "object-and-then-answer" is where some privilege is the alleged basis for the objection, since the substance of the answer could be such that it amounts to waiving the privilege even where that privilege is legitimate. The witness may also opt to answer the lawyer's irrelevant questions even without stating an objection. Some questions are so obviously irrelevant, dull, or stupid that a failure to raise an objection will be inconsequential. In such scenarios, raising objections can only lengthen the deposition transcript and make it harder to read. For a real-life example of deposition with plenty of dull questions, take a look at the transcript (which I split in parts one, two and three) of the 4-hour deposition where I myself was the witness (you can download the case file, almost in its entirety, from this page). You will notice that I did not raise objections during the deposition, the main reason being what I explained above: To avoid giving the opposing counsel an opportunity to falsely accuse me in court of being uncooperative during deposition. Furthermore, addressing the crook's futile questions (1) projects transparency and helps on the witness's part, and (2) precludes a false & misleading impression as if the witness had something to hide. After all, wrongdoers are the ones most interested in eluding testimony in ways very similar to this other deposition. The reason of being of objections is precisely that the law "is aware" that, as a matter of fact, lawyers indulge in all kinds of abusive questions when taking sworn testimony --be it in trial or at deposition-- of a witness.

Based on some quick searching, this would likely be a wrongful death action. I have to pick a state, so I'll pick Nevada. The first question is what damages could be. I don't know offhand what is typical in wrongful death suits, but this appears to be beyond mere negligence: there was a hit and run involved. I have no trouble believing the claim would reach at least six figures. This is important, because federal diversity jurisdiction only includes lawsuits with over $75,000 at stake. Now, Santa Claus's citizenship matters; if he were stateless it'd be an issue, but he is a citizen of Canada. That means that federal court has diversity jurisdiction: because the lawsuit is between a citizen of one state on one side and a foreign citizen on the other (no state has citizens on both sides of the lawsuit), and meets Congress's extra requirements (enough money at stake), it can be in federal court. The way diversity jurisdiction works is that the plaintiff can file in federal court, but if they choose to file in Nevada court then the defendant can remove the case to federal court. Either party can get it into federal court. Conventional wisdom is that federal court is more defendant-friendly than state court on state law claims. It is likely that if Grandpa files the case in any court in Nevada, the case will end up in the United States District Court for the District of Nevada. But suppose it is in state court? Most states don't have separate "county court" and "state court" systems; county courts are a thing, but they're a specialized thing and the serious stuff is not in those. A six-figure wrongful death claim won't go in Nevada's equivalent of small claims court. It'd go in Nevada district court, if it's in state courts. But what about other courts? Grandma was walking home, so it can be assumed she was a Nevada resident. Assuming Grandpa lived with her (which is rather likely), so is he. They then can't sue in any US state other than Nevada without being laughed out of court -- a lawsuit needs to have something to do with where you're suing. The other option is Canada, but such a suit is unlikely.

Even if unlimited resources were available, in order to have a fair trial, the prosecution and defense both need time to prepare their cases, research the law, conduct investigations, gather evidence, interview witnesses, seek out experts, order forensic tests, etc, etc. And there will be pretrial motions that have to be prepared, argued, and judged. You have to figure out what's going to happen to the defendant during that time, be it detention, release, bail, or some other alternative. Shortages of personnel obviously exacerbate the delays, but even without that issue, it's not like the courts could try every defendant on the spot. That would be something like the Wild West, or the Dark Ages; certainly not what the modern world considers justice.

Legal effect of "I am a health care professional" buttons on medical websites Similar to this question. Many websites containing medical information intended for medical professionals require that the user assert that he/she is one before the content can be accessed. Merck Connect is an example. Does a curious user (not employed in the medical field) clicking on the "I am a health care professional" button to access the content risk liability of any kind? In particular, do the actions of merely clicking said button (whereby said user falsely asserts he/she is a health care professional) or accessing the content behind the button (which may be restricted by law or otherwise) attract liability? What relevant legislation exists, if any, regarding access to said websites? Answers should focus on the United States, but answers involving other countries will be accepted as well. Under French law, the following requirement exists, based on a December 2011 law on food safety effective May 2012 (see http://www.itena-clinical.com/en/): les sections des sites internet réservées aux seuls professionnels de santé doivent être, a minima, accessibles après une page d'engagement de l'internaute, certifiant qu’il est un professionnel de santé. Rough translation based on Google Translate output: sections of websites reserved solely for healthcare professionals shall only be accessible after at least an agreement page certifying that the user is a healthcare professional. Does a similar requirement exist under United States federal law?

The purpose of the button is not to put liability on you, but to shield the website from liability. The website does not want you looking up information about drugs, deciding that a particular drug is right for you, causing yourself harm and then blaming the website. You may have acted unlawfully but you would have no liability because no injury (financial or otherwise) has been caused to the website. Clicking the button is an assertion that one is a medical professional. This is a false statement, so the website could sue you for the tort of deceit, but there is no injury, which is one of the elements of deceit. The website would not even get nominal damages. The button may also constitute a contract. In exchange for access to a website, you warrant that you are a medical professional. You are not, which is a breach of the contract. However, the damages are nil. Conceivably, if you passed the information on to someone else who misused it, there may be some injury to the website, and then you would have to compensate the website for that injury under one or both of the heads of liability described above. In terms of criminal liability, it is rarely an offence to make a false statement to a private body without some other aggravating element. For example, in Australia, it is an offence to make a false statement for financial gain, or to make a false statement to a government official (regardless of whether there is financial gain etc). But simply making a false statement is not by itself a crime. You may breach a computer law. The United States Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is pretty broad. Obtaining information from a computer without authority is an offence: 18 USC s 1030(a)(2)(C). The only exception is if the web server is in the same state as you and somehow nobody from outside the state can access it: see definition of 'protected computer' in 18 USC s 1030(e)(2).

Not on its own, no Overview A ToS can be of some value, but will not fully protect the site operator (host). For one thing, a ToS is probably not binding on the user based on a contract of adhesion such as "by using this site you agree to...". A specific act, such as clicking a checkbox that defaults to clicked or activating an "I accept the terms" button is probably required to make a ToS binding on the user. But a host must do more that obtain an agreement to its ToS. Once it has actual knowledge of illegal content, a host must take action to remove or disable it, or else it may be liable as if it had posted the content itself. It also depends what kind of "something illegal" is involved. The most common form is perhaps content that allegedly infringes copyright. Safe Harbor In the EU Article 14 of the EU Directive on electronic commerce (Directive 2000/31/EC) will apply (note that being a directive, rather than a regulation, 2000/31/EC) depends on implementation in national law, which may vary from one country to another. Article 14 reads: Hosting Where an information society service is provided that consists of the storage of information provided by a recipient of the service, Member States shall ensure that the service provider is not liable for the information stored at the request of a recipient of the service, on condition that: (a) the provider does not have actual knowledge of illegal activity or information and, as regards claims for damages, is not aware of facts or circumstances from which the illegal activity or information is apparent; or (b) the provider, upon obtaining such knowledge or awareness, acts expeditiously to remove or to disable access to the information. Paragraph 1 shall not apply when the recipient of the service is acting under the authority or the control of the provider. This Article shall not affect the possibility for a court or administrative authority, in accordance with Member States' legal systems, of requiring the service provider to terminate or prevent an infringement, nor does it affect the possibility for Member States of establishing procedures governing the removal or disabling of access to information. Article 14 means that when a host obtains actual knowledge of infringing or otherwise illegal content, the host must promptly delete that content or disable access to it. Such knowledge could come via a takedown notice. According to the page "Copyright infringement and remedies in Germany": One of the main situations refers to platform operators. Once they have been informed about a specific infringement on their platform, they are required to remove the specific infringing content and to implement measures in order to prevent future violations. See also the Wikipedia article "Notice and Take down" which discusses Article 14, and points out that it does not define a specific notice and take down procedure, unlike the US provisions of 17 USC 512 (which includes the DMCA notice and take down procedure, and the related Safe Harbor provisions). Since Article 14 clearly envisages some sort of notice procedure, but not specific procedure has been defined in the laws of most EU member states, including Germany, some people use the US DMCA notice format, as describesd in this article. Such a notice may serve to give a German host "actual knowledge" and impose liability if the host fails to respond promptly. There have been recent legal cases which affect the procedures in such cases, as reported in "Copyright 'safe harbours' for service providers need to be consistent" from Pinsent Masons and "Germany: Time To Hit Pause: Copyright Infringement On User Generated Platforms – When Is The Platform Provider Liable For Damages?" from Morrison & Foerster LLP. The Morrison & Foerster article reads: Previous rulings by the CJEU have addressed both the application of the safe harbor principle set out in the EU E-Commerce Directive1 that shields hosting providers from liability for hosted unlawful third-party content of which they have no actual knowledge and, separately, the extent of infringement of copyright by hosting of, or linking to, copyright infringing third-party content under the EU Copyright Directive. But it is still unclear under which conditions the providers of the various online platforms that store and make available user-generated content, can rely on the safe harbor privilege applying to hosting providers to avoid liability, or whether they must not only take down the infringing content when they obtain knowledge of such content but also compensate the rightsholders of such content for damages for copyright infringement. The Pinsent Masons article reads: [A] ruling last year by a German court has highlighted an anomaly in the way 'safe harbour' protections ISPs enjoy under EU law apply in the case of copyright enforcement. It has confirmed that applications for blocking orders and injunctive relief are treated differently, despite the economic effect of those measures being the same. The safe harbour protections stem from the EU's E-Commerce Directive. That legislation prohibits service providers from being put under any general obligation to monitor for illegal activity by users of their service. In addition, where the service providers are mere conduits to infringing activity by others, they cannot be held liable for that activity unless and until they obtain 'actual knowledge' of the activity. At that stage, a service provider must act expeditiously to remove or to disable access to the information if they are not to be held liable themselves for infringement. However, EU copyright law cuts into these 'safe harbour' protections. It makes clear that rights holders can apply for an injunction against intermediaries whose services are used by a third party to infringe copyright. In Germany, however, changes made to the Telemedia Act in October 2017 have spurred debate over the admissibility and the requirements of blocking injunctions. Other unlawful content Other sorts of illegal content are possible, such as neo-Nazi propaganda and Child Pornography, which are criminal under German law. In theory Article 14 applies to such content as well as to alleged copyright infringements. But since these are serious crimes, the degree of promptness expected from a host will probably be greater. Conclusion A hosting provider will need, at the least, to respond to notices alleging copyright infringement or other illegal content, and provide an address to which such notices can be sent. A host might do well to implement the full DMCA takedown procedure. ToS provisions will not provide a shield against liability after a notice is sent to the host. A host may be required to block future access by those whose previous uploads have been found to be unlawful. This may require soem sort of log-in procedure. Thus a simple ToS provision, as described in the question, particularly in the absence of any log-in mechanism, and of any enforcement of the ToS provisions, will not be enough to shield the host from liability for unlawful content posted by users.

Yes. There is both a duty to disclose and permit inspection of certain records (e.g. those that adversely affect either party's case or support another party's case) and a right for the court to demand access to other specific records. In england-and-wales the applicable rules are found in Part 31 of the Civil Procedure Rules. For example: Standard disclosure 31.6 Standard disclosure requires a party to disclose only– (a) the documents on which he relies; and (b) the documents which – (i) adversely affect his own case; (ii) adversely affect another party’s case; or (iii) support another party’s case; and (c) the documents which he is required to disclose by a relevant practice direction. Specific disclosure (1) The court may make an order for specific disclosure or specific inspection. (2) An order for specific disclosure is an order that a party must do one or more of the following things – (a) disclose documents or classes of documents specified in the order; (b) carry out a search to the extent stated in the order; (c) disclose any documents located as a result of that search. Party's control 31.8 (1) A party’s duty to disclose documents is limited to documents which are or have been in his control. (2) For this purpose a party has or has had a document in his control if – (a) it is or was in his physical possession; (b) he has or has had a right to possession of it; or (c) he has or has had a right to inspect or take copies of it. Right of inspection 31.3 (1) A party to whom a document has been disclosed has a right to inspect that document except where – (a) the document is no longer in the control of the party who disclosed it; (b) the party disclosing the document has a right or a duty to withhold inspection of it, or (c) paragraph (2) applies. (2) Where a party considers that it would be disproportionate to the issues in the case to permit inspection of documents within a category or class of document disclosed under rule 31.6(b) – (a) he is not required to permit inspection of documents within that category or class; but (b) he must state in his disclosure statement that inspection of those documents will not be permitted on the grounds that to do so would be disproportionate. Inspection and copying 31.15 Where a party has a right to inspect a document– (a) that party must give the party who disclosed the document written notice of his wish to inspect it; (b) the party who disclosed the document must permit inspection not more than 7 days after the date on which he received the notice; and (c) that party may request a copy of the document and, if he also undertakes to pay reasonable copying costs, the party who disclosed the document must supply him with a copy not more than 7 days after the date on which he received the request. And, in case there's any doubt that this applies to electronic records: Meaning of document 31.4 In this Part – ‘document’ means anything in which information of any description is recorded;

The vaccine card doesn't have a specific legal status under US law. There are federal laws against fraud which would encompass vaccine card fraud, but tidying up disparate notices into a single notice is not fraudulent (there is no attempt to deceive), as long as you don't falsify signatures, seals, or specific information. From a practical perspective, though, the official vaccination record from your state is a better and more official way to have a single proof of vaccination. There is probably no practical way to transport vaccinations from a foreign country into the US system, but that is a question best asked on Travel, since it's not about the law, it's about quasi-legal mandates authorized under broad laws that say "in an emergency, the government can stipulate necessary rules".

If the requirement is imposed by an employer, then the basis for an exemption, if any, would be whatever the employer choose to allow, unless some applicable law required some particular exemption. Such mandates are not common. Indeed I do not recall hearing of any such absolute mandates. But an employer could choose to impose one, and I have heard (and read) discussions of hospitals, for example, requiring COVID-19 vaccinations to be taken by employees when available. If an employer mandates a vaccination, it is up to the employer to decide when, and if, an exemption is warranted. It is up to the employee to decide whether to comply by accepting the vaccination or refuse at the risk of being fired. I do not know of any law which would specifically require an employer to grant exemptions in particular circumstances. A law might exist, or be passed, requiring such exemptions. If the employee had a particular medical condition which makes a vaccination si9gnificantly more risky for that employee than for an average person, and if that condition was considered to be a disability (not all or even most medical conditions are so considered) then the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) would require the employer to offer a "reasonable accommodation" to the employee, if one is available. Exactly what accommodation is "reasonable" is a fact-based determination, and would depend on the reason for the mandate, the cost and burden of the accommodation on the employer, and the degree if risk to the employee with and without the accommodation. In some cases no accommodation is found to be "reasonable", and in such cases the ADA does not mandate any accommodation at all. The ADA generally specifies whet must be done when an employee has \ a disability, but dopes not specify exactly how a disability must be proved. A medical certificate is common, but njot invariable, iof an employer questions the existence o a disability. The ADA would not require an exemption for a "Religious/Philosophical" objection. Soem state laws protect religious scruples in various particular employment situations. In some but not all states objections on such grounds for vaccinations otherwise required for school attendance are honored. The exact grounds accepted vary from state to state. A specific state would need to be listed for a more specific answer to be given, and I am not aware of any state that has such a requirement for exemption from a private employer's vaccine mandate. Addition: It seems from comments that some employers, such as hospitals and the military, already require vaccinations for some diseases. This seems reasonable to me, and does not change my answer otehrwise.

The Right to Access is pretty absolute. However, there are some limitations: Is the service even the Data Controller for the data in question? Here, you're talking about notes of one user about another. Is the platform the controller for the notes, or would the note-taker be the controller? Or both, jointly? If the platform weren't a controller but merely a data processor for these notes, it would be illegal for them to disclose the information. Trish also correctly points out that the GDPR does not apply to processing for purely personal or household purposes, e.g. personal social media use. So GDPR would not provide a basis to compel a user to disclose their notes to the data subject, assuming that the note-taker is covered by this exception. Of course, this exception wouldn't apply if the notes are taken for other purposes, e.g. professional networking. Also, this exception doesn't affect the platform. There is an explicit limitation to the right of access in Art 15(4): The right to obtain a copy referred to in paragraph 3 shall not adversely affect the rights and freedoms of others. Disclosing user A's notes about user B to user B would likely violate the privacy rights of A. The notes are both A's and B's personal data. However, the correct balance depends on context. E.g. an employer probably can't refuse to provide access to a performance assessment merely because it was written by an identifiable manager. The UK ICO has provided detailed guidance on this aspect to the right of access. They propose a three-step test: Step one – Does the request require disclosing information that identifies another individual? For example, it might be possible to redact other people's information (but not in your Mastodon notes example). Step two – Has the other individual provided consent? Step three – Is it reasonable to disclose without consent? What is reasonable is highly context-dependent, but UK data protection law gives some concrete criteria to consider. The EU EDPB has draft guidance on the Right to Access. They note that the Art 15(4) can cover a wide range of rights, not just other people's privacy rights. But as in all things, the data controller is required to strike an appropriate balance between user A and B's conflicting rights. In the Mastodon user notes scenario, I think that the note author's rights to privacy should be considered more important than the data subject's right to access those notes, thus making it possible to reject that part of a DSAR under Art 15(4) GDPR. If we assume that the note-taker A is a (joint) controller for these notes, then it would also be necessary to consult them before making a decision about the access request.

Federal and state laws do protect a variety of different types of personal information in particular contexts, but there isn't really any information that is necessarily personal and protected from disclosure in all contexts. For instance, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act generally protects a person's health records from unnecessary disclosure, and the Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act generally protects a student's educational records from unneccessary disclosure. But that doesn't mean that all of an American's health information is protected, or that all of the information that a hospital holds about an American is protected. The hospital can typically disclose the fact that it is treating a specific person, and if that person provides his health records to a government employer, that employer may be required to produce them in response to a request under the Ohio Public Records Act. But Facebook isn't a health-care provider, so it isn't required to protect medical records, and it isn't a school, so it isn't required to protect educational records. At the federal level, I don't know of any privacy laws that require it to maintain the privacy of its users' information, though it may be required to do so under state laws, or as a contractual matter because of its privacy policy. But that doesn't mean it has nothing to worry about. Like any business in the United States, it is prohibited from engaging in deceptive trade practices, so it can't make broad promises to protect users' privacy when it has no intention of honoring them. That's why it ended up paying $5 billion for privacy violations in the past and remains under court orders requiring it to better protect users' data. Further, Facebook has users all over the world, so it is required to comply with the international privacy regulations like GDPR that can be far more stringent.

A medical practitioner may use whatever methods s/he thinks proper and appropriate, subject to the limits of malpractice law, and to the right of the patient (or patient's parent or guardian for a child) to give informed consent to any procedure or treatment. A patient can not insist on a treatment or method that the doctor or dentist does not wish to perform, having only the right to seek another practitioner. Nor is a practitioner required to use only procedures covered by insurance, unless bound by contract to do so (as may be the case with some "in-network" or HMO agreements). Again, the patient is free to seek treatment elsewhere. So the parent could insist that the dentist not use "conscious sedation" by withholding consent, the dentist may then refuse to treat at all, unless perhaps this was an emergency situation not allowing the parent to seek another treatment venue.

What is the charge for minor hit and run? A car scratches one parking and one standing car slightly (with less then 5mph speed) and drives off. Afterwards the police come and inspect the vehicle and take samples of the scratches. The person has had no prior issues with police or with driving. What is the likely charge for such a minor hit and run in Germany?

The hitting by itself would not be too bad (though the police would likely take a close look because of the two scratched cars – was the driver drunk or something?), but the subsequent running constitutes a crime under § 142 StGB (official but non-authoritative translation). The maximum sentence for this is imprisonment for three years, but a first-time offender would most likely be sentenced to a fine corresponding to a few months’ income, if there are no aggravating circumstances.

All torts have to be proved. In 99.99% of cases the proof is by admission of the tortfeaser. That is, they agree to pay damages with or without admission of liability. Where liability is contested, there are never any “slam dunks”. There are strong cases, even very strong cases, but when someone else is deciding the case, there are no certainties. Remember, if your opponent thought they were going to lose, they’d settle. Looking at your examples, it seems that the tort you are thinking of is negligence. In order to establish negligence as a Cause of Action under the law of torts, a plaintiff must prove that the defendant: had a duty to the plaintiff, breached that duty by failing to conform to the required standard of conduct (generally the standard of a reasonable person), the negligent conduct was, in law, the cause of the harm to the plaintiff, and the plaintiff was, in fact, harmed or damaged. Where the issue is not one of evidence, that is, the facts are as you say and are not in dispute, the question is not “what happened”, but “is what happened negligence”. For all the examples, 1, 3, and 4 are probably not in dispute: there was a duty, the conduct caused damage at law and the plaintiff actually suffered harm. The question to be decided is whether the driver failed to conform to the required standard of care. For examples 2 and 3, most courts would conclude they didn’t. For example 1, some courts might decide that the way the driver drove did conform to the required standard and others that they didn’t. The legal argument would not be about “proof”, it would be about the standard the law requires.

Technically the signage implied an agreement, and allowed you to infer one. But yes, I think that management could not legally insist on more than the posted price, whether for a lost ticket, or for a particular duration. (Unless the sign included "prices subject to change without notice" or something of the sort.) As a practical matter, challenge this is going to be a pain. The employees on the spot probably have no authority to vary the price merely because the amount programmed into the register differs from the posted sign. At least they will claim not to have such authority. And they won't release the car without being paid the $80 that they will insist is the proper price. To challenge this, a person would probably have to pay under protest, and then sue for a refund, I would hope in a small claims court. Most people will not go to that trouble for $10, which perhaps the management counts on. Publicity might be more effective.

To be very straightforward, yes, a police department would very likely have records of their past interactions with you in the form of police reports. They cannot just throw them away because it's been scrubbed from your public record. They detail the interactions the police officer had with you. That being said, those records would not show up in a general inquiry into your record, because those records are meant to protect the officer and the department as a reference point they can go back to in case some dispute arose in the future. If a police officer really wanted to find them, they'd have to do a bit of digging for them. The difficulty in finding them would depend on what system the particular police department uses to store those records. Smaller departments may just file them in a cabinet somewhere, whereas larger ones may actually have their own searchable database. But a traffic cop out on the street is only gonna see what you're seeing at the DMV - nothing. There is also a formal NCIC database, but traffic violations would never end up in there. That is a national database that basically stores red flag persons of interest (think stolen vehicles, sex offenders, and gang members). Sometimes multiple departments within a state will share their information with each other, but a department's database is usually kept to that department only. Also keep in mind court records. The court case that had a violation removed under such and such conditions is still gonna be a public record. Those records would generally be available to a judge overseeing your case so if you repeatedly end up in court for the same thing, they're gonna know and they're gonna stop scrubbing it from your record or offerring certain options because you're clearly not learning your lesson. Many laws allow you to have one offense stricken per year and similar stuff like that, but that kind of stuff doesn't just permanently disappear. They have to keep record of it in order to know you've already had your once per year etc. Also a note about parking violations: not all of those are actually issued by police. If it was issued by a private firm then that is not something that would ever show up on your record. It would just be in a database somewhere with whatever private firm issued the fine. Those kind of tickets get sent to collections and hurt your credit score if you don't pay them, rather than affecting your driving record.

You (probably) did not commit a crime in Colorado. The answer to your question though is probably Driving an unsafe vehicle Colorado Revised Statutes Title 42. Vehicles and Traffic § 42-4-202 (1) It is unlawful for any person to drive...on any highway any vehicle...which is in such unsafe condition as to endanger any person, or which does not contain those parts or is not at all times equipped with such lamps and other equipment in proper condition and adjustment as required in this section and sections... The above is not a crime , it is (5) Any person who violates any provision of this section commits a class A traffic infraction. A class A traffic infraction is a civil violation. Note that some driving offenses are crimes: In Colorado, driving more than 25 mph over the posted limit is a class 2 misdemeanor, and doing so in a constriction zone is a class 1 misdemeanor. Also note that I say probably because it is possible that they charged you with something more extreme- reckless driving? violation of noise or pollution ordinances?- but for a fine small enough that you don't say, 2 points, and you did not have to go to court (you could have if you wanted for the ticket, but not required) it is very unlikely.

DUI is a crime under Massachusetts law so Kurt would be prosecuted there by that state. Germany would offer consular assistance but this would not extend to preparing or paying for his defence. If convicted, and after serving his sentence, Germany and the USA would coordinate his deportation. The UK would offer consular assistance for the repatriation of Alice's body and for the participation of her family in the trial, again this would not extend to paying for it. They would not assist in any civil action Alice's family might take against Kurt in a Massachusetts court. While DUI is a crime in both Germany and the UK AFAIK they are not extraterritorial: that is the crime must be committed on their territory for them to prosecute it. Some crimes do have extraterritoriality but not DUI. Similarly, their courts would probably not hear a civil case because the correct venue is Massachusetts and they would probably entertain a motion to dismiss on that basis. Even if they did hear it, it would be heard under Massachusetts law.

Are you at fault for the fact that Car C read ended you? Close call. A jury could go either way. Can this accident which is now appearing on your insurance be disputed as Car A did not report anything? Essentially I'm just wondering what the odds are that this can removed from Car A's record. I think that it is unlikely that the situation you suggest would happen, even though anything is possible. Usually there needs to be a claim of actual damage for an insurance company to treat it as an accident. The usual rule is "no harm, no foul" (unless someone is cited for a traffic violation). Insurance company accident records are not regulated to the same extent as say, credit reports. You could threaten to sue the company for negligent misrepresentation, or the driver of Car C for defamation, in order to try to get this statement removed, but those would be hard cases to win since you are at least arguably at fault and fault is to some extent a matter of opinion. It would be much easier to win a suit like that if the accident didn't happen at all. Here, it would be undisputed that an accident happened at a particular time and place involving certain cars and drivers, and the dispute is only over who was at fault.

A traffic accident is often not a crime even when someone is injured. So suing the police is unlikely to get you anywhere. You can get a lawyer and ask what your chances are to sue the driver who is the person who actually caused the injury, not the police.

Why does Uber have no Google Maps copyright attribution? On Uber's Google Map, there is no line with attribution to Google's data providers. But the Google guidelines say very clearly: All uses of Google Maps ... must provide attribution to both Google and our data providers. We do not approve of any use of content without proper attribution, in any circumstance. ... Requests for exceptions will not be answered or granted. ... Only including “Google” or the Google logo is not proper attribution when there are third-party data providers cited with the imagery. (https://www.google.com/permissions/geoguidelines/attr-guide.html) Why does Uber not attribute the copyright properly? Is this even legal?

If that is the licence that Uber are operating under then they are breaking it. This is not legal in that Google can sue them for copyright breach. However, this is the licence that Google offer to the average person on the street for which they pay Google nothing. It is entirely possible that Uber and Google have come to terms on a completely different licence arrangement which may involve Uber handing over slabs of cash (or not) and not needing to attribute. Google is free to offer licences on different terms to different people.

It could be the passenger's problem or the taxi's problem When these sorts of breakdowns in communications happen in specifying contract terms then either or both parties can be at fault. If the passenger specified the wrong address then it is clearly the passenger at fault. Similarly, if the driver drove to a different address from what the passenger said, it would clearly be the driver at fault. However, if the passenger was imprecise and the driver made an assumption then who bears responsibility depends on whether that assumption is reasonable or not. For example, the main street in the Sydney, Australia CBD is George Street. Even though George Street is an extremely common name with literally dozens in the Greater Sydney area, a taxi driver would reasonably assume that a passenger at the airport asking for "George Street" means the one in the city, not any of the others. In such a circumstance, the onus is on the passenger to specify exactly where they want to go. Whether the driver is an employee or a contractor is irrelevant - they are the representative of the organisation with whom the passenger has a contract.

This is a large question, so I'll only put a spotlight on some misconceptions. Why can't Google use legitimate interest instead of consent to serve ads? A data controller such as Google must choose an appropriate legal basis per Art 6(1). But if the legal basis is consent, and the data subject declines or retracts consent, you can't do the processing anyway under legitimate interest instead. It seems that the issue is not that consent was an inappropriate legal basis, but that they decided to use consent and did not collect it properly (see below). However, Google's analysis that they need consent is likely correct. There is an good argument that a website can show first-party ads under a legitimate interest. Google does so as well. But the consent in question is for ad personalization, i.e. on creating detailed profiles on users in order to show more “relevant” ads. For that purpose, Google's legitimate interest would likely not outweigh the data subject's rights and freedoms (compare Art 6(1)(f)). Why might consent be invalid? The GDPR defines consent in Art 4(11) and specifies further requirements in Art 7. The EDPB has issued guidelines 05/2020 and previously WP259 on consent. A core requirement, in addition to the general Art 5(1)(a) transparency principle, is that consent is specific and informed. The user must be informed about the specific purpose for which consent is being asked, and must be able to control consent individually for each purpose. Additionally, consent requires an affirmative action, consent is never the default. The EDPB recommends a layered information approach: in the first information layer, at the point where consent is being asked, the proposed processing activities are summarized. Full details (including all information per Art 13) are provided in a second layer that can be reached via a link. Consent will not be informed if the data subject is required to read the entire privacy policy first. How does the CNIL see Google's approach to consent and transparency? The CNIL asserts that Google failed at every step of a layered information design and failed to obtain valid consent: consent controls were hidden by default, i.e. there was no first information layer consent controls were pre-checked, thus requiring opt-out. That's not how you ask for consent (but might have been alright if Google had used legitimate interest instead). consent is all-or-nothing and not sufficiently granular Google's main information layer is its privacy policy, but it is very general and does not provide sufficiently specific information Google only provides specific information spread across further documents, often 5 or 6 levels deep Could Google rely on Art 6(1)(b) necessity for performance of a contract? If a data subject enters a contract about Google using their data for ads, yes. Otherwise, no. But in practice, necessity for a contract is very similar to consent because the data subject can freely decide whether or not to enter a contract. Even when the legal basis is a contract, the data controller still has an obligation to provide transparent information. Depending on the structure of the contract, a layered approach could be used as well. However, the purposes of processing are ultimately given by the contents of the contract. What about the Ads Data Processing Terms? These terms are not part of the terms of service or the privacy policy that end users agree to. The ads terms are instead part of their B2B offerings.

According to EU case law, everything in your scenario is legal except if Example Site is hosting the image without authorization and Pirate Site is a for-profit site, then Pirate Site is presumed to be violating Article 3 of the Copyright Directive on communication to the public (in this scenario, Example Site is also trivially violating Article 2 on the right to reproduction). In Meltwater, Case C-360/13, the court ruled that browser cache and on-screen copies fell under the temporary reproduction exception, Article 5(1) of the Copyright Directive. This means that the visitor is not infringing copyright (IPKat reference). In BestWater, Case C-348/13, the court ruled that embedding content was itself not a communication to the public when that content was hosted with rightsholder authorization, and so did not violate Article 3. This means that Pirate Site is not infringing on communication to the public rights (it is also not creating a copy itself, so is not breaking Article 2) (IPKat reference). When content is not hosted with authorization, the situation is quite a bit more nuanced. GS Media, Case C-160/15, is the controlling case. Here, the court ruled that if a link (note it doesn't even have to be embedded/hotlinked) is posted by a for-profit site, that site is expected to have done its due diligence to ensure the linked content is hosted legally. Therefore, it is presumed to be violating Article 3, i.e., the burden of proof is on the link posting site to demonstrate that it had done its due diligence in verifying the legality of the linked content. So in this scenario, Pirate Site is presumed to be infringing on communication to the public rights (IPKat reference - WARNING: slightly NSFW image here, Playboy was one of the parties to the case).

Yes, there would still be an obligation to comply with erasure requests – if the data subject can be identified, and if the GDPR applies. This is a case for Art 11 GDPR: processing which does not require identification. The pastebin site is not required to collect identifying info just in order to facilitate later deletion. If the site is unable to identify the data subjects, then the data subject rights (like access, rectification, erasure, restriction, or data portability) do not apply. Other rights like the right to be informed and the right to object do remain, though. But if the data subject provides sufficient additional information that makes it possible to identify their records, then the data subject rights apply again. In practice, this is likely going to mean that anyone with access to a paste will be able to request deletion, since the site would have no ability to verify the identity of the data subject beyond the information in the paste. None of this absolves the site from implementing appropriate technical and organizational measures to ensure the security of this data. Even though the pastes might not be directly identifying, they are personal data and are far from anonymous. Common practices like numbering pastes with a sequential ID or showing recent pastes on a homepage have to be viewed critically. My go-to recommendation is to assign a cryptographically random UUIDv4 ID to the post, so that it is practically impossible for anyone to find the paste unless they were given a link by the uploader. Your idea to delete pastes after a fairly short retention period is also good. This helps with security, and it is in line with the GDPR's data minimization and storage limitation principles: data may only be kept as long as necessary for its purpose. On the other hand, quick deletion might not be in line with the purpose of these pastes – it all depends on context. You mention that this is an US-based site. If so, there's a question whether GDPR would even apply. GDPR will apply per Art 3(2) if the data controller is offering its services to people who are in Europe. Here, “offering” does not mean mere availability of the website, but that the data controller intends the service to be used by such people, in particular if the service is somehow targeted or marketed to such people.

No. GPL works are copyrighted (as are most creative works basically everywhere in the world, as soon as they're created, whether or not the author does anything about it), and copyright is what gives the GPL "teeth". Without copyright, you would generally be able to duplicate and distribute programs without any kind of license or permission from the author. Copyright law restricts your ability to do those things. The GPL is a license, which means it's a grant of permission. It says that you may copy and modify and do other things, provided that you comply with the other provisions set out in the license. Quoting from the GPL v3: You are not required to accept this License in order to receive or run a copy of the Program. [...] However, nothing other than this License grants you permission to propagate or modify any covered work. These actions infringe copyright if you do not accept this License. So if you were to distribute some GPL-licensed software in a way that didn't comply with the terms of the license, the legal framework that would allow someone to sue you to stop you doing that would be copyright law.

You can design whatever this system is (leaving aside jurisdictions without First Amendment-like law that lets you design to your hearts content), the problem comes in implementing. The main legal question is whether you are operating a website. A website operator has to comply with various laws that require them to remove content. For example, if you operate a website that allows users to distribute content that they upload, they can distribute copyright-protected content, and you can be held liable for copyright infringement. DMCA in the US provides a way for you to not get sued, but you have to be able to remove putatively infringing content, so you could get sued if you can't remove illegal content. This may also include legal troubles over e.g. defamatory content where a plaintiff gets a court order to remove the content – you can't plead "I can't it down" if the court orders you to do so. Napster was sued for copyright infringement and racketeering for facilitating law-breaking by others ("secondary infringement"), and in MGM v. Grokster the Supreme Court annonced the general principle that One who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, going beyond mere distribution with knowledge of third-party action, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties using the device, regardless of the device’s lawful uses Grokster's problems arose because they clearly intended the software to be used to violate copyright law, whereas it is unlikely that Github will get sued because it is possible to use the platform illegally. So it really matters exactly what this "platform" is and what your relationship to the platform is. Describing a system is generally not illegal, realizing and maintaining one can easily be.

A translation is a devivative work - the copyright owner has the exclusive right to these So, yes, translation is prima facie copyright infringement. Strictly speaking, if you translate it, it's a derivative work because you exercised creativity in making the translation; what Google translate does is not a derivative work, it's a copy because there is no creativity. Either way, only the copyright owner can do (or authorise) this. Whether it's legal or not depends on if what you are doing falls within one of the exceptions to the applicable copyright law such as fair use or fair dealing. Attributing the original author does not, of itself, allow translation. Additionally, I'm not able to find the copyright documentation for the site link I provided above. What is "copyright documentation"? Copyright exists the moment a work is created and no further documentation is required. Essentially, I could translate the whole documentation by myself to avoid this problem. No, you can't - see above. If copy-pasting the google translate is illegal, then exactly how much must I edit, move around sentences, change words, and such until the text is no longer plagiarized? All of it. If you were, based on your own knowledge of the software, to write a manual without any copying o the existing manual, that would not be copyright infringement. Is this plagiarism or copyright infringement? It's copyright infringement - plagiarism is an academic misconduct issue not a legal one. where can I check the copyright for the above link? The site you linked has "Copyright © 2020 Acquia, Inc. All Rights Reserved" in the bottom left corner which identifies the copyright holder, the date and prohibits all copying ("all rights reserved"). This isn't necessary but it is helpful. If you really want to do this, contact Acquia, Inc and ask for permission.

Legality of redistributing free to air satellite channels over the internet Is it illegal to redistribute or extend the signals through the internet on otherwise open and free satellite channels? If not in the US, how is it related to the international scene? The question of it's legality is not clear cut, as the signals are already open. The internet company would merely be replacing the need for a satellite dish which is otherwise required to receive the analog signal and instead received by an ethernet cable directly from the internet company to your computer or device, and not through the satellite dish to your reciever. Can someone try to shed some light on this?

See Am. Broad. Cos. v. Aereo, Inc. 573 U.S. ___ (2014). Your hypothetical seems to match the facts of that case: Aereo, Inc., sells a service that allows its subscribers to watch television programs over the Internet at about the same time as the programs are broadcast over the air. When a subscriber wants to watch a show that is currently airing, he selects the show from a menu on Aereo’s website. Aereo’s system, which consists of thousands of small antennas and other equipment housed in a centralized warehouse, responds roughly as follows: A server tunes an antenna, which is dedicated to the use of one subscriber alone, to the broadcast carrying the selected show. A transcoder translates the signals received by the antenna into data that can be transmitted over the Internet. A server saves the data in a subscriber-specific folder on Aereo’s hard drive and begins streaming the show to the subscriber’s screen once several seconds of programming have been saved. The streaming continues, a few seconds behind the over-the-air broadcast, until the subscriber has received the entire show. The Supreme Court held that Aereo infringed the copyright owner's exclusive right to transmit or communicate a work to the public. Here is more background on this case from SCOTUSblog.

IANAL, just a programmer with an interest in legal rules. Due to the very permissive nature of the MIT license, no, it does not appear that anything illegal has been done. Specifically, the section to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software (emphasis mine) grants everyone the right to modify your code and share those modifications, provided one includes the license. Since this person has included your license (including your copyright notice), they have followed the conditions of the license and are able to share your stuff. Legally. Ethically, I still think its ****. This might be a good starting point in selecting a license (note the Modification column). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_free_and_open-source_software_licenses The CC-BY-SA license family, as mentioned by Ron Beyer in comments is on this list, for example. TL;DR: You unfortunately granted a more permissive license than what you wanted/needed to. This was a BadThing(TM), analogous to giving too broad of access rights to a method or class. Determine your desired permissions, then select a license that matches what you'd like to grant.

I assume based on your reference to .edu and your can-spam-act-of-2003 tag that you are interested in United States law. The scheme you describe is illegal under the CAN-SPAM Act. 15 USC 7704 (b) (1) (a) (ii) (b) Aggravated violations relating to commercial electronic mail (1) Address harvesting and dictionary attacks (A) In general It is unlawful for any person to initiate the transmission, to a protected computer, of a commercial electronic mail message that is unlawful under subsection (a), or to assist in the origination of such message through the provision or selection of addresses to which the message will be transmitted, if such person had actual knowledge, or knowledge fairly implied on the basis of objective circumstances, that— (i) the electronic mail address of the recipient was obtained using an automated means from an Internet website or proprietary online service operated by another person, and such website or online service included, at the time the address was obtained, a notice stating that the operator of such website or online service will not give, sell, or otherwise transfer addresses maintained by such website or online service to any other party for the purposes of initiating, or enabling others to initiate, electronic mail messages; or (ii) the electronic mail address of the recipient was obtained using an automated means that generates possible electronic mail addresses by combining names, letters, or numbers into numerous permutations. The last part (ii) specifically forbids what you propose ("combining names... into various permutations). Under 15 USC 7706 you may be liable for statutory damages of up to $250 per email. In addition to being illegal, I suspect your plan will also be ineffective: this sort of spam attack would be really easy for the university to detect and block.

From Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417 (1984). The sale of copying equipment, like the sale of other articles of commerce, does not constitute contributory infringement if the product is widely used for legitimate, unobjectionable purposes, or, indeed, is merely capable of substantial noninfringing uses. [...] there is a significant likelihood that substantial numbers of copyright holders who license their works for broadcast on free television would not object to having their broadcast time-shifted by private viewers (i.e., recorded at a time when the VTR owner cannot view the broadcast so that it can be watched at a later time); and (2) that there is no likelihood that time-shifting would cause nonminimal harm to the potential market for, or the value of, respondents' copyrighted works. The VTR's are therefore capable of substantial noninfringing uses. Private, noncommercial time-shifting in the home satisfies this standard of noninfringing uses both because respondents have no right to prevent other copyright holders from authorizing such time-shifting for their programs and because the District Court's findings reveal that even the unauthorized home time-shifting of respondents' programs is legitimate fair use. [...] we must conclude that this record amply supports the District Court's conclusion that home time-shifting is fair use. This is distinguishable from downloading movies because in the case of videotape or PVR recording, the copyright owner authorized the broadcast, and private, non-commercial time-shifting at home has been held to be fair use. When downloading a movie, the copyright owner did not authorize the communication, and copying movies by downloading them from an unauthorized source is not generally considered fair use. One policy reason why this difference might make sense is that when time-shifting, you are usually paying for the channels, and they are in turn paying the copyright owner for the permission to transmit their work. However, this is only a guess, and not really relevant to your legal question.

Choice 2 is what the writers of the license have in mind. You own the physical media on which the copy is delivered, such as a DVD or floppy disk (if there was physical media). But you do not own the copy of the software, you merely have purchased a license to use it, which may be revocable under specified circumstances. This is different from the law in the case of a book. Why you buy a book, you own a copy of the book, although you do not own the copyright to the book, and may not make additional copies. The license model was adopted by commercial software distributors for several reasons, but largely to avoid the "first sale doctrine". When you buy a copy of a copyrighted work, you have the right (under US law at least) to lend, rent, sell, or give-away that copy. You do not need the permission of the copyright holder to do any of these. Those in the commercial software business did not want customers to be able to do those things legally. By making the software subject to a license, which is a contract, they could write that license to restrict or prohibit those rights. Sellers also wanted to prohibit reverse engineering of the software, and to restrict use of the software. (For example, to limit the user to installing it on a single computer.) There was at first much dispute over the enforcability of such license agreements. But most US courts now accept them as valid and enforceable, and copyright law has been modified to take account of them. Specifically, 17 USC 109 (2)(b)(1)(A) seems to include a legislative acceptance of this rule.

This issue has now been ruled on by the European Court of Justice, which ruled that zero rating breaks net neutrality and is unlawful. No 106/2020 : 15 September 2020 - Judgment of the Court of Justice in Joined Cases C-807/18,C-39/19 Telenor Magyarország Original answer for historical purposes: As another page in your link says, it depends: Is zero-rating allowed under the Regulation? It depends. There are different types of zero-rating practices, some of which are more problematic than others. BEREC’s Guidelines look at different examples and provide guidance on the extent to which they could be considered permissible under the Regulation. The BEREC guidelines explain that some practices are clearly prohibited – those where all applications are blocked or slowed down once the data cap is reached except for the zero-rated application(s). Others are less clear-cut and will be need to be assessed by NRAs against a number of criteria set out in the Guidelines.

You have a false premise: "it offers the same conditions", and "MIT license is functionally equivalent to CC-BY". These premises are not true. CC-BY: applies to more than just software; it applies to artistic or literary work, databases, other material disclaims endorsement explicitly withholds moral rights explicitly does not license patent rights (MIT license gives anyone who obtains a copy of the software the right to use it, a patent right) prescribes the acceptable forms of attribution Those are just some of the differences.

Of course you'd be in legal trouble, the contract is still valid. I also don't know why you don't consider virtual goods to be goods. Take this example: You buy a 1 year subscription for (example) netflix. The next day they cancel your subscription but don't give you the money back because its not a "real good". This should make it clear that virtual goods are goods too in the eyes of the law. Question is if police/lawyers care about it as much as for "real" goods.

Use of the word "statute" In the United States, what fragment of codified federal or state law can I refer to as a "statute"? For example, in federal law, is it proper to use the word "statute" to refer to: a title (e.g., 15 U.S.C.)? a section (e.g., 15 U.S.C. § 6802)? a subsection (e.g., 15 U.S.C. § 6802(b), 15 U.S.C. § 6802(b)(1), etc.)? some of the above? all of the above?

None of the things listed are statutes. They are all parts of or compilations of parts of statutes. A 'statute' is a document issued by an official body, such as Congress, which contains a law or command. 'USC' refers to the United States Code, which is a compilation of statutory law. It is not the law. It is prima facie evidence of the law, but may be proven to be wrong. The 'statute' is the Act passed by Congress. These can be found in the United States Statutes at Large. For example, the Labor Management Relations Act 1947 (Public Law 80–101, 61 Stat 136, also known as the Taft–Hartley Act) is a statute, passed by Congress on 23 June 1947. It is codified at (i.e. a reasonably reliable copy of the provisions of the Act, taking into account subsequent amendments, can be found at) 29 USC s 401-531. But 29 USC is not a statute in any sense of the word. To use a particularly 'meta' example: 1 USC 204(a) codifies the rule that the USC is prima facie evidence of the state of the law of the United States, but the statute which made this rule is Public Law 80-278, 61 Stat 633 ('An Act to codify and enact into positive law, title 1 of the United States Code, entitled "General Provisions"'), which consists of a slab of text copied out of the United States Code as it then stood. So Congress does sometimes enact parts of the Code; but the Code itself is not a statute.

The comments have basically covered this, but: It's a slightly weird parallel structure ("who shall not be at least 25, and been a citizen for 7 years, and who shall not be a resident"). The Constitution is not written in fluid 21st-century English. But the obviously correct way to parse the sentence is that no one can be a representative who isn't a 25-year-old or older who's been a citizen for at least 7 years; furthermore, no one can be a representative who wasn't a resident of the state they represent when they were elected. With some parts of the Constitution (like the Second Amendment), the drafting results in actual disputes about the intended meaning. With other parts (like here), only one reading makes any sense. It's the same with the requirements to be President. The Constitution says "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President," which could be read as "you're not eligible unless, when the Constitution was adopted, you were either a citizen of the US or a natural-born citizen." But that's a silly reading, so "at the time of the Adoption" is read as only applying to "a Citizen of the United States:" natural-born citizens are eligible period, and people who were born before the US was a thing but were citizens by the time the Constitution was adopted were grandfathered in.

what does the phrase "in this act unless context requires otherwise" mean? It means that the provision or statutory definition is not to be imposed where its application would make no sense or would lead to an absurd outcome. Using the example point out, statutory or judicial references to "laws of physics", "law of supply and demand", and so forth are not to be construed as enactments or rulings issued by some authority. Accordingly, such laws are not susceptible to violation, enforcement, or repeal.

You've basically described two of the ends of the pole in theories of jurisprudence (there are dozens of ends). There is no theory of law that relies purely on "spirit" (also no theory that actually relies on the letters uses=d in writing law), instead, everybody interprets the text (the words enacted by the government) and some people supplement their interpretation with consideration of "other factors", such as assumed legislative purpose. Certain scholars and judges are inclined to put most weight on the actual wording of the law, while others are inclined to let purposive considerations dictate the interpretation of a law. Interpreting law by W.N. Eskridge is an informative guide to supplementing a reading of the statute with anciliary considerations. Antonin Scalia is the best-known proponent of the textualist approach.

commonwealthunited-states The most comprehensive source of reporter abbreviation in the commonwealth and United States is found in the Index to Legal Citations and Abbreviations, which should be available at any law library. For the United States, the Bluebook might be more comprehensive. Most law schools or libraries also publish their own abbreviation indices for common reporters. See e.g. The University of Aberdeen's. Here is another from the University of McGill. They all show, for example, that "All E.R." is an abbreviation for "All England Law Reports." Some databases create their own citation formats that look like neutral citations: see e.g. https://www.bailii.org/bailii/citation.html

Context is important. There is no law against taking a picture of a child who is entirely naked or exposing certain body parts. The laws in question such as 18 USC 2251 refer to the fact that the minor "engage[s] in, any sexually explicit conduct". Sexually explicit conduct is defined in 18 USC 2256, and would include "lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area" (which does not include nipples of anyone). Federal law does not define "lascivious", but the ordinary meaning of the word does not include the situation that you describe. The Justice Department, which goes after child pornographers, provides this guide to federal child porn laws. Georgia's child porn law is only marginally different, referring to "Lewd exhibition" rather than "Lascivious exhibition" , and including the "Condition of being fettered, bound, or otherwise physically restrained on the part of a person who is nude" (so a picture of a person holding a naked baby would technically qualify, but is highly unlikely to be prosecuted as production of child porn). These laws pertain to any form of child porn, including "private use only". Dissemination would be an added charge.

I did a lot of digging through case law and statutes, but I don't see a definition for "biological sex" anywhere in federal law, though after looking through those cases, it seems pretty clear that courts think of "biological sex" as a definition of "sex," and that they take it to mean the sex listed on your birth certificate. Even if we could find a straightforward statutory definition, it probably wouldn't do much to inform the interpretation of this memorandum, as it would only apply to the specific section of law in which the definition was included.

What is the estimated number of lines in all current US federal laws? I realize that this metrics isn't accurate. Which font size do we use? Do we include comments? How to count someone v. United States? U.S. federal law consists of: 52 Titles of the United States Code (some of which have more than one volume) and a smattering of uncodified statutes that probably would take up one or two additional books. On the order of 100 volumes. About 2 volumes worth of federal court rules of general applicability. About 200 sets of local court rules for particular federal courts. On the order of 20 volumes for the whole set. About 2000 volumes of the Federal Reporter which sets forth published appellate court decisions. About 2150 volumes of the Federal Supplement which sets forth selected federal trial court opinions. On the order of 500 volumes of the Federal Rules Decisions which sets forth selected trial court opinions interpreting court rules. 582 volumes of the United States Reporter which sets forth U.S. Supreme Court decisions. A set of U.S. Treaties in Force on the order of 20-30 volumes. The Code of Federal Regulations (50 titles, some of which have more than one volume). On the order of 200 volumes. Several hundred treaties with U.S. Indian tribes, probably about 20 volumes. About 500 volumes of territorial legislation still in force (e.g. statutes of Guam, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, District of Columbia, Indian reservations). So, this would mean roughly 4500 volumes that have about 1000 pages of text each for a total of 4,500,000 pages, typically single spaced in 10 point (10/72nds of an inch) font on letter sized paper with half inch margins (i.e. 7.5 inches for text per page top to bottom) which works out to on the order of 50 lines per page. So, roughly, 225 million lines of code equivalent for primary federal materials only. There are some judgment calls about definitions here. For example, I did not include the full text of all works deposited with the library of Congress as part of the documentation of copyrights, or the full text of all patents and trademarks ever issued, each of which would dramatically increase the total, even though reference to those materials is necessary to determine if another work infringes a copyright or patent. Similarly, I omitted recorded real estate documents and publicly filed corporate documents even though those could each be referenced as evidence in a court case to determine someone's legal rights. And, I didn't include court orders in trial courts with no precedential effects which are binding between the parties even though some consent decrees in that set of documents have the force of law. Of course, the problem is that U.S. federal law isn't an independent body of law by itself, by design. U.S. federal law routinely incorporates the law of the state in question by reference. For example, criminal liability in federal parks is determined in part by reference to state law. A full set of state statutes and regulations in a typical U.S. state would require perhaps 50 volumes for a total of about 2500 volumes, and the entire corpus of published state level case law for all states combined is on the order of 10,000 volumes. So, excluding municipal ordinances, you are looking at another 12,500,000 pages at 50 lines a page, for about 600 million lines of code. Local government ordinances are litigated in state court so there is no separate body of case law for them. But, there are about 100,000 local governments and there are probably about 2 volumes of law for each, so about 200,000,000 pages and about 1,000 million lines of code. I'm sure I've made some minor omissions (e.g., case law from the courts of U.S. Indian Tribes), but the grand total for all U.S. law local, state and federal is on the order of 2 billion (i.e. 2,000,000,000) lines of code. Also, keep in mind that this is only the primary materials and doesn't include treatises and textbooks and digests and law review articles interpreting the law which you need in practice to utilize this corpus of primary legal materials, and which can be referenced by courts in cases. On the other hand, secondary sources are profoundly less redundant than primary sources. You could have a pretty comprehensive collection of secondary sources with 2,000 volumes which would be about 2,000,000 pages and about 100 million lines of code which could be rolled into the omitted materials in my 2 billion lines estimate. Of course, this is highly redundant. Case law spends lots of time reciting rulings from prior cases and the language of the relevant statutes and regulations, for example, and many municipal ordinances start out with an exact copy of another municipality's municipal ordinances before the municipality starts writing its own original legislation. Similarly, state traffic codes are often copied from one another. Also, not every reported case continues to be good law. But, there is no good way to separate the wheat from the chaff for a user of these legal authorities. You need them all.

Why do prisoners spend so long on death row? In the USA, once appeals have been exhausted, why do prisoners spend so much time on death row? My personal opinions on death penalty aside, I would expect that once the sentence is final, it should be carried out without much further delay.

The time spent on death row is largely due to appeals, habeas proceedings, and a growing backlog. The time between an actual final appeal and execution is not astonishingly long. (However, "final" appeal is hard to pinpoint because a death row inmate can file successive habeas petitions at the federal level). To highlight the relatively quick turnaround between a "final" appeal and execution, Richard Glossip lost an appeal to the US Supreme Court (Glossip v. Gross) on June 29, 2015 and was scheduled for execution in Oklahoma on September 30, 2015, a delay of 93 days (Mary Fallin Executive Order 2015-42). Due to unavailability of a particular drug, the execution has been further delayed until November 6, 2015 (ibid). The rest of this answer explains the long delay between initial conviction/sentencing and eventual execution, using California as an example. In California, since 1978, approximately 20-40 people have been added to death row per year, while fewer than 10 per year are executed. (California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice Final Report, p. 121) There are generally three different appeals available to the defendant: a direct appeal to the state Supreme Court, a writ of habeas corpus to the state Supreme Court, and a writ of habeas corpus to the federal district court. (ibid) The federal district court ruling regarding the habeas petition can be appealed to the 9th Circuit. That Circuit's ruling can be appealed to the US Supreme Court. (ibid) The Commission identified several points that are responsible for the long delays in California (ibid): delay in appointing counsel for direct appeal (3-5 year delay) delay in scheduling a case to the California Supreme Court (2.25 years between application and oral argument) delay in appointing counsel for the state habeas petition (8-10 year delay) delay in deciding the state habeas petition (22 months) delay in deciding federal habeas petition (6.2 years) delay in appealing the federal habeas petition to the 9th District (2.2 years) The US Supreme Court also publishes a primer on the death penalty appeals and the habeas process (see especially pp. 8-10).

"Awaiting sentencing" either remanded in custody or on bail. "Sentence completed" which may, or may not, after time become "Spent" (see here) and note that: It is against the law for an organisation to obtain information about an individual’s spent cautions or convictions unless the law specifically states that they can ask an exempted question; usually when someone is applying for a job or role that is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 Source For completeness: checks are made with the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS).

Generally not. A judge in sentencing has a number of options subject to the statute or common law. A fine may be one option, imprisonment another. Others include community service, a suspended sentence or death. What they choose is (subject to appeal or commutation) what you do. You can't substitute one for the other.

A party can ask a judge to recuse at the outset of a case for bias or other reasons (e.g. a family connection to a party). Generally, a judge rules on that motion personally and it is an interlocutory motion not subject to appeal except by extraordinary writ (or the equivalent) to the state supreme court. It is not generally proper to do so during a trial. Moreover, one jeopardy has attached in a criminal trial (which happens when the jury is sworn) if the trial ends prior to a jury verdict for reasons other than those attributable to the defendant, the defendant cannot be tried again on those charges and is functionally acquitted. There are probably some arguable exceptions to this rule in extraordinary circumstances that are not the fault of either party (e.g. if a meteor hits courthouse and kills the judge and some jurors mid-trial, or if it is revealed that the judge committed the crime for which the defendant is being tried). But the threshold for exceptions to the general rule is very high.

Most likely, they chose enough victims to ensure a long prison term while having plenty of additional victims to charge if something went wrong at trial. Plus limiting the number of victims limits the amount of repetitive testimony and evidence the prosecutors had to introduce proving the death of each victim. If you charge with 19 counts when there are 492 victims and something goes wrong at trial, whether you think but can’t prove that the mob paid off a juror or whether you just get an oddball juror that votes to acquit, you can always pick some of the remaining 473 victims to bring charges. The prosecutors could have failed in 24 straight trials for 19 charges of manslaughter and still been able to bring charges a 25th time (though that would have been highly unusual). If you charge a defendant with manslaughter, you have to prove the death of a particular person. So there has to be evidence that Bob Smith went to the club, Bob Smith’s body was recovered and identified, Bob Smith was autopsied and the cause of death was smoke inhalation, etc. That gets repetitive after a time and jurors start thinking of the victims as numbers rather than people. Limiting the number of charges makes it much easier to make the victims seem like distinct humans to the jury. You can show pictures of the victims at trial and jurors can recognize particular individuals not just “1 of 492 dead people”.

In the US, people are not put in jail because they are "known for" committing a crime. Several things must happen, and at each stage there are ways for the process to be halted. Law enforcement must gather evidence that a crime has been committed by a particular person. There ids no duty to investigate every possible crime, so this will depend on the policy of the particular LE organization, and what evidence any investigation finds. If no investigation is made, no evidence will be found. A prosecutor (state or Federal) must decide to bring charges. There is no duty for a prosecutor to bring charges in every case where evidence is brought forward by law enforcement. A prosecutor is supposed to devote the limited resources of his or her office where it seems likely to do the most public good. Cases which probably cannot be won should not be brought. Moreover, most prosecutors are reluctant to bring cases which seem likely to do them political harm. The Prosecutor must formally bring the defendant(s) before a court to hear and respond to the charges (arraignment). At this stage the judge can dismiss the charges, but that almost never happens. The prosecutor must establish that there is probable cause to bring a case to trial. This can be done via a grand jury proceeding resulting in an indictment, an "information", a probable cause hearing, or a preliminary hearing, depending on the jurisdiction and the type of crime. For minor crimes, the prosecutor's sworn statement may be enough. There must be a trial, before a judge or a jury. If the defendant is found guilty, s/he will be sentenced under the appropriate law, which may include jail or prison time. There are various other stages to the process, but those are the major go/no-go steps in a US criminal proceeding. So it is possible in any given case that law enforcement has not tried to find evidence, or has tried but failed, or that a prosecutor has chosen not to bring charges. As to why any of that might have happened, it depends on the particular situation and its circumstances. There are always costs of time, effort, and money to pursue any particular case. If cops are looking for evidence of a celebrity's drug use, they are not looking for evidence in an embezzlement or murder case. If an assistant prosecutor is tying such a case, s/he is not trying some other case. Officials have wide discretion in how to allocate resources in such matters.

First, I need to correct a misconception you seem to have. The length of time you spend in jail does not normally determine if something is a felony or a misdemeanor. Whether something is a felony or a misdemeanor is based on how you're charged. And it's not like you happen to be charged with something with a maximum sentence of 365 or 366 days; if you are being charged with a felony, it's because the decision was made that your alleged crime was serious and should be treated as a felony. If you're being charged with a misdemeanor, ditto. Prosecutors charge knowing the difference between the two. The distinction was not originally "punishable by more than a year in prison" vs. "punishable by at most a year." In fact, it originated well before the idea that the default punishment for most crimes is confinement for a term, where the term is dependent on the severity of the crime. The original distinction was about forfeiture. A felony was a violation of a feudal relationship between a lord and a vassal; if a vassal violates their duty of loyalty to their lord, their relationship ends and their property is forfeit to that lord. Not all serious crimes were felonies. Murder was normally not a felony, because it didn't violate that duty of loyalty. Later on (post-Normans), murder and other serious crimes did result in forfeiture. The term broadened to include these crimes; at this point, "felony" meant "this crime results in your property being forfeit." These were also the most severe crimes. This is the point where "felony" meaning "exceptionally severe crime" really became established. However, the technical distinction based on forfeiture became muddied, because of another punishment that almost always went along with it: execution. Blackstone, in his Commentaries on the Laws of England, complained that people are mixing these two up. The meaning generally shifted to "crimes which were punished by death," but scholars did know that the proper meaning should really be "crimes punished with forfeiture." The distinction mattered. Because felonies were so serious, the procedure involved differed in several respects. I happen to know you're in the US and my main source is also about the US, so let's hop across the Atlantic Ocean to the colonies. Here, forfeiture was pretty much unknown around the time of independence. The popular understanding of "felony" was still "capital crime;" the legal understanding tended to be "the common-law felonies plus things the legislature designated as a felony." Nearer the end of the 18th century, the number of crimes punishable by death dropped substantially in the US. The default punishment for most serious crimes shifted from execution to confinement in a prison (this is when prison became the default sentence for even very serious crimes in the US). These new prisons were very different from the older jails: they were designed to reform their inmates, and turn them into productive members of society. But not all crimes need that; with less serious crimes, you don't have to go about fixing a character flaw, you just have to show to the criminal that doing this bad thing results in this punishment. The lack of a firm definition of felony became a serious problem shortly after this change. Originally in the US, things worked basically like in England. Legislatures passed laws, which might refer to older laws by name, but there was no organizing principle. Lots of the criminal law was bound up in precedent. It was extremely difficult to find out for sure what the law even was. Instead, there was a major push to codify the law. That means you would have a code, which contained, in organized form, all the laws relating to crime. One of the earliest and most influential American penal codes was actually never adopted. It was written by Edward Livingstone for Louisiana, and was intended to wholly supplant the common law (Louisiana would be the perfect state for this, because it still has a civil law tradition). Livingston didn't use the term "felony," but did distinguish between "crimes" and "misdemeanors." The main systematic difference was not in the penal code itself (the punishments were set out on a crime-by-crime basis), but in the corrections code. Crimes were punished in a penitentiary designed to reform the prisoner; misdemeanors were punished by simple imprisonment. Crimes were all punished by more than a year, while misdemeanors could be punished by anywhere from a few days to two years. The important thing was where and how you were punished, not for how long. While this code was never adopted, it had a major influence on the New York code of 1829. The New York code was designed to rationalize the law, but not do too much in the way of substantive changes. In particular, the old idea of a "felony" was not abolished; it was preserved, with real significance (part of the point of keeping the term was that they didn't want to lose all its baggage), and so it needed a definition. They basically adopted Livingstone's definition. Felonies were always the more serious crimes; since serious crimes were now evidence of character flaws to be reformed in a penitentiary, the crimes where you got sent for reform were the felonies (plus, of course, those punished by death). All others were misdemeanors. They also decided that punishment for more than a year, in a jail that's not designed to reform you, was bad; no jail sentence could be more than a year. Since confinement continues to be the main form of punishment, this definition has managed to stick without issue. The forfeiture and capital punishment definitions became obsolete as those punishments became completely obsolete or very, very limited in use. That's pretty much how things got where they are now. It makes some amount of sense to distinguish between bad crimes and not-so-bad crimes, without needing to list out the bad crimes. This is not actually unique to English law; the French penal code also makes this distinction. The term survived the feudal context in which it originated because it was useful. As confinement became the main type of punishment, and as (at the same time) confinement for serious crimes was paired with efforts to reform and rehabilitate criminals, the old distinction shifted to distinguishing between things where you needed that reform and things where you just needed punishment. Then, it shifted in some places to being about the length of said punishment, as an alternative way of expressing the same basic idea but which could be more easily applied to varying systems. Main source: Will Tress, Unintended Collateral Consequences: Defining Felony in the Early American Republic, 57 Clev. St. L. Rev. 461 (2009)

The jury ultimately decides if a person is guilty or not. Jury nullification is when the person is clearly guilty or innocent, but for some odd reason the jury (who knows the person is guilty/innocent) gives the "wrong verdict" An example of this in the UK was when a guy was being charged with a spy crime years after his crime happened (I cant remember the case), the jury essentially thought that so much time has passed that it was silly to convict him, so gave a non guilty verdict. There are cases for and against jury nullification. In my personal belief I think in certain cases, such as if edward snowden would be charged, I would find him non guilty as a matter of what is right to ky conscience, regardless of the fact that he clearly did something illegal

Why would a person choose to amend their will via a codicil rather than create a new one? According to Wikipedia, a codicil is as follows: In the United States, a codicil is a document that changes an existing will. Amendments made by a codicil may alter, explain, add to, subtract from, or confirm – and otherwise amend a will in any other way, minor or major, short of complete revocation. It is subject to the same formal requirements as a will. I would think that it would be just as easy to print off a new copy of the will with the necessary amendments, so time saving wouldn't be a reason to create a codicil. If it has the same formal requirements as a will (which I take to mean it needs to be signed by witnesses and such), then why would a person create a codicil?

In modern usage, it is far better to replace a will then to create a codicil primarily because there is only one document to verify the veracity of. As you say, it would be just as easy to print off a new will. However, the ease of printing off a new one is a relatively recent technological development. When wills were typed on a typewriter or, in even earlier times, handwritten, the advantages of a codicil are much more apparent; particularly when you pay your lawyer by the hour.

Because an "Order, Resolution, or Vote" is not the same as a Bill, and does not become a law. Thus the procedure for presentation, leading to signing, pocket acceptance, veto, or pocket veto, does not apply to Orders, Resolutions, or Votes. Therefore it is repeated to indicate that it applies to those legislative acts also. A "Vote", in the sense used here is a legislative decision or action that is neither a Bill nor a resolution. For example, the decision on when to adjourn to, that is, when Congress will come back into session after an adornment, is a Vote. A "Bill" is a proposed law. If it is passed by Congress and not vetoed, or if any veto is overridden, it becomes a law. Other legislative actions do not become laws, but otherwise go through much the same procedure. Note that some legislative actions do notneed the "Concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives". For example, when the House votes on a new Speaker, it is a vote of the House only, and neither the Senate nor the President has a say.

Its always the simple questions that have complicated answers. In this case its because both Common Law and Civil Law have several different meanings. Civil Law v Criminal Law In this context, civil law means the ability of people to seek redress for wrongs from other people. These people may be individuals (natural persons) or legal persons (corporations, government etc.). When someone sues someone else they are using civil law. In contrast, criminal law is where a government prosecutes (not sues) a person (again natural or legal) who is alleged to have committed an offence. To illustrate the difference, if a person murders another person the government will use criminal law to prosecute the murder and the family of the victim will use civil law to pursue a wrongful death suit. Common Law v Civil Law In this context, common law and civil law refer to two of the major legal systems in use on Earth: By Maximilian Dörrbecker (Chumwa) - Own work, using World map by Canuckguy and others UNESCO World Heritage map by NNW The data sources are:University of Ottawa: JuriGlobe – World Legal Systems Research Group Wikipedia: List of national legal systems European legal systems map by Ain92 and others (which seems to be based on this map by C.Löser and others) World legal systems map by Robinkissac, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=40154967 Common Law is derived from the law of England and is used in areas colonized by the English - the UK, Canada, the USA, Australia and New Zealand. Civil Law is derived from continental European law and ultimately from Roman law. The primary contrast between the two systems is the role of written decisions and precedent. In common law jurisdictions, nearly every case that presents a bona fide disagreement on the law is resolved in a written opinion. In contrast, civil law decisions typically do not include explanatory opinions. In common law systems, a single decided case is binding law to the same extent as statute or regulation, under the principle of stare decisis. In contrast, in civil law systems, individual decisions have only advisory, not binding effect. In civil law systems, case law only acquires weight when a long series of cases use consistent reasoning, called jurisprudence constante. Civil law lawyers consult case law to obtain their best prediction of how a court will rule, but comparatively, civil law judges are less bound to follow it. For that reason, statutes in civil law systems are more comprehensive, detailed, and continuously updated, covering all matters capable of being brought before a court. The United States and 49 of the states are Common Law jurisdictions, the exception is Louisiana which is a Civil Law jurisdiction (specifically the Napoleonic subset of Civil Law) as, unlike the rest of the country, it was initially a French possession. Common Law v Common Law In addition to the way the term is used above, "common law" can be used within a Common Law jurisdiction to distinguish that part of the law which arises from judicial precedent from that part which arises from legislative statute or administrative regulation. Further, within legal argument, the term may be used to distinguish "common law" (or just "law") from equity. Before 1873, England had two parallel court systems: courts of "law" which could only award money damages and recognized only the legal owner of property, and courts of "equity" (courts of chancery) that could issue injunctive relief (that is, a court order to a party to do something, give something to someone, or stop doing something) and recognized trusts of property.

I am a notary public in Vermont and have had to deal with people who had name variations. Readers of Law StackExchange like to citations to reliable sources; I'm not going to do that, just describe my experience. Many states do indeed allow a person to adopt a new name through usage. Government agencies and large commercial agencies don't like that, and they can and do thwart the law by imposing their own administrative procedures. If you don't like their procedures, fine, give a lawyer a $20,000 retainer, have the lawyer sue, and wait three years. And after spending all that money, the court might find that although it isn't a crime for a person to change their name by usage, there is no law requiring the administrative agency to accept it. If you don't have tens of thousands of dollars to waste or years to wait, you have two choices. Get married, and use the marriage license as evidence of your name change. The format of marriage licenses is different in every state, so how well this works depends on the state. The other option is to get a court-ordered name change.

TL;DR: You have to do something to accept a document; a signature is often used because it is simple and permanent; signature alone is often not enough (e.g. wills); claiming a false signature annuls the contract for both parties and you cannot keep the accrued benefits. Signing something means you accept it and it becomes legally binding. Many things can become binding without signature (including your usage of this website) and signatures alone are not considered trustworthy in many circumstances. Important documents (e.g. wills, marriages, real estate transactions) in many jurisdictions require a public official (notaries, marriage commissioners etc.) or a trustworthy person (lawyers, doctors, professional engineers, etc.), who will often require rigourous identification documents, and/or witnesses to be involved for the documents to be legally effective. Some high-value commercial transactions will also involve witnesses for signature, or require witnesses for executions of certain articles. Otherwise I can always claim that I didn't really sign that document when it becomes convenient for me. You can and people do. Then the parties go to court or other dispute resolution mechanism, and the judge will consider all relevant evidences to decide (often on a balance of probabilities, i.e. more likely than not) if you consented to a document. Particularly, "when it becomes convenient for me" is often after some elements of the contract having been executed, which is evidence in favour of the existence of the contract and nonexistence of a contract removes obligations and rights for both supposed parties, as such the executed part could be undone. If for a sales contract the other party has sent you a computer, you cannot claim that you did not sign that contract and keep the computer they sent. Without the contract, the computer is not rightfully yours. Also, claiming false statements for benefit or under oath is fraud/perjury and can be criminally prosecuted. So, why are they used everywhere? You have to do something to affirm your consent to a document. It is symbolic but symbolic does not mean meaningless and a symbol of your consent is often desirable. A signature is simple and: affirmative of your intention, unlike a simple visual inspection of document (perhaps eventually someone will argue your eye movement can be used, e.g. for VR) permanent, unlike oral declarations (which can still be legally valid, even if hard to prove)1 which is enough for most purposes. As a bonus, it is also somewhat unique and can be compared to certain extent. For purposes demanding higher level of confidence, ID documents can be demanded and more complex procedures (e.g. with notaries and witnesses) can be undertaken. Of course, you could make an audio recording for oral declarations, but audio recorders were not commonly available and it would be too complicated if the entire contract is not read aloud in that recording.

At common law you do not need to sign a contract for it to be legally enforceable; it doesn't even have to be written down. Local real estate law may require a lease to be in writing (and possibly even signed). Putting that aside generally, the purpose of signing a contract is to: Show the intention to be legally bound. This is superfluous: they have sent you the lease, you have moved in - it is clear you both intend to be legally bound. Avoid future disputes over what the terms of the lease are. Signing it provides evidence that the document has not been altered subsequently. A written rather than a scanned signature is better for this simply because anyone with reasonably low computer skills can take a scanned image and apply it to another document. Better than both is a secure electronic signature that is invalidated if the document is changed. Unless you or your landlord are willing to commit fraud to win a dispute over a lease, it probably doesn't matter either way.

"Acknowledged" is fine. There is no "preferable" substitute with which to prefix your signature. As a precaution, never leave too much space between the end of clauses and your signature, lest another clause later on gets slid in without your consent (a public institution is unlikely to incur such misconduct, though). Also, always be sure to ask for a copy of the contract/agreement you sign.

Conditions stated in a will should be objectively verifiable, to avoid later ligation of the "yes he is / no he isn't" type. In this case, it would appear that your concern is over the beneficiary not actually being competent to take care of themselves. The courts often have to make that judgment, when a party seeks conservatorship over an adult. So it seems that the situation you are addressing can be summarized by saying "has not been found legally incompetent". You should discuss with your attorney what the exact wording ought to be, and also whether that describes your actual intents. For example, the description of disqualification probably should not include execution of a temporary power of attorney for a specific purpose, nor would it include a DNR order. Hiring an attorney who knows the terminology would steer clear of vague or mistaken terms.

What does under license mean? Gitolite says: NOTE: GIT is a trademark of Software Freedom Conservancy and my use of "Gitolite" is under license. What does under license mean here? Does it mean Software Freedom Conservancy gives permission to use Git phrase inside Gitolite?

Yes, the SFC doesn't allow the usage of the term "git" for third-party products unless they have their permisison. From the Git Trademark Policy, 2.3 Prohibited usages of the Marks: In addition, you may not use any of the Marks as a syllable in a new word or as part of a portmanteau (e.g., "Gitalicious", "Gitpedia") used as a mark for a third-party product or service without Conservancy's written permission. For the avoidance of doubt, this provision applies even to third-party marks that use the Marks as a syllable or as part of a portmanteau to refer to a product or service's use of Git code.

The notice has a lot to do with legacy requirements in the United States to claim the copyright to a work. Up until 1989, the copyright notice was required. Today, the statements are mainly maintained to protect against "innocent infringement" which might reduce what a content owner can get in court. What exactly do those terms entail? That the owner stated owns all rights and you may do nothing with the content. My biggest concern is this: by writing that, is the company claiming to own everything on the website, even potentially copyrighted user-submitted material? That's exactly what they are doing. Depending on the terms of the specific site, content contributors generally either assign copyright to the site owner or license the content in a way that allows the site owner to do exactly what they want with it. Site creators with the smarts or money to do it right/get someone to do it right usually state something like: Copyright [Site Owner] and contributors. Other sites (like this one) state specifically what they hold the copyright to: site design / logo © 2015 Stack Exchange Inc THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE. CONSULT AN ATTORNEY REGARDING YOUR SPECIFIC SITUATION.

wouldn't this count as an unlawful clause in the license agreement, therefore, invalidating the entire contract? No. The excerpt of legislation you posted implies that the clause in the EULA is null and void --rather than illegal-- if your reason for reverse engineering meets the legislative criteria. For the clause to be illegal, the statute would have to outlaw clauses which prohibit the reverse engineering intended for achieving interoperability. The statute does not prohibit those clauses. Instead, it only authorizes you to ignore that clause, provided that your reason for doing so is to achieve interoperability. Lastly, an invalid clause does not invalidate the entire contract. Any portions of the contract which do not depend on the invalid clause retain their status of [being] binding and enforceable.

The web site appears to be interacting with a copy of the MIT-licensed code, which I will call "M". Neither the site nor the code that displays the site is a copy, but if a copy of M is on Bob's server, it might be considered to be a part of the code that supports or "powers" the site. In general, calling a separate program does not make that program part of the calling program. Bob must make sure that the local copy of M contains the required copyright notice and "as-is" notice. As Bob is "using" and not "distributing" M, that ends his obligations. It would be good practice and courteous of Bob to include on his web page where M can be invoked "Powered in part by M, written by {M-author}" or some similar notice, but the MIT license does not impose any such requirement. A license could impose such a requirement, but MIT does not.

When you license your IP (like a song) you can specify the terms and conditions of its use by the licensee, including revenue shares from any derived work. However, if, as your comment suggests, you grant an "informal" license, and later decide that you want to "firm things up" with a license having different terms, that's a matter you would have to either negotiate or litigate with your counterparty. If you want a common reference point for negotiation of this sort of license, you might have a look at compulsory license terms.

It seems that you don’t understand what parody is. If you do understand, please explain how it’s even possible to parody computer code. What you can do with “open source” code depends on the licence the copyright holder(s) release it under. For some very permissive licences you can do what you suggest, for most, you can’t.

You can license the use of your IP only for certain uses, for example (most commonly) "non-commercial". The general template of permission is "You have permission to ___ as long as you ___". What the user is permitted to do, in your scheme, is something along the lines of "only distribute the output in this manner", or "not distribute code developed with this tool anywhere else". It's up to you to prove that someone violated that condition, if they did.

The terms transfer IP rights only for the New IP, meaning that Customer would own the new stuff. Developer will still own their old stuff, but Customer will have the right to use the old stuff, depending on the license terms. If the license is as in your link, then it is forever (but this is a stub, so I assume that the license will be more specific and possibly restrictive). You retain all your rights to old stuff, customer will not pay royalties for the old stuff, and they can transfer or extend the license, or part of the license, to others.

SWAT Team Concealing Identity What gives SWAT team members legal cover to conceal their identities by wearing balaclavas or similar?

This web site has collected up a number of state anti-mask laws. It is useful to know that the purpose of the tactical balaclava is face protection. The anti-mask law of California prohibits mask for escaping identification in the commission of a public offense; Florida likewise limits it to criminal-like conduct and some sketchy "equal protection" situations (presumably anti-Klan legislation). Georgia generally prohibits masks but takes the tack of listing exceptions, including "traditional holiday costumes" and "for safety reasons". In Louisiana it is prohibited to wear a mask to conceal identity, but there are enumerated exceptions, including Halloween and Mardi Gras (no surprise), or for religious reasons; we can assume that if Lousiana SWAT teams wear tactical balaclavas, the legal basis is face-protection. It would appear that in Minnesota, SWAT team members cannot wear a mask until winter: A person whose identity is concealed by the person in a public place by means of a robe, mask, or other disguise, unless based on religious beliefs, or incidental to amusement, entertainment, protection from weather, or medical treatment, is guilty of a misdemeanor In New York, the anti-mask law seems to be subsumed under loitering, which includes Being masked or in any manner disguised by unusual or unnatural attire or facial alteration, loiters, remains or congregates in a public place with other persons so masked or disguised, or knowingly permits or aids persons so masked or disguised to congregate in a public place; except that such conduct is not unlawful when it occurs in connection with a masquerade party or like entertainment if, when such entertainment is held in a city which has promulgated regulations in connection with such affairs, permission is first obtained from the police or other appropriate authorities; which could be narrowly construed to outlaw wearing of balaclavas by SWAT teams (they are masked, they congregate and remain in public with others masked men, it is not in connection with entertainment.

Police can lie However, in the United States they have to read you your Miranda warning (most other democratic countries have similar warnings): You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in court. You have the right to talk to a lawyer for advice before we ask you any questions. You have the right to have a lawyer with you during questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for you before any questioning if you wish. If you decide to answer questions now without a lawyer present, you have the right to stop answering at any time. They have told you everything they are required to tell you - effectively “we are not on your side.” After that, they can lie their asses off. Of course, they wouldn’t ask you for a DNA sample - they’d ask you if you’d like a glass of water. Then they’ll take the DNA from that.

Yes, you can ask but if they don’t they can come in anyway. The law gives them the right to enter in certain circumstances. Notwithstanding, any government employee that disclosed confidential information that they got in the course of their employment could be sued and possibly prosecuted.

Yes, A First Amendment defense would apply. This is no longer a crime. Schacht In Schacht vs. United States, 398 U.S. 58 (1970) the US Supreme Court held the final clause of 10 USC 772(f) unconstitutional on just this ground. In that case anti-war protesters rehearsed and performed a skit in which soldiers shot and killed a character dressed as a member of the Vietcong, only to discover and proclaim that the character was a pregnant woman. One of them, Daniel Jay Schacht, was indicted in a United States District Court for violating 18 U.S.C. 702, ... He was tried and convicted by a jury, and on February 29, 1968, he was sentenced to pay a fine of $250 and to serve a six-month prison term, the maximum sentence allowable ... In the opinion by Justice Black, the Court held; This clause on its face simply restricts 772 (f)'s authorization to those dramatic portrayals that do not "tend to discredit" the military, but, when this restriction is read together with 18 U.S.C. 702, it becomes clear that Congress has in effect made it a crime for an actor wearing a military uniform to say things during his performance critical of the conduct or policies of the Armed Forces. ... ... it follows that his conviction can be sustained only if he can be punished for speaking out against the role of our Army and our country in Vietnam. Clearly punishment for this reason would be an unconstitutional abridgment of freedom of speech. The final clause of 772 (f), which leaves Americans free to praise the war in Vietnam but can send persons like Schacht to prison for opposing it, cannot survive in a country which has the First Amendment. To preserve the constitutionality of 772 (f) that final clause must be stricken from the section. Hamilton In United States vs Hamilton (2012) the US Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals limited 18 U.S.C. § 702 (wearing a military uniform without authorization), and 18 U.S.C. § 704(a) and (d) (wearing military medals and other insignia without authorization). Hamilton had, among other actions, appeared at a Vietnam Veterans’ Recognition Ceremony in the dress Uniform of a Colonel of US Marines, wearing numerous medals and awards including two Navy Crosses, four Silver Stars, one Bronze Star, and seven Purple Hearts. He had in fact been medically discharged years earlier with less than 1 year of service, after an accident to his hand, with the rank of Private First Class (PFC). He had not been awarded any of the medals or decorations that he wore. (He had previously been apprehended on military bases three times wearing the uniforms of a colonel (once) and a lieutenant general (twice), but was not charged on those occasions.) The Fourth Circuit wrote: We observe that the Ninth Circuit applied such a limiting construction to Section 704(a) in United States v. Perelman, holding that the statute created a criminal offense prohibiting the unauthorized wearing of military medals only when the wearer "has an intent to deceive." (658 F.3d at 1137-38) In our view, the imposition of a limiting construction requiring an "intent to deceive" is appropriate with respect to both Sections 702 and 704(a). ... Accordingly, we hold that persons violate the insignia statutes if they wear a military uniform without authorization, or wear military medals or imitations of such medals, respectively, only when they do so with the intent to deceive. The Fourth Circuit went on to hold these provisions constitutional when so limited, and to uphold the convictions under them, quoting Schacht is support of this holding.

(Assuming the jurisdiction is the US.) Your question I was wondering whether there are any limitations on using photos of private individuals on websites. is the least of your potential problems. Photos of the public taken in public are mostly legal to use and publish, and you own the copyright on the photo, and generally don't need a model release. But your plan of posting the photo with accompanying information about (alleged) fraud: There's a fraud conducting business in my state and I want to create a website that warns others of his fraudulent practices. is potentially legally problematic. As phoog indicates in his comment, you need to be aware of defamation, both at the federal level and among states, as some have criminalized defamation (Wikipedia). Libel is the publication of provably false facts by one person about another person. For a full outline of defamation (libel and slander, and including private and public figures), see Libel and Slander | Nolo.com. What you want to do is publish "facts" about this alleged fraud on the website with a photo of the individual, linking the fraud allegations to them. That is potentially libelous. The facts of the fraud may be provably true, or they may be provably false; that remains to be seen. But the facts don't matter when considering what actions the person can take against you if you publish such information on your website. If this business and the individual(s) feel they are not committing fraud, they can sue you for libel in civil court, alleging that you have damaged their reputation and impacted their business by publishing those facts on your website with the photo identifying the person and their business. If they take legal action, and you can prove the business and the individual(s) are committing fraud with provable facts - hard evidence of fraud, such as legal documents and court judgments - than you should (no guarantees) be able to successfully defend yourself in a libel suit brought against you by that person. Even if the business and the individual(s) are aware of facts that prove their fraud, and know they will probably not prevail in court, they can still take you to court, and it will cost you whatever time and money it takes to defend yourself. My responses above concern what legal actions the alleged could take against you if you published the website with the photo and information about the alleged fraud. No one here is advising you to put up the website with the photo and the "facts" as you see them, even if you have hard proof of the facts of the fraud; you should find legal representation before taking any action with the website. And, no one here is advising you to open any legal action against the person; that's your choice in terms of determining your case and if you can show actual harm that was caused by the alleged fraud by the individual, and you should find legal representation before taking any action.

No. Self-defence law does The right of self-defense (also called, when it applies to the defense of another, alter ego defense, defense of others, defense of a third person) is the right for people to use reasonable or defensive force, for the purpose of defending one's own life (self-defense) or the lives of others, including –in certain circumstances– the use of deadly force. Whether you would succeed in such a defence depends on the exact circumstances. Good Samaritan laws protect you from trying to help, screwing up, and causing further damage.

The legal division is between law enforcement officers (or some similar expression, defined by law), and everybody else. A security guard falls in the category "everybody else", so like everybody else, they can use force to defend themselves from an attempted murder. Nevada law simply defines "security guard" as "a person employed as a watchman, guard, security consultant, patrol officer or in any other similar position". The main reason for mentioning them at all is to exclude them from license-related laws applicable to private investigators and security consultants. This section of Nevada law defines those who have "powers of peace officers" – it doesn't include security guards or private investigators. One important distinction, stated here, is that If necessary to prevent escape, an officer may, after giving a warning, if feasible, use deadly force to effect the arrest of a person only if there is probable cause to believe that the person: 1. Has committed a felony which involves the infliction or threat of serious bodily harm or the use of deadly force; or 2. Poses a threat of serious bodily harm to the officer or to others. An ordinary person cannot do this, instead that can use deadly force in self-defense, and not to effect an arrest. The law does not allow anybody, including officers, to do otherwise-prohibited things unreasonably. The law does allow everybody to discriminate, except in specific cases such as you cannot discriminate based on race when hiring or beating a person (in the later case, it's called a "hate crime"). Questions about trespassing generally arise in connection with a rowdy person in a public place such as a bar, which are deemed to be "public accommodations". You are not allowed to discriminate on the basis of race in access to public accommodations, therefore you cannot eject a person for being the wrong race. However, your home is not a public accommodation, so you are not required to be racially-neutral w.r.t. your home. There is no LEO exception with respect to non-discrimination requirements.; there is no ordinary-person exception either. As for trespass warnings, the law says A sufficient warning against trespassing, within the meaning of this section, is given by any of the following methods:...By the owner or occupant of the land or building making an oral or written demand to any guest to vacate the land or building.

No The term "sword and shield" is allegorical rather than legal and may be called up in any number of contexts. Such as ... Waiver of privilege In the particular instance, Anthem was claiming that the reports were privileged and hence protected from discovery, presumably because they were prepared in contemplation of litigation - this litigation, one supposes. However, privilege is lost or waived if the privileged information is disclosed, as it was by relying on the conclusion of the report in its defense. As such, the entire suite of reports is no longer protected. Basically, if you want to keep privilege you have to keep what is privileged secret. Note, the could have lost privilege if they had disclosed the findings of the report in any way such as by press release or by simply leaving the document in a public place. In this context, the judge is stating that they cannot use the "shield" of privilege to protect a report that they have used as a "sword" to make a attack their opponent.

UK: Is it legal to present in court a document/evidence which you are not allowed to keep? Imagine an employee whose contract requires to return all copies of employer's information back to employer once employment is over. But that employee is going to take the former employer into Employment Tribunal and for this needs to keep copies of some emails as vital evidence? Is this legal? Or does it mean that employee will be in breach of his/her contract?

Is this legal? Yes Or does it mean that employee will be in breach of his/her contract? Yes You are assuming that if the evidence is allowed to be presented then that automatically means that keeping it for that purpose is not a breach of the contract. This is not necessarily so; it can be both at the same time. That said, it is unlikely that an employer would attempt to sanction an employee for this as the courts would (rightly) see it as an attempt to pervert the course of justice. As in most things in the law it is possible for all parties in a matter to be on the wrong side of it. If you want to come to the tribunal with "clean hands" then the best thing to do is make a record (not a copy) of the relevant documents and return then to the employer. Before going to the tribunal get your solicitor to subpoena the documents that you want - they will have to produce them and you have them without breaking your contract.

Yes, it triggers the GDPR obligations Considerations: Can you surely identify those residing in Europe? In that case you should ask them to sign up again and confirm the consent. A lot of mailing lists are doing just that. Did they previously give consent and you can document it? If so, then you can argue that you have the required consent. Do you have business in Europe? If not then I don't think they would bother to go after you. You could just walk away from the fine. What other personal informastion are you storing? If you know who reside in Europe then you already have more info than just the email. The email address itself wouldn't be much of a documentation issue, SAR or Portability task.

If an employee takes home information that his or her employer considers confidential, that would be a matter of company policy. The employer could discipline or fire the employee if it learned of the incident, and chose to act. If the information is considered to be a trade secret, or part of one, disclosing it or mishandling it so as to risk disclosure could be a crime under US law. However, only in unusual cases is criminal action taken on such matters, normally it is left to civil lawsuits or internal company action. I do not know if Canada has a similar law.

The solicitor is allowed not to accept a case. If your ex-wife asked him to prepare papers, and he feels that she is getting ripped off, it is absolutely understandable that he won't prepare these papers for her, because he doesn't want to be sued or badmouthed when the deal goes wrong. "We would also reserve the right to take our own professional advice as to our efforts on your behalf." means simply he is not specialised in some subject, and will prefer to ask someone who is. Like a medical doctor asking for a second opinion before going ahead and cutting your leg off. Now I would have preferred if the solicitor had said concretely what exactly is wrong with the contract. Also, it would be obvious that you would be very comfortable with anything that he would advice her against. If he thinks that it is a good deal for you but not for her, he should advice against it. (Your comment to another question seems to indicate that she should be paid a lot more than you offered, so her solicitor seems to have been perfectly right).

Is there any way I can defend myself against penalties when mistakes are made in my favor? Another option, in a similar vein to your suggestions, is to make a contemporaneous record of the conversations. Then send an email* to the public official detailing what was said and agreed, along with a request that they reply with any observations or amendments within a certain time frame. That way you have a date-stamped document properly addressed to the other party to use as evidence or leverage. *or a recorded delivery letter etc

"May" means "is possible" and not "is necessary". The specific law does not say anything about a person doing A, B or C and it does not say that if you do one of A, B or C then something mandatorily follows. It asserts that certain types of documentation "can" be used as evidence supporting the proposition that the applicant did not disrupt continuous residence, but it also asserts (without giving any further hints) that other things may be used. This law does not state necessary or sufficient conditions for establishing undisrupted continuous residence. It is not hard to construct a scenario where a person moves back to their home country and ran for public office there, but failed to quit the US job. In light of compelling evidence that they actually moved back home, failure to quite your US job is not proof that you remained in the US. Proof resides in the totality of evidence, not just the admissibility of a single fact. Doing one or more of (A-D) is no guarantee of anything.

With respect to the first question, discussing an idea in a non-encrypted email is not a publication that forfeits the right to patent an idea, even though it is not 100% secure. In the same way, talking about an idea for a patent with your patent lawyer in a secluded booth of a coffee shop in person does not constitute publication of the idea for this purpose, even if someone is secretly spying on you at the time. Since I am at the moment employed by a company, even though the idea originates from myself, it seems that I should quit my job first not to have my current company have any claim over my idea. It is possible that the contract makes even ideas that you come up with yourself while employed by the company the property of the company. If so, you are legally in the wrong and the idea belongs to the company. But, proving the reality that you are stealing the idea from the company is harder if there is nothing in writing. An email discussing an idea while you are employed would have to be disclosed in litigation with your employer over whether the patent applied for belongs to you or to your employer under an employment agreement. If you didn't put it in an email, it wouldn't exist to turn over in litigation.

does the email chain above set out a legally binding contract, would it stand up to the test in a court Generally speaking, yes, unless you signed a "more formal" contract thereafter. The more formal contract would supersede the email chain. Furthermore, the subsequent conduct by both parties evidences the existence of a contract. The fact that you have been provided with the service and that you have been charged for these ~12 months evidences the formation and existence of a contract. is the breach of contract sufficient to give us grounds to terminate the contract? Yes. To substantiate a claim of breach of contract, you will need to provide evidence that the "24/7/365 support line" is missing or unacceptably subpar in that it has caused you losses (such as downtime and consequent impact on your operations), or that such pattern of service disruptions would subject your company to imminent risk of losses if you were forced to stay in the contract for the remaining ~24 months (obviously, you will need to establish that this item or feature is not just incidental to the contract).

Distributing my own sexual photographs as a child? Would it be illegal to distribute sexual photographs of myself as a child for free or in exchange for money given that I am an adult now?

The US child porn law is Chapter 110 of Title 18. It refers to a "minor", defined as anyone under 18. Sexually explicit conduct is defined, which you can read about. Regarding distribution (not production), 18 USC 2252 (A)(1) identifies as an offender anyone who knowingly transports or ships using any means or facility of interstate or foreign commerce or in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce by any means including by computer or mails, any visual depiction, if— (A) the producing of such visual depiction involves the use of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; and (B) such visual depiction is of such conduct; "Affecting interstate commerce" is a term of legal art that means "doing, at all", which relates the law to the Commerce Clause and givers the federal government jurisdiction. There is a big interstate trade in child porn, and absolutely restricting distribution of child porn is part of what's necessary to regulate this form of interstate commerce (see Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942): "affecting interstate commerce" can be found even when a farmer grown wheat for home consumption). There is no overriding of the law in case the minor is now an adult, and there is no overriding of the law if the producer, purchaser or distributor is the child in the porno. The core prohibition is 18 USC 2251, and distribution is covered in (d)(1), which defines the person to be punished as one who knowingly makes, prints, or publishes, or causes to be made, printed, or published, any notice or advertisement seeking or offering— (A) to receive, exchange, buy, produce, display, distribute, or reproduce, any visual depiction, if the production of such visual depiction involves the use of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct and such visual depiction is of such conduct; or (B) participation in any act of sexually explicit conduct by or with any minor for the purpose of producing a visual depiction of such conduct;

Private prosecution is allowed in New Zealand, so one possibility would be to conduct the prosecution yourself. You could either do that as a case of destruction of property, or under the Animal Welfare Act. It is not guaranteed that your charging document will be accepted (for example, if your document lacks the required content). An alternative would be to apply political pressure to the Crown Law Office, to persuade them to pursue the matter.

OK, the prohibition on commercial use stems from either: The tort of passing off; this is a private civil matter between the model and the publisher, or Breach of s18 of the Australian Consumer Law which involve misleading or deceptive conduct; this is a public civil matter with strict liability (i.e. intention or negligence is irrelevant) between the ACCC and the publisher with fines of up to $1,100,000 for a body corporate and $220,000 for an individual. In both cases the cause of action arises from the possible presumption by a person who views the photograph that the model in it is endorsing the goods or services that you are selling. The standard is: Would a reasonable person, viewing the photograph in context, come to the conclusion that the model is endorsing the goods or services (either because they really like it or they were paid to show they really liked it). Context is everything here. Some examples: If you a photo studio selling the actual photograph then there is no endorsement. If you are using the photograph to promote the studio there is. If you are showing a crowd scene (e.g. at a football match) there is no endorsement. If you are showing a building and the people are incidental there is no endorsement. If you are showing individuals or small groups in a way that promotes your goods or services there is endorsement. So, look at the photograph and the purpose you are using it for: could a reasonable person draw the conclusion that the people in it are endorsing your application?

Publishing government records is pretty classic First Amendment-protected activity. Keeping in mind that one can find a lawyer to sue for anything, I think that person would likely be operating well within the law. One thing in particular that I'd recommend staying aware of is how one might attempt to monetize this endeavor. There have been a lot of sites publishing arrest records, court records, and mugshots, and then charging people to have them removed to keep them from popping up in a Google search for those people's names. That is -- rightly -- regarded as sketchy behavior; while several states have passed laws prohibiting that business model, I don't believe any such law exists in Washington State at this point.

Yes, it is illegal in North Carolina, which defines your sex as what's on your birth certificate. At any point in your transition, even when it's long complete, you'll still have to use the restroom for the gender on your birth certificate (hypothetically assuming the law is still in place). See e.g. this CNN coverage and this followup. Will you actually be arrested? Probably only if there's a complaint. The police haven't yet figured out how they're supposed to enforce this law.

In the US, does a person photographing private property (houses, farms etc.) while standing on public ground (road, park etc.) commit any offence? No. In general, while standing on public land, it is legal for your eyes to glance onto everything around you. You cannot be arrested and imprisoned for allowing your gaze to pass over your neighbours lawn. It is legal for you to take out a tripod, canvas and paintbrushes and paint the general scene, even if it includes, for example, a tree standing on private land. Instead of a paintbrush, you may use a camera to create a picture of the scene. There are a few exceptions Some military installations Some installations operated by the department of energy (e.g. some nuclear power stations) You cannot photograph people where they have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" - Note that this is not dependant on how the people feel about it. You can photograph a couple kissing at a bus stop, you probably can't legally point a telephoto lens at their bedroom window through a broken privacy-fence. will they commit any offence by publishing the photos They may need copyright permission from the owners of any identifiable works of art included and may need model releases from identifiable people included. There are specific exceptions allowing the publishing of photographs of sculptures and buildings that are visible from public spaces. See The Photographer's Right

Copyright The photographer, not the subject(s) own the copyright in the picture. So, unless this was a selfie, you have no rights in the picture. Privacy If the photo was taken in circumstances where a reasonable person would expect privacy, then revealing it to others might be a tort of privacy breach. In most common law jurisdictions this area of the law is undeveloped. However, if the photo was taken from a public place (even if you were in a private place), or with your permission, this doesn’t apply. Intimate images In some jurisdictions, the distribution of intimate images without the permission of the subject is a crime. Intimate does not include a photo that is merely embarrassing. Bullying This is probably bullying behaviour but bullying per se is generally not illegal. It might be illegal if the bullying is motivated by a protected characteristic (race, age, gender, sexuality etc.) but that usually requires a context - employment, public accommodation etc. it might also be illegal hate speech even outside such an institutional framework. Similarly, within an institutional context like a workplace or school there might be policies around bullying; these might have the force of law but are probably quasi-contractural matters. However, a private person doing it because they don’t like you and want to humiliate or embarrass you is probably not doing anything illegal.

According to a blog post (written by a lawyer who actually has had multiple people ask about that), it depends on several things. The gist is that they're not getting away with this "brilliant plan" unless they take so many steps to make it look legitimate that it will, in fact, become a legitimate porn production enterprise — in which case, why bother with the ruse in the first place? To find you guilty of prostitution, a jury would have to be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that you were guilty of prostitution and not just making porn. But putting a camera in the room doesn't necessarily make it First-Amendment-protected porn; sometimes it just means you're giving them evidence of your crime. Since juries can differ, there's not really a bright line. But some things look bad to judges and juries. If the director is also doing sexual acts in the film, that looks bad. If he's also never directed or acted in porn before, that looks bad. If a person in the film is paying for the "actresses" instead of getting paid for "acting", that looks very bad; see United States v. Roeder, 526 F.2d 736, 737 (10th Cir. 1975). Having an actual script, on the other hand, may look good. Keep in mind that if the film is not just pornographic but actually obscene, obscenity laws could still apply even if you convince them it isn't prostitution. The First Amendment does not protect obscene materials. Additionally, if you claim it's porn, you will need to properly keep records of the names (and all former names/aliases) and dates of birth of your "actors" and "actresses", unless you want to be guilty of a federal felony. This includes making a copy of their photo ID. The records must also made available for inspection by the Attorney General and his inspectors for a minimum of 20 hours per week, with no advance notice given by them. Is everyone involved really going to be OK with all of this - especially since the law specifically notes that the records may be used as evidence in a federal obscenity prosecution?

How to remove YouTube video that infringes my IP? If someone made a video of my song and uploaded it to YouTube: Is that legal? If not, how can I block the video?

That's copyright infringement, and is illegal under various copyright laws. To take down the content, you'll have to make a claim under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The online form for making a takedown notice to YouTube under the DMCA can be found here: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2807622?hl=en Remember, that by submitting a takedown notice, that you are initiating a legal process. Take extra care not to abuse it, and to make sure that all information you submit is accurate.

Probably not. There are potential problems on the levels of copyright, data protection, and the Youtube terms of service. You should assume that comments are typically covered by copyright. You do not have a license to these comments, only YouTube does. Therefore, YouTube can show the comments but you can't copy them – just like YouTube can stream your videos but others can't download them and host them on their own websites. To cover the copyright angle, you'd either need to obtain a license from the commenters, or get a sub-license from YouTube, or identify a suitable copyright exception. The comments are personal data within the meaning of the GDPR, so that your processing of these comments (including mere storage) would be subject to GDPR as well. You need a legal basis for processing personal data. Which legal basis is suitable would depend on the purpose of processing, and on your relationship with the commenters. Potentially applicable legal bases in this context: you have a contract with the commenters that requires you to show the comments on your website. For example, I could see such a contract if there were a “featured comment” perk for a Patreon subscription. But this is not going to fly with random commenters. you have a legitimate interest (LI) that allows the processing. A LI requires that you conduct a balancing test where you weigh this interest against the commenter's rights. This is very specific to the purposes for which you want to show the comments. However, a LI will generally only apply if you have an existing relationship with the commenters, making it possible for them to expect that this processing will occur – unlikely if you'll be scraping comments from YouTube. you have obtained consent from the data subject. Consent must be specific, informed, freely given, and unambiguous – you can't obtain consent by writing “by commenting under this video you consent to XXX” in the video description. Regardless of legal basis, you would have to inform the commenters under Art 14 GDPR when you scrape their comments from the platform. Finally, consider the platform terms of service. I have not read the YouTube ToS recently, so I don't know what their specific conditions are. But in general, such ToS will not allow you to scrape content from their platform in order to host it somewhere else. The ToS might allow certain actions like embedding a link/iframe to such videos on other sites, without allowing other actions such as copying other user's content to your site.

Yes, it does. Using the downloaded content, whether it was scraped or individually downloaded one file at a time, for research or for commercial purposes would violate that TOS provision (unless some other provision contradicts it, or you obtain specific permission). The site owner could sue you for such a violation, should the owner become aware of it. I do not think it would be likely to be a criminal offense, depending on the jurisdiction.

No. These companies seem to be saying that they are entitled to sell music under some sort of mandatory licensing agreement authorized by the law of the Ukraine, or by a licensing agreement specific to the Ukraine. Even if this were true, it would only give them the right to distribute the files in the Ukraine. If an American, sitting in the U.S., makes a digital copy of a file on a Ukrainian server by copying it to his or her U.S. hard drive, they have to have a license to do so issued either by the U.S. copyright holder or authorized by U.S. law. A license to distribute in the Ukraine doesn't give the U.S. end user that license. A Ukrainian statute doesn't give the U.S. end user that license. If the end user doesn't have that license, he or she is violating the copyright holder's rights and may be civilly or criminally liable. There is no scienter requirement for copyright infringement. In fact, it's not at all clear that any Ukrainian site is operating even under this dubious legal cover. This report on Ukrainian licensing agencies by an industry group claims that many Ukrainian licensing authorities are actually scams that have no rights to distribute music under any license--one of the "rogue licensing agencies" discussed is Avtor, referenced in your first example. There is some legal confusion over what group does have permission to license music and collect royalties in the Ukraine, but it's clear that Avtor doesn't, and it certainly doesn't have permission to distribute them in the U.S. If a guy came up to you on the street and told you he had written permission from Disney to videotape their latest movies with a camcorder and sell them to you for a dollar, are you violating the law if you buy it? The answer is yes, and it's the same for these Ukrainian sites.

The YouTube Standard License is described in the terms of service. It means that you retain your copyright: you retain all of your ownership rights in your Content. But you also grant YouTube very broad permissions to your content: by submitting Content to YouTube, you hereby grant YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the Content in connection with the Service and YouTube's (and its successors' and affiliates') business Yes, that means YouTube could allow others to use your content by "sublicensing" or "transferring" their license. I never heard of YouTube doing that, but the license terms would allow it if they would decide that they want to. But without an explicit permission from you or from YouTube, people are not allowed to reproduce your content. Agreeing to those terms (or alternatively to the Creative Commons CC-BY terms which do allow others to use your content as long as they give attribution) is a condition for using the platform. You can also put different license terms into the video description. This is called "dual licensing". But that means that people get to choose under which license terms they want to use the content. They can either use YouTube's terms, or your own.

Criminal liability is triggered by guilty knowledge. The people who run OnlyFans may know in general terms that it is probable that some illegal images exist on their servers, but so does everyone who allows the public to upload stuff. If that was illegal then the senior management of Google and Facebook would be liable to arrest on the same grounds and the Internet as we know it could not exist. Once the company becomes aware of a specific file that contains such material they need to remove it. If they fail to do so then they become liable. OnlyFans has been doing this: [OnlyFans] provides templates for each successive warning - explaining why material has been removed, and that failure to comply with terms of service may result in the closure of the account. [emphasis added] The site operators also become liable if they have a general policy of tolerating illegal material. This is a grey area; a prosecution would have to prove that the toleration was an active policy rather than merely ineffective moderation. There doesn't seem to be any evidence to support such a claim. Permitting an account to continue after deleting an offending file is not toleration of the offending file. The BBC report does not allege that the OnlyFans policy of multiple warnings has been applied to cases of underage content; rather it talks about cases of incest, bestiality and exploitation of vulnerable adults (such as homeless people), and only where the accounts were particularly popular. The linked articles do report cases where accounts have been set up advertising content by minors, but they were shut down as soon as the company was notified of them. The second article also quotes its source as saying that lots of such accounts get closed down all the time; there doesn't seem to be any evidence of toleration of that material specifically. So in conclusion it seems from the available evidence that OnlyFans have been complying with the law. It is telling that the BBC article specifically does not say that they have done anything illegal. If the BBC had found unambiguous evidence of illegal conduct by OnlyFans management then they would certainly have highlighted this.

No, you misunderstand Fair use and infringed copyright Fair use only exists if enough of the four factors are given for it: The Transformative Factor The Nature of the Copyrighted Work The Amount and Substantiality of the Portion Taken The Effect of the Use Upon the Potential Market You fail on all of them: Cutting the video does not alter the meaning or expression. which means it is nontransformative and thus against OP. Music is usually with fictional works, the best you can get here is "neutral*. but I would weigh against OP. Your Video took the total of the video and nothing else. Against OP. The full-length Video has a potential market that does include underage children. Your video tried to infringe on that market. Against OP. ERGO You are not enacting Fair Use but infringe copyright. Similar case: Vidangel Vidangel had been offering films in a censored fashion without the approval of the copyright holders. A court ruled that this is not fair use and it was sanctioned for 65 Million US-dollar.

An album from 2011 is pretty clearly going to be protected by copyright. Downloading such a work without permission would be copyright infringement, and therefore unlawful. However, it is not a crime in the US. If the copyright owner or the owner's agent learns of the download, you could be sued. Whether the owner would choose to bring suit is hard to say. However, for some content the Internet Archive has a program where a digital copy can be "borrowed" or "checked out" for a limited period of time. This is supposed to work like a library. The IA has made arrangements that will authorize this, or it is supposed to have done so. You only retain use of such a download for a limited period of time.

Fair use of Tweets There are many personalities that use Twitter to promote themselves, and are active on the site. If I sell a product that quotes or reproduces these tweets is it fair use? Let's assume that we are talking about tweets of 140 chars or less.

The length of a literary work doesn't determine if its use is fair use. Copyright does not cover names, titles of works, catchwords/catchphrases/advertising slogans etc. or lists of ingredients (like in a recipe or chemical instructions), however, the procedure can be copyright. The work must also be original. If the tweet copies something that already exists then there is no copyright in the tweet - if the thing that is copied has copyright protection then the tweet itself may be a violation. That said, assuming that the Tweet enjoys copyright protection, the owner will be the author: presumably the owner of the Twitter account. For anyone else to legally use it, the use must be either: Licensed by the copyright owner Fair use (USA) or Fair Dealing (most everywhere else in the English speaking world) For Item 1, the Twitter terms of service say: You retain your rights to any Content you submit, post or display on or through the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through the Services, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed). In case you don't know what that means, Twitter gives you this plain English summary: Tip: This license is you authorizing us to make your Tweets on the Twitter Services available to the rest of the world and to let others do the same. So, you can get permission from the copyright holder or from Twitter. Well, Twitter has given permission: Except as permitted through the Twitter Services, these Terms, or the terms provided on dev.twitter.com, you have to use the Twitter API if you want to reproduce, modify, create derivative works, distribute, sell, transfer, publicly display, publicly perform, transmit, or otherwise use the Twitter Services or Content on the Twitter Services. Providing you use their API, you can "reproduce, modify, create derivative works, distribute, sell, transfer, publicly display, publicly perform, transmit, or otherwise use the ... Content ..." Therefore, fair use/dealing considerations are irrelevant.

This seems to be a mix of question about law and a meta-question about this site, but I'll treat it as an on-topic question about law. The author of a question, or answer, owns the copyright to their contributions, and they can re-publish to their heart's content. Any user who posts here grants a license to SE and other users to use content posted here, so I don't have to ask you permission to quote you. As part of the permission granted by SE to use this website, you have agreed to "follow the rules" set by SE. There are many rules, some spelled out more clearly that others. For example, if you post a question, you indirectly agreed that your content can be upvoted or down-voted. Certain content can be "closed" and deleted, when the content is deemed to violate the rules in particular ways (is spam, porn, abuse, or judged to be poor-quality). Judgment (on different matters) can be rendered by community managers, moderators, or other users. The agreement is here, see especially here. If we take the post that you linked to, it is quite possible that it was deleted because it is not a general legal question, in violation of the acceptable use policy. If you want a historical analysis of your particular case, it should be asked on Law Meta.

There are several things going on with Akinator and their use of trademarked names and characters. If you look at akinator.com Legal Notices it says: 2 – Copyright – Reproduction rights All the content of this site falls under French and international legislation on copyright and intellectual property. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part of this website, in any form or by any means is strictly prohibited without prior authorisation of the publications director. All products and trademarks mentioned are property of their respective owners. (emphasis mine) The fact that they mention that all trademarks belong to their respective owners is good, but it's a formality. What it appears the site really relies on for use of trademarked characters is what's called Nominative Use, which is a type of "trademark fair use." The product or service cannot be readily identified without using the trademark (e.g. trademark is descriptive of a person, place, or product attribute). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_use Akinator has to use the names and trademarks to identify those names and trademarks. Akinator could possibly be sued to establish their type of fair use is not valid in their case, but it's probably not worth it for the companies to pursue. And, most companies would rather people use and see their trademarks in a marketing and money-making fair use sense rather than sue to stop their use. See In the US, when is fair use a defense to copyright infringement? for a full description of Fair Use. Now, when you get to the "answer" part of the game, you will see a "copyright" link. Part of that resulting page says Displayed pictures are accessible from the web. It is Elokence's policy to respond to notices of alleged copyright infringement that comply with applicable international intellectual property law and make the necessary changes. In respect of Elokence's Intellectual Property Policy, Elokence operates a complaints procedure accessible via the form below. So the company has given itself a further bit of protection by only using images on the web they can link to (at least in the web browser game; I don't know about the App), so that means the image is already "out there", uploaded by someone else, and Akinator can claim they didn't upload it. And, further, there is a contact form for trademark holders to send DMCA takedown notices for their work. It's a belt and suspenders approach to the use of trademarks in their game.

Go to court and find out There is no doubt that humming a tune and recording it (or performing it in public) is a derivative work - a right reserved to the copyright owner. Whether it is fair use depends on the specifics of the case. From the tweet, we simply don’t have enough information, however, at a guess, it is probably not fair use. Fair use in law is Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 17 U.S.C. § 106 and 17 U.S.C. § 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include: the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; the nature of the copyrighted work; the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors. Most people miss “for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research,” - if you aren’t doing one of those things then you start behind the 8-ball when yo move to the 4 factor test. Note that the “criticism, comment, news reporting,” etc. must be about the copyrighted work - I can’t use your copyrighted work to, for example, parody a politician unless you are that politician. Many people have completely the wrong idea about what copyright infringement and fair use actually are, in part because the use of music on YouTube is allowed, not because it’s fair use but, because YouTube was smart enough to negotiate and pay for a permissive licence with music producers. For a full explanation, see this video.

Can he use another commercial product that is copyrighted, e.g. a map of a location (the map is a political map and has nothing to do with trees), for his tree research purposes, if such a map won't be part of the book he works on? Yes. Copyright protects particular expressions of ideas and knowledge, not the ideas and knowledge themselves. Using a map for research purposes when the map or a modified version of it does not appear in the final work does not make the final work a "derivative work" covered by copyright.

You are in general correct, KBurchfiel. A code snippet such as import math; or For i := 1 to 10 print i; has no originality, and is not protected by copyright. A post eplaining the meaning an usage of such a snippet might well be original enough to be protected by US copyright, indeed it probably would. But the code on its own would not be. Anyone could read such a post, and if s/he understood it, use the code snippet and not be in violation of copyright, not compelled to place the entire program in which such a snippet was used under a CC-=BY-SA license. The creative commons people would prefer that a CC license not be applied to a publication that is not protected by copyright, and if it is so applied it is legally meaningless. But they have no legal way to enforce such a preference. A stack exchange post that consisted of nothing but such an uncopyrightable code snippet, with no explanation r discussion, might well be downvoted or even deleted. But that is a matter of site policy on what is a useful answer, not a matter of copyright. Using an excerpt from a copyrighted work so small that the excerpt alone would be uncopyrightable, would probably be fair use under US law, and might well be fair dealing in UK law. Something that is fair use does not compel the reuser to abide by the terms of a CC license, because those terms apply only when the content could not be reused without the CC license's permission. However, a code snippet does not need to be very much more original than the above examples before it becomes copyrightable. Whether it can be used via fair use rather than via the CC-BY-SA license is a very fact-based decision (the usual four-factor analysis is spelled out in 17 USC 107).. But if the snippet can be rewritten to express the same concepts but in a different expression, then there is no copyright issue, and again the CC license will not apply. If the snippet is complex and original enough to be copyrightable (a fairly low bar) and it is re-used unchanged, under conditions where fair use does not apply, then the CC-BY-SA license's terms must be complied with for the use to be legal. That is several "IFs" however. The exact details of a specific case will matter in such cases, there is not one rule for all snippets, all posts, or all programs.

The standard for fair use of trademarks is as follows: (1) the product or service in question is not readily identifiable without use of the trademark (2) only so much of the mark as is reasonably necessary to identify the product or service is used (3) use of the mark does not suggest sponsorship or endorsement by the trademark owner. I think you might run into a problem with (1). In other words the trademark owner would argue that you could have used fake trademarks to satisfy your product description needs, so you are using their trademark unnecessarily.

It depends on the nature of the quote. Quotes from Buddha, Aristotle and Lincoln are out of copyright. Otherwise, the two basic questions are: who put that quote in fixed form, and is copying it "fair use"? If for example you happen to be at a political rally where a politician makes a noteworthy extemporaneous quote, you could be the copyright holder, because copyright law protects the person who first puts the work into fixed form. (If he's reading from prepared text, the speech writer or his employer would hold copyright). You can also quote small bits from any source, such as "Don't think about your errors or failures; otherwise, you'll never do a thing". It would not be "fair use" to chop up a novel into a sequence of 2-3 sentence quotes. This assumes that you manually assemble the quotes from legal sources, such as a print copy of "The Martian". Whether or not you can legally pull the data from an online source depends on the terms of service for that site. That lets out brainyquote as a source, so check the TOS for whatever source you get the material from.

Do we have a term for things that's technically legal but practically fraudulent? For example, in Sim Lim cases, customers are tricked into signing a contract where they won't get their phones. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sim_Lim_Square However, what the shop did is technically legal. I mean the customer sign a contract. Technically, every time I offer people to download an e-book, for example, I can put terms that people agree to be my slave somewhere on the contract or pay me $1 million dollar. Not that it'll be enforceable in court, or is it? Technically insurance agents can say that the whole money is invested. Somewhere deep in the contract there could be a term saying that there is a fee of 100% of all money put, for example. The last one is pretty real and happen a lot. Another sample could be Trump's university. Most of people there is unhappy with the money. So it's not technically a fraud. It's legal. Just like time share sells. But it's not normal win win trade either. So what is it? Scam?

There are three answers here. First, as is common on this site, you are using the term, "legal" and "illegal." Those are not legally meaningfully terms. A good lawyer won't use those terms to mean allowed or disallowed. We talk in terms of potential civil or criminal liability, or other sanctions and consequences. To say that something is "legal" does not communicate much. Second, all contracts are governed by a duty of good faith. That means that you cannot try to "trick" someone with the terms of the contract and expect to enforce that contract against them and you cannot try to skirt your obligations by finding a tricky form of compliance not within the mutual understanding of the agreement. As with all things, defining good faith is not easy, and depends on the specific context of a situation. It is worth distinguishing between the duty of good faith, and the duties one owes to a fiduciary; good faith is surely far less, but nevertheless still meaningful. Third, a defense to non-performance of a contract is that the agreement as written is unconscionable. A contract that is a grossly unfair deal where the contract was not actively negotiated (i.e. Blindly signing a bad form contract), may fall under this category. Note: I am not your lawyer; this is not legal advice; contact a licensed attorney in your area; do not rely on my statements; I merely am providing a general answer that is academic in nature.

Of course you'd be in legal trouble, the contract is still valid. I also don't know why you don't consider virtual goods to be goods. Take this example: You buy a 1 year subscription for (example) netflix. The next day they cancel your subscription but don't give you the money back because its not a "real good". This should make it clear that virtual goods are goods too in the eyes of the law. Question is if police/lawyers care about it as much as for "real" goods.

If the ability to get a Pannini is conditioned on buying paper towels for money, then he isn't really selling paper towels for $2 and the Pannini for free, he is really selling a package consisting of paper towels and a Pannini for $2, so it would probably still be illegal. The phrase lawyers and judges use to talk about attempts to create loopholes like this one is "too clever by half", which means: "Shrewd but flawed by overthinking or excessive complexity, with a resulting tendency to be unreliable or unsuccessful."

In the United States, no. For something to be illegal in any meaningful way, you have to be able to point to a law that makes it illegal. If there's no law to break, it's not illegal. I would wonder if your colleague was thinking about question of whether cryptocurrencies are legal tender. For something to be "legal tender," there would need to be some kind of law or regulation requiring people to accept them as payment. There is no such requirement in the United States, so Bitcoin, for instance, is not legal tender. But that doesn't make it illegal tender; it just means that people can decide whether to accept it or not.

The EULA is in most jurisdictions a legally binding contract; there is plenty of case law that supports this. You can only be liable under a contract for breaching its terms and only to the extent that the other party suffers harm from that breach. Clearly, if you haven't read the terms then you are greatly increasing the chance that you will inadvertently breach them but not reading them would not, of itself, be a breach and I can't see what harm could flow anyway.

The linked Bloomberg story quotes the rule as: The recipient is allowed to keep the funds if they [the funds] discharge a valid debt, the recipient made no misrepresentations to induce the payment, and the recipient did not have notice of the mistake. If the recipient, or somone acting on behalf of the recipient, hacked the sender to induce the payment, that sounds like a form of misrepresentation to me. If the hacker is unconnected with the recipient there seems no way that the hacker benefits financially, although I suppose a hacker might simply want to cause an amusing disruption. As I understand it this rule only applies when the sender in fact owes a debt to the recipient that the transfer pays off. If the hacker were working for one of a large group of recipients, most of whom are innocent, and subsequent analysis establishes that there was a hacker, but not who the hacker was or which of the many recipients the hacker was working for, I suspect, but cannot prove, that the doctrine would not apply, because the transfer was not a valid but incorrect act by the sender, but was a fraudulent intervention in the sender's procedures.

In general, knowingly making a false statement as part of a commercial or financial transaction, or as part of a contract, with the intention that the other party will rely on that statement and be harmed by this is likely to be fraud. However, there are some limitations. For the lie to be common-law fraud: The other party must in fact rely on the false statement. The other party must suffer harm as a result of relying on the false statement. The reliance must be reasonable. If a seller advertises having new 1957 model cars in 2020, a court might well find that this was so improbable that no reasonable person would have relied on hte statement, and that therefore it is not fraud. Whether the reliance is reasonable depends on the overall facts of the case, and the details might affect what is considered reasonable. In some jurisdictions such a false statement might be actionable false advertising even if it is not fraud. If the US mails are used as part of a fraud or attempted fraud 18 U.S. Code § 1341 applies. This law applies whether any actual harm occured or not, adn whether the victim relied on the false statement or not. It is commonly known as "mail fraud". 18 U.S. Code CHAPTER 47 is a US Federal law that prohibits a variety of false statements and false documents. Section 1001 of this chapter prohibits false statements and documents "in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States" but I am not clear if this would apply in the case described in the question. Other sections of chapter 47 deal mostly with false statements made to the US Government, or to obtain money or benefits from the government, Or in connection with various particular regulated activities, and do not seem to apply to the case in the question. According to the Justia article on Fraud: Federal fraud statutes, along with most state laws, require proof of a “scheme or artifice” to defraud. The statutes do not provide an explicit definition of these terms, but courts have developed definitions through precedent. The U.S. Supreme Court held in Carpenter v. United States that the terms apply to any plan intended to deprive another of property, regardless of whether it would cause immediate financial harm. However, I think that a scheme such as the one described in the question would be more likely to be prosecuted by a US State than by the US Federal government. Either the state where the maker of the false statements was at the time of the statements, or the state where the victim was present could prosecute.

Why isn't forcing users to accept new Terms of Service by threatening financial loss, (like denying access to purchased content, or inhibiting or prohibiting the ability to earn an income), considered extortion and therefore illegal? Usually this is not illegal, and even if it is, it usually doesn't constitute extortion (or extortion's civil counterpart, which is called "duress", which is an affirmative defense to contract enforcement). Generally speaking, exercising a legal right someone already has, for a purpose that is not improper, does not constitute extortion. A TOS Rarely Creates A Reasonable Expectation That It Won't Change Most importantly, in the case of terms of service governed information technology services, the firm that creates the terms of service reserves, at the outset, the right to change them at any time. So, the user has no reasonable expectation that the terms of service won't change in a manner that they dislike. There is no implied promise to never change anything material about the service. Terms of service are usually specifically drafted from the outset to avoid creating something that looks like a property interest on the part of the user in having the service continue to work in a particular manner. TOS Terms May Not Be Unconscionable Both the original terms of service and any subsequent amendment of them, is not permitted to be "unconscionable" (e.g. it can't make the life of your first born child a liquidated damages provision that applies if the terms of service are breached). But, there isn't much of a legally protected reliance interest in not having the terms of service changed in this situation (although almost every general rule could conceivably have some exception to it, probably far more factually extreme than the fact patterns identified in the question). If a term is unconscionable, it may not be enforced as contrary to public policy, without regard to what prior versions of the same agreement may have stated. TOS Changes Are Usually Prospective Only On the other hand, a terms of service amendment is generally only effective prospectively and does not generally change rights that have fully accrued and vested prior to their amendment, at least until the user takes some act to affirmatively continue to use the service going forward. When there are vested rights under old versions, the remedy is not to characterize the change as extortion, however. It is to not apply the amendment to the terms of service retroactively to the already vested rights. For example, if the old terms of service did not contain an arbitration clause, and litigation was in progress under the old terms based upon old transactions, and then a new terms of service were adopted that mandated arbitration, this amendment would not generally be applied to require the pending lawsuit in court to be stayed and transferred to an arbitration forum. The right to litigated vested when the lawsuit was filed.

Does out-of-state tuition violate the US Constitution? Many colleges and universities charge more to students from out of state. Doesn't this violate the US Constitution, particularly the full faith and credit clause? Has this ever gone to the supreme court, or at least tried to? To me it seems if it was anything else, it would be a violation. A grocery market selling soda at 2x the cost to out-of-state citizens would probably get slapped with a lawsuit right away. This might even fall under other anti-discrimination laws too. If that example violates full faith and credit, why not out-of-state tuition?

Martinez v. Bynum 461 US 321 involves a US citizen child living with his parents in Mexico traveled to Texas in order to attend free public school. Under Texas Education Code 21.031(d), the district is allowed to deny tuition-free admission if the child lives apart from the parent or legal guardian and is present in the district "for the primary purpose of attending the public free schools". The court upheld such a residence requirement because it "furthers the substantial state interest in assuring that services provided for the State's residents are enjoyed only by residents", and "does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment nor burden the constitutional right of interstate travel". Plaintiffs argued various constitional violations, including Equal Protection, Due Process, and Privileges and Immunities, but not Full Faith and Credit. We may assume that if there were any hope of such an argument, it would have been made. In Vlandis v. Kline 412 US 441, it was held that a state cannot permanently relegate an applicant to non-resident status for having a legal address for any time within a year of applying for admission. But the court also explicitly states: Our holding today should in no wise be taken to mean that Connecticut must classify the students in its university system as residents, for purposes of tuition and fees, just because they go to school there. Nor should our decision be construed to deny a State the right to impose on a student, as one element in demonstrating bona fide residence, a reasonable durational residency requirement, which can be met while in student status. We fully recognize that a State has a legitimate interest in protecting and preserving the quality of its colleges and universities and the right of its own bona fide residents to attend such institutions on a preferential tuition basis. The Full Faith and Credit Clause states: Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof. This pertains to recognizing the status of evidence and rulings, between states. If New York finds that Smith is liable for a sum of money, that finding is a legal fact in all states, and Connecticut cannot say "We do not recognize the judgment of New York". The only connection between Full Faith and Credit and non-resident tuition is that both include the concept "other states".

Ultimately the answer (in the US) is the US Constitution. The courts pretty much have the unlimited power to interpret the law, and the limits on power mainly pertain to what the state can do. The length of the leash on the government depends on what kind of rights are at stake. The weakest and default limit is known as "rational basis", and comes down to asking whether a government action is rationally related to a legitimate government interest (such as stopping terrorist attacks) plus whether there was due process and equal protection. There are more rigorous standards (intermediate scrutiny, strict scrutiny) in case a law involves a "suspect classification", or in case a fundamental constitutional right is infringed. In the case of strict scrutiny, the government would have to show that it had a compelling interest in the action, the law would have to be "narrowly tailored" (i.e. does that thing and only that thing), and should be the least restrictive way to achieve that result. Roe v. Wade is probably the best-know example of that kind of review, which held that abortion laws "violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which protects against state action the right to privacy". A court would not order a party to do an impossible act. A court could order a party to do something which the party had argued was impossible, but you can interpret a court's decision to indicate that it rejected the argument. The defendant would not shoulder the burden of proving that the action was impossible, though they would have to counter the government's argument that the act could be performed if they believe it is not possible. (In the Apple case, the argument would probably be some Apple-internal document that says "Yeah, we can do it, but do we want to?"). There is probably an expense-related limit in that the courts would not order Apple to liquidate all of their assets to comply. But: if a case were to end up at the Supreme Court, the court is stricken with mass insanity and arbitrarily orders a defendant to do the impossible, there is only the option of impeachment and Senate trial to remove the offending justices, and that is just not going to happen. There is no higher authority that overturns SCOTUS.

It appears that the "leading" source of Freedom of Movement is the Privileges and Immunities Clause (Art. IV, S.2 , Cl. 1) of the US Constitution, that "The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States". See Crandall v. State of Nevada, 73 US 35: "We are all citizens of the United States, and as members of the same community must have the right to pass and repass through every part of it without interruption, as freely as in our own states" (quoted from an earlier case); US v. Wheeler, 254 U.S. 281 In all the states, from the beginning down to the establishment of the Articles of Confederation, the citizens possessed the right, inherent in citizens of all free governments, peacefully to dwell within the limits of their respective states, to move at will from place to place therein, and to have free ingress thereto and egress therefrom citing the Privileges & Immunities clause as the constitutional foundation. However, this article, sect. IB notes a number of additional constiutional sources: Various Justices at various times have suggested no fewer than seven different sources: the Article IV Privileges and Immunities Clause, the Fourteenth Amendment Privileges and [sic] Immunities Clause, a conception of national citizenship said to be implicit in the structural logic of the Constitution itself, the Commerce Clause, the Equal Protection Clause, and each of the Due Process Clauses. Edwards v. California, 314 U.S. 160 relates freedom of movement to the Commerce Clause, Aptheker v. Sec’y of State, 378 U.S. 500 points us to the Due Process clause. The argument hasn't apparently been made based on the First Amendment, since there are better arguments.

I'm not going to comment on what your manager is doing specifically, since I don't know all the facts. But in general: As a general rule, businesses have freedom of contract. This means they can choose to do business with, or not do business with, anyone they want. There are specific laws that create exceptions to this freedom of contract. The most important are federal and state civil rights laws, which prohibit many businesses from discriminating on the basis of certain protected classes, such as race, sex, religion, etc. In general, "locals vs. out-of-towners" is not a protected class, and therefore no law explicitly prohibits this type of discrimination. However, it's possible a court could find that "locals" is a proxy for some actual protected class--for example, if the hotel is in a city and the "locals" are predominantly Black.

No rights are absolute. In particular, Charter s. 1 specifies rights are "subject only to reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society." Generally speaking, when rights are infringed the courts will consider it a justifiable infringement if it serves a substantial purpose while proportionate, rational and minimally infringing (Oakes test, though there's a heap of subsequent case law refining the test). While the exact order text isn't yet available, determining constitutionality would typically be a detailed analysis a judge would have to perform after hearing arguments from parties to a case (I assume the order will eventually be published here). In my own opinion, I would imagine such an order without appropriate medical exemption would be unconstitutional. It would seem to be disproportionate to deny freedom of movement to a presumably very small number of persons who could do little to remedy their medical condition. As a similar example from another province, a Quebec court ruled that a Covid-19 curfew requiring people to remain inside at night would not apply to homeless people due to discriminatory and disproportionate effect. Assuming the order to be similar in nature to existing BC orders on gatherings and mask-wearing, I would imagine lack of religious exceptions to be constitutional, as those orders have already been challenged and upheld against religious objections (though I believe appeals are still possible). The nature of the identified infringements against religious groups was considered reasonably proportionate, rational and minimal enough when weighed against the legitimate governmental need to contain the spread of Covid-19. P.S. The Canadian Bill of Rights has in practice been largely superseded by the Charter. Furthermore, it is completely inapplicable here as it is a federal statute with no effect on provincial matters.

They aren't "imposing tax laws at the state level", and the states are still perfectly free to award whatever credits they like. There's a more complete explanation here. Before 2017, if you paid, say, $30,000 in state taxes, you could take a $30,000 deduction from your federal taxable income, thus reducing your federal income taxes by some fraction of $30,000 (depending on your tax bracket). The 2017 tax bill placed a $10,000 limit on this deduction. Some states responded by creating a provision where you could donate $30,000 to the state and receive a $30,000 credit against your state taxes owed - so you end up paying the same amount to the state, but now you characterize it as a charitable donation, which is still deductible from your federal taxable income. The new IRS regulation says that such a "donation" will no longer be deductible from your federal taxable income; that's all. Your state can still issue you a tax credit for such a donation if they want - the federal government has no control over that - but any such credit will reduce the amount you are allowed to deduct on your federal return, making the whole exercise pointless. The federal government certainly has the power to determine how you should compute your income for the purposes of your federal income taxes, including what you may or may not deduct. That's the power they're using here.

This is from an opinion piece (albeit by Law profs.) so you'll have to bear/excuse the tone and check the details... but seemingly there some similar laws introduced earlier this year, on different topics though: But the subversion of private enforcement laws to restrict individual rights goes far beyond abortion. Since the beginning of this year, Tennessee has authorized students and teachers to sue schools that allow transgender students to use the restrooms that match their gender identity; Florida has followed suit, with a law that allows students to sue schools that permit transgender girls to play on girls’ sports teams. My opinion is that the comparison falls short on (2), as the [plaintiff] students seem to have to be from the same school, so it's not as broad as SB.8., in terms of who can sue. (N.B. found a more in-depth news article on the Florida sports law. Some of the writeups on this aren't totally clear on that though, just saying "another student" can sue. I couldn't find the exact text of the law insofar.) The promoter of SB.8, actually gave some inspirational examples in an interview, and they are somewhat older: And this is ground that's been ploughed before - under current Texas law under Medicaid fraud, for example. Any person who discovers Medicaid fraud can bring a civil case to bring that forward. The Chick-fil-A law, Senate Bill 1978 from last session about your religious freedom, that also allowed any person to bring a civil action. So it's not a new concept in Texas law, and if elected officials won't follow the law, we'll empower the people of Texas to do it, and we think it makes sense. (Hat tip to a Politics.SE answer for this latter quote.) Again, I didn't check the details... I suspect there may be some divergence from the strict letter of the (1) requirement. I bet (Medicaid) fraud is criminal as well. It seems the Chick-fil-A law failed to do its (immediately) intended job because it was attempted to be used against a city municipality, but the suit was dismissed (on appeal) due to governmental immunity... The private enforcement of the Medicaid fraud issue was apparently passed because of the huge backlog that existed at one point in the state/agency enforcement in Texas: The Office of Inspector General was lambasted in a state review last year [2015--seemingly] for, among other things, a massive backlog of cases and a failure to recover significant tax dollars from providers it accused of fraud, sometimes incorrectly. N.B., these are referred to as qui tam cases, but they don't quite entirely substitute the plaintiff, at least not in the insurance cases that were won: So-called qui tam cases allow whistleblowers to file lawsuits alleging fraud on behalf of the government. If the claims turn out to be legitimate, state and federal laws award a finder’s fee of between 15 and 25 percent of the total settlement or judgment. Interestingly higher awards are possible if the government declines to intervene, but they are still not 100% going to the private initiator (under the False Claims Act)--from Wikipedia: If the government does not decide to participate in a qui tam action, the relator may proceed alone without the Department of Justice, though such cases historically have a much lower success rate. Relators who do prevail in such cases may potentially receive a higher relator's share, to a maximum of 30%. As Wikipedia also notes, some such laws that entirely left the prosecution to a private entity were found unconstitutional, at the federal level e.g. In 2011, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio held that the False Marking Statute was unconstitutional. Judge Dan Aaron Polster determined that it violated the Take Care Clause of Article II of the Constitution, because it represented "a wholesale delegation of criminal law enforcement power to private entities with no control exercised by the Department of Justice". Of some note, the FCA requires that the complaint actually be served on the government and not the actual defendant. This basically ensures that the gov't is notified of all such actions. The Texas-specific legislation on qui tam fraud cases actually seems to mirror the federal one pretty closely: A whistleblower under the Texas Medicaid Fraud Prevention Act [TMFPA] may be entitled to an award between 15% -25% if the state intervenes in the case. If the state chooses not to participate in the litigation, then a whistleblower may be entitled to an award between 25% – 30% of the amount recovered. Nonetheless, a court may reduce the award if the court finds that the action is based primarily on information disclosed by someone other than the person bringing the action. [...] Note: Changes to the Texas laws were enacted by Acts 2015, 84th Leg., ch. 1 (S.B. 219).

1911-1913 very shady time in USA political history. They could amend the Constitution to make a law Constitutional. There's nothing shady about that in the least. In fact, it is the point of constitutional amendments: to provide a mechanism to change the constitution when it prohibits something that an overwhelming majority of people -- well, of congress and of state legislatures -- think should be allowed. A constitutional amendment can reverse the provisions of Article I; it can reverse a constitutional ruling by a court (or at least reverse the ruling's effect); and it can certainly overcome arguments by Jefferson and Jackson, which have very little legal weight if any. Wasn't the whole point of the revolutionary war ... It doesn't matter what the point of the war was. What matters is that the constitution controls what the government can and can't do, and the constitution can change. The constitution countenanced slavery until it didn't. The constitution required senators to be chosen by state legislatures until it didn't. The constitution forbade income tax until it didn't.

Can't get meaning from absence of notice of copyright symbol here i am starting writing blog post and i am totally new,i am using some contents from online power point presentation which don't have any copyright notice on it so is there any copyright infringement issues What it means if the documents not contain © symbol and are posted in public domain have no grounds for violating copyright

The text in the image means, For works published after 1989, a copyright notice is not required for a work to enjoy copyright protection. If you use an unmarked work in a way that violates copyright, you cannot defend your use by claiming that the unmarked work is not under copyright. In most nations, all creative works are automatically under copyright per the Berne Convention. Prior to widespread adoption of the Berne Convention, authors needed to explicitly write a copyright notice on each work to make it covered under copyright. A notable example of such a failure to mark a work is Night of the Living Dead published in 1968, which did not include correct copyright markings and became part of the public domain immediately. Such an event can no longer happen under modern copyright laws, since copyright now applies by default, not because of a marking. The only effect copyright markings have in modern use is on innocent infringement. If you infringe a modern work the doesn't have copyright markings, you still infringe copyright, but you may be able to reduce the penalty by claiming that you didn't know copyright applied to the work. If the author includes a copyright notice, then you cannot claim ignorance of copyright.

It's possible that CAD has a separate licence from the authors of ABC that allows them to produce a closed source copy. If not, they have no right to distribute CAD. However two wrongs don't make a right, and so you don't get to violate the copyright of CAD.* Unfortunately, unless you are one of the authors of ABC, you have no standing to sue the authors of CAD. You can only notify the authors of ABC and hope they do. If the authors of ABC don't have the resources to pursue the matter, you may be out of luck. That's one of the reasons the FSF gets copyright assignments for their projects. * It turns out that this is a much more debateable issue than I first thought. Some courts have held that an unauthorized derivative work is not copyrightable.

All of your works would be considered to be a derivative work. This is because your work, is based on the work of someone else's. A good test for this to see if something is a derivative work is to see whether the new work can effectively exist without the original. Most copyright laws worldwide are similar, thanks to the Berne Convention for copyrighted works. Since derivative works are normally a right that is exclusive to the copyright holder, you can't make such works without permission (generally through a license or expiry of copyright). So now, let's take a look: The Mona Lisa was made hundreds of years ago. It's definitely in the public domain. You're in no breach of copyright laws here. Yes, of course. Microsoft retains copyright on their icons, and possibly trademarks as well. However, they may have trademark guidance that allows you to use their icons - as long as you follow it. Likely the same as microsoft - you can assume it's similar for most large companies. Code is copyrighted as a literary work - the layout and visual aspect is copyrighted as an artistic work. That artist retains copyright, unless you obtain the work with a license, or the copyright is expired. If you create a derivative work, you infringe on their rights.

You have a false premise: "it offers the same conditions", and "MIT license is functionally equivalent to CC-BY". These premises are not true. CC-BY: applies to more than just software; it applies to artistic or literary work, databases, other material disclaims endorsement explicitly withholds moral rights explicitly does not license patent rights (MIT license gives anyone who obtains a copy of the software the right to use it, a patent right) prescribes the acceptable forms of attribution Those are just some of the differences.

The commentators are just making stuff up when they say that you can freely infringe on copyright as long as it is for personal use. It is true that "personal infringers" are less likely to suffer the legal consequences of any infringement (partly because it's easier to avoid detection and partly because the hassle to award ratio involved in suing a personal infringer is too high). It's a misunderstanding of "fair use", based on the legally erroneous assumption that anything is okay until you make a business out of it.

There doesn't need to be any copyright claim for there to be copyright protection. The protection is given automatically whenever someone authors a work. If you make money off of your improved version, the owner of the page may sue you for royalties. The only way to avoid this is to ask him for permission, or to create your page without using any of the source code of the original page.

No, it's still copyright infringement. When you modify a copyrighted work in any way, you generate a derivative work which you are not allowed to distribute without the permission of the original copyright holder.

I would argue that no, there is no copyright for the restored work. Independent copyright is only possible for any original material added, as previously discussed on this site. In this case, the added work was a technical process rather than a creative process, and technical processes cannot be protected by copyright. Copyright licenses would therefore be ineffective. However, I believe one could still impose a license based on owning the copy as opposed to the copyright (contract might be a better term in this case). However, if a third party managed to obtain a copy through some other avenue, any such contract would not be binding on them and nothing could be enforced against them unlike with copyright laws. Another way a license might be imposed is through patent protections, as technical processes can be protected via patents. However, I'm not as familiar with patent law, and this doesn't appear to be the claim being made.

Stuck at workplace for 24 hours, only gets paid for 13 hours My mother is a USA citizen and a home care nurse. Her job requires her to personally visit designated family (by the company) and provide nursing assistance. As part of her job, she would get assigned to a family for a 24 hour period, but only gets paid for 12 hours. In order to provide a 24 hour service, she has to sleep at the family's place, and she can be interrupted anytime during her sleep to provide service for the family. She does not have the freedom to leave the house outside of the 12 hours paid period. So essentially, she has to be physically present at the designated family for 12 hours without pay. Her employer's justification is that there are a lot of downtime during her work period, where the family is eating and sleeping. So my question to the community, is this illegal in this country? PS. She works in NYC

It does not really matter exactly how the employer chooses to count working hours. However, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires, among other things, that the employee is at least paid the official minimum wage for each hour worked, and gets overtime pay for >40 hours per week. The Act also defines what counts as "hour worked" for these purposes. The Fact Sheet # 79D from the U.S. Department of Labor gives more details about what counts as "hours worked" for domestic services under the FLSA. The general rule is that all time during the shift counts, whether the employee is busy or not: Generally, when an employee is “on duty” (that is they must be in the home and prepared to provide services when required), they are working. The only exception is that time spent sleeping may be deducted under certain circumstances: In some circumstances, an employer may exclude up to eight hours an employee spends sleeping at the worksite from the time for which an employee must be paid. The rules are different, depending on whether the employee permanently resides at the place of work ("Live-in employee), has shifts of >=24 hours or shifts of <24 hours. In your case the shift is >=24 hours, so the rule is (see page three of the document): Up to eight hours of sleep time may be excluded from hours worked, provided that: sleeping facilities are available the employee can usually sleep at least five hours without disturbance the employee agrees to exclude sleep time Even then, interruptions of sleep for work must be paid, and if the employee get <5 hours sleep during a given shift, no exclusion is possible. So in summary: For calculating hourly wage and overtime pay, the employer must count at least 16 hours for each 24 hour shift, and more if the employee cannot sleep for eight hours during the shift. It probably does not matter that the employer calls it "12 hours worked", but your mother is entitled to at least "minium wage x 16" for each shift worked, and is entitled to overtime pay (at least 1.5 times minimum wage) if she works more than two shifts per week. If the shift is ever reduced to less than 24 hours, even sleep time may not be excluded.

You must follow the lawful and reasonable directions of your employer As an RN you have obligations under the law that are independent of your employment. Almost certainly, one of these is not to practice in an area which you are not skilled or qualified to do so (unless you are under adequate instruction and supervision). Remember, as an RN you, personally, are legally responsible if your advice leads to harm and you were not acting reasonably. There are plenty of nurses who have gone to jail for delivering a lethal dose of medicine that was wrongly prescribed by a doctor. Even if your advice is unlikely to lead to this, you can still be deregistered - seems a waste of a lot of education just to become an Uber driver. Further, most jurisdictions make it illegal to mislead or deceive in trade or commerce. This one won’t send you to jail. So, it appears that the instructions are unlawful and it is not misconduct if you were to, politely, refuse them. This would not give your employer grounds to fire you. However, you should document your concerns and reach out to your union and possibly consult a lawyer.

Without commenting on the relatively strange situation itself, it is still useful to actually read what was actually said than what was described in a letter from a third person, even if the relayed information is technically true. The supposed basis for the claim of a zero salary is from an email allegedly sent by the department head (appendix 15): In short, you are not teaching in 2022/2023 and you have not submitted the required outline of your research or other engagement. I am very sorry that we cannot establish that you will be doing any work expected of a faculty member. Thus we cannot pay you. Starting with the Fall semester, your pay will be reduced to zero and you will be placed on unpaid personal leave. Essentially, the professor is being put on an unpaid leave because allegedly he is not doing any work. Consequently, minimum wage laws are not engaged even if the professor is not exempt as teachers since he is not being required to do any work. In the U.S., employers generally can do this (unless a work contract provides otherwise); in many circumstances, it is called being laid off (though the term has attracted a permanent connotation in parts of North America) or being suspended. An indefinite unpaid leave can be considered constructive dismissal if the employer does not reasonably allow the employee to return to work. It may not be constructive dismissal if the unpaid leave is prescribed by binding employer policies or because the employee refuses to work (and the employer allows the employment relationship to continue). Even if it is constructive dismissal, it is not automatically wrongful.

Generally, yes, you do have to have 10 years of work for Medicare, though the formula is based on "credits" and is a bit more complicated. See https://www.ssa.gov/planners/credits.html#h1. It can in some cases be possible to "count" overseas work towards eligibility, due to agreements with certain countries. See https://www.ssa.gov/planners/retire/international.html. However, according to the Agreement Pamphlet for Japan: Although the agreement between the United States and Japan allows the Social Security Administration to count your Japanese credits to help you qualify for U.S. retirement, disability or survivor benefits, the agreement does not cover Medicare benefits. As a result, we cannot count your credits in Japan to establish entitlement to free Medicare hospital insurance. Note: I am also not in the legal profession, which is also the case for most people on this site. Even of those who are lawyers, they're not your lawyers, and nothing you see on this site is legal advice.

No First, there does not appear to be unlawful discrimination: there is nothing to suggest that you are a member of a protected class and were terminated because of that. Second, you were given no reason for your dismissal so your employer is not claiming you were terminated for just cause. So, in BC, an employer "can end an employee's job by giving written working notice or pay" and this is perfectly legal. For someone who worked for "about 6 months", the notice/pay period is 1 week. So either they must give you 1 weeks work or pay you 1 weeks wages.

Given there was no answer here, I will state what I know about child abuse response, but note I am not a lawyer nor am I in Illinois, so my statements are likely generalized for most US states (individual laws vary by state, and I reside in Pennsylvania). In most US states, the police and child/youth services (that's what it's called in Pennsylvania but all states have similar services) work side by side and a complaint by the child to a police officer will have an emergency action taken to protect the child. The child is identified as a victim and the police and child/youth services have the obligation to protect the child and to keep them from harm. This is the main goal of police and children/youth services - to keep the child safe and act in the best interest of the child. Usually, a complaint to a child abuse center can take time to process. When a police complaint comes in it is more immediate, with police having more 'influence' with CYS (child/youth services). Especially when the child is in deadly danger (they were just stabbed, after all), the police may arrest the mother or abusive sibling or intervene therein to remove the child from the parents care with CYS-equivalent services working to find suitable alternative living situations for the child as a result of a order of removal/protection authorized by a judge. (PA at least had emergency situation response plans for these situations where a judge is just a phone call away). As well, the child will likely be made a ward of the state if the courts determine the mother cannot care for the child or is a threat as such (not caring enough to stop the brother may count), insomuch that the child may be removed from the dangerous situation and placed in the care of a willing relative or if none can be found will be placed in temporary foster care in a safer environment. Note that nothing happens rapidly without the initial complaint to the police. At age 16 the child is likely going to be taken more seriously (compared to a 12 year old, for example), and has the right to be allowed to reach out to hospital staff to ask to speak to a police officer - otherwise it takes a child abuse complaint from someone who knows the child and situation and that can sometimes take longer to process (though, the distance factor in the original question may make a complaint from overseas given a lower priority due to not knowing the person on a more personal in-person level)

Your legal obligation to pay income taxes is generally dependent upon where you perform the work, not where the funds you earn from doing the work are delivered. If you do work in Turkey that causes you to receive earned income, you owe Turkish income taxes on those earning, and your employer has a legal obligation to the Turkish government to make sure that those taxes get collected, or your employer will have to pay your taxes (with penalties) for you. If your employer has to do that, your employer will dock your pay to cover your obligations regardless of which bank account you use or whether you set up a corporation that does work in Turkey as a subcontracting company rather than in an employee-employer relationship. Any of the actions you propose to evade Turkish income taxes would constitute criminal tax fraud and could lead to you and the payroll officials at your employer's company who were complicit in allowing you to attempt to evade Turkish taxes spending time in a Turkish prison. Then you'd be deported. And, of course, you'd be fired probably as soon as you were criminally charged. The U.S. would cooperate with Turkey in pursuing you, your employer and your employer's payroll officials, although I don't know how the Kuwaiti government would respond.

What can we do to dismiss such report? Does she just show up at a local police department telling them that she's fine and it was her own decision? In short, yes. She shows up at a local police station, tells her side of the story including the whole bit about things getting destroyed and her getting kicked out, cites the missing persons report, and make it clear that she's not missing but an independent adult who is free and making her own decisions. Since she's over 18, she can do that. (Bringing proof of age might be helpful.) The mystery of the missing person will be considered solved from the police side. She does not have to give a specific address where she's living, just convince the officer that she's OK and making an intentional decision to create distance between herself and her mother. She could also try calling (the same local station which is convenient to her current location) before showing up to see if that satisfies the officer, and only go in if needed. Would I get in trouble for being in a relationship with her daughter since I was 20 and she was 16? We had never met in person until now, to avoid any trouble. Shouldn't be a problem, as long as it's a mutually willing (non-coercive) relationship. Her mother said the police also wanted to talk to me separately. I do not want to get involved in this at all. Can I reject it? Yes, you can reject it. You do not have to answer ANY question a police officer asks; you have the right to remain silent and/or to say only "I have the right to remain silent." To reduce the probability that they'll even ask questions, you might prefer not accompanying your girlfriend when she goes to clear the missing persons report, if she goes in-person. This adds more weight to her assertion that she's going there to clear it of her own free will, not because you're forcing her.

Are Soviet movies from the 1970's copyrighted in United States? I was looking to watch a Soviet movie from the 1970's (Moscow-Cassiopeia, nothing with much communist propaganda, just a teen comedy). I thought that this movie would be only possible to find through torrent sites, but I was surprised to see it for sale on iTunes. Who would be Apple licensing this movie from? There was an embargo against Soviet Union during the 1980's, wouldn't have this disabled any copyright from before this embargo?

The Soviet Union generally had no copyright treaties with the western world before 1973. So, anything before then is public domain. The USSR had a policy of public domain and considered anything published to be the property of the "people", including anything published in the west. Even for works produced after 1973, they would have to be registered for copyright in the United States to claim a copyright here.

You don't say where you are located. Copyright laws are different in different countries, am going to assume US laws. Under US law, a faithful digitization of a book does not get a new copyeight, see Bridgeman Art Library, Ltd. v. Corel Corp., 25 F. Supp. 2d 421 (S.D.N.Y. 1998) and thw Wikipedia article about that case (On the issue of mrequired originality, see also FEIST PUBLICATIONS, INC. v. RURAL TELEPHONE SERVICE COMPANY, INC. (No. 89-1909.) (1991) which dealt with copying a telephone directory.) The court in Bridgeman held that: It is uncontested that Bridgeman's images are substantially exact reproductions of public domain works, albeit in a different medium. The images were copied from the underlying works without any avoidable addition, alteration or transformation. Indeed, Bridgeman strives to reproduce precisely those works of art. ... The mere reproduction of a work of art in a different medium should not constitute the required originality for the reason that no one can claim to have independently evolved any particular medium.'" As discussed above, the law requires "some element of material alteration or embellishment" to the totality of the work. At bottom, the totality of the work is the image itself, and Bridgeman admittedly seeks to duplicate exactly the images of the underlying works. ... [O]ne need not deny the creativity inherent in the art of photography to recognize that a photograph which is no more than a copy of the work of another as exact as science and technology permit lacks originality. That is not to say such a feat is trivial, simply not original. The more persuasive analogy is that of a photocopier. Surely designing the technology to produce exact reproductions of documents required much engineering talent, but that does not make the reproductions copyrightable. The Bridgeman court was actually construing UK law, but the earthlier phase of Bridgeman i and the SCOTUS case of Feist show the same result under UIS law. Note that books and other works published before 1925 are now out of copyright in the US. Copyright can also be lost ion other ways, such as publishing without a copyright notice before the effective date of the 1976 act, and failure to properly renew a work published in the US before 1964. Assuming that the book is not under copyright, neither the library nor anyone else has a US copyright in the PFD. Unless the library imposes some additional restriction by contract, any such PDF may be copied or shared freely. It may even be sold or rented. And the validity of such an additional agreement would be questionable, but since the question does not mention such an agreement, I will not go into that further.

There was a lawsuit Disney v Redbox in 2018 and 2019 about exactly that. It settled. Lawfull masses has 6 videos about the topic. In part, it did lead to Disney altering the ToS of the digital download/streaming site they use to include that you need to own the DVD to be not in violation and to not break the combo pack.

The DMCA prohibits circumvention of technological measures that effectively control access to a copyrighted work. So you can't legally "crack" the software, period -- even if you own a disc containing the software and have a valid license to use it, a license to use the work is not authorization to circumvent access controls. So if the disc is copy-protected, by my understanding of the DMCA, you're kinda screwed. (The company might be willing to provide you a replacement copy, even if only to maintain the illusion that the software is "licensed, not sold". But you can't make one yourself.) Likewise, if you have a copy of the disc but have lost the license key, you're screwed. Even if you could prove beyond any doubt that you are the licensee, there's not any law i'm aware of that would compel the copyright owner to provide you another license key. And courts have held that distribution of license keys without authorization is a violation of the DMCA. So whoever might provide you another key, if they're not the copyright holder, has broken the law. If you managed to copy the disc from a friend (without circumventing any kind of copy protection), and had your own license key, you might be in a better position. Many EULAs allow you to make a backup copy. Even if they didn't, copyright law does, so there's a possible case for fair use.

You may be allowed to make a single backup copy, pursuant to 17 USC 117 it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:... (2) that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful Congress defined "computer program" as a set of statements or instructions to be used directly or indirectly in a computer in order to bring about a certain result. At most, you could make one copy of a given CD, as long as you don't use it except to restore the original if it is damaged. Although data is not typically thought of as a "computer program", the definition of "computer program" given by congress is compatible with the nature of music CDs. It's a somewhat open question whether the courts would decide that the insides of a CD player is a "computer" (it is, with extremely limited abilities), and Congress did not define "computer" for purposes of copyright. There does not appear to be any clear case law testing whether it is legal to make a single backup copy of a music CD, so it is possible that a music CD does not meet the conditions of a "computer program". The RIAA position on the matter about 10 years ago, based on the statement of the RIAA president, was It’s OK to copy music onto an analog cassette (not for commercial purposes), it’s OK to copy music onto special audio CD-Rs, minidisks and digital tapes (but again not for commercial purposes). Beyond that there’s no legal “right” to copy the copyrighted music on a CD onto a CD-R, but burning a copy onto a CD-R or transferring a copy onto a computer hard drive or portable music player won’t usually raise concerns so long as the copy is made from an authorized original CD that you legitimately own and the copy is just for your personal use. However, this does not constitute giving permission by the copyright holder, even if the company distributing the work in question is a member of RIAA. Along these lines, in a document filed with the copyright office on behalf of the industry, pertaining to DMCA rule-making, it is maintained (p. 39) that "The making of back up copies for personal use has never been held to be a per se noninfringing use", and "As the Register made clear in her 2003 Recommendation, “it is not permissible to classify a work by reference to the type of user or use.”" (you can't just say "backup" and gain a fair-use defense). In other words, it's not clearly legal, and it's not clearly illegal. Clarity would come if a person was sued for making a backup copy of music CDs (with no muddying of the issue, such as "and then selling it"). For non-legal reasons, it is unlikely that a case law test will emerge.

I don't think it's in the public domain. It is true that "works of the United States Government" cannot be copyrighted (17 USC 105). However, "work of the United States Government" is defined as a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person’s official duties. (17 USC 101) The pool photographer isn't an officer or employee of the United States Government; he works for the New York Times. The satire question is separate and I don't know the answer to that.

Their code, their rules A copyright holder is free to offer their work under none, one or many licences. They can, at the same time, use their own work however they see fit without regard to the licences they have given/sold to others (except, they can only give one person an exclusive licence). As an analogy, let’s say I own a fleet of cars. I can drive my cars anytime I want. I can let Jim drive my cars anytime he wants for free. I can let Mary drive a specific car on Thursdays and only within 10km of the depot. I can let Joe drive my cars providing he pays me $50 a day. And I’m not going to let Fred drive them at all because Fred’s a jerk. Each of those is a different licence.

Yet I publicly wear shirts with copyrighted designs all the time. I'm unclear about this; do you mean T-shirts you have made yourself using copyrighted images or T-shirts you have bought? If the former then it is a prima facie breach and you could be sued by the copyright holder. You would probably not be as it would be impracticable. If the latter then there are 2 possibilities: The manufacturer/distributer/retailer chain all hold valid licences to put the image on a T-shirt and display it in the usual way so there is no breach involved. The manufacturer/distributer/retailer chain does not hold a valid licence in which case there is a breach and the copyright holder would target, say Wall-Mart rather than you. what about displaying ... works of art in my yard? Notwithstanding that it can be viewed from a public space, your yard is not public; therefore this is not public display.

Is it legal to ship an envelope of glitter to somebody? Is it legal to ship an envelope of glitter to somebody (e.g. Ship Your Enemies Glitter)? If it's not, what are the potential penalties?

This may constitutes harassment, which is against the law in most jurisdictions. But what counts as legal harassment is not obvious. Taking Washington state as an exemplar, RCW 9a.46, the stated intent of the law is to criminalize "repeated invasions of a person's privacy by acts and threats which show a pattern of harassment designed to coerce, intimidate, or humiliate the victim", and mailing glitter in order to annoy a person would not match that desideratum. In Washington, the law is limited to threats of physical harm or restraint or the intent to "substantially harm the person threatened or another with respect to his or her physical or mental health or safety". There is no legal standard for judging what constitutes substantial harm to mental health. California defines "harassment" in its civil code as unlawful violence, a credible threat of violence, or a knowing and willful course of conduct directed at a specific person that seriously alarms, annoys, or harasses the person, and that serves no legitimate purpose. The course of conduct must be such as would cause a reasonable person to suffer substantial emotional distress, and must actually cause substantial emotional distress to the petitioner. More words, but still it is left to the jury to decide whether an act causes severe emotional distress. Emphasis was added in the text to highlight important elements missing from sending glitter to someone for the purpose of annoying. In general, annoying someone is not against the law, but repeatedly and severely annoying someone could be.

Not for normal correspondence There are laws that require a specified channel of communication for specific purposes such as a physical address for the service of legal notices, but there is no general requirement. How, or if, a company communicates with its customers about complaints will either be specified in the contract or up to the company to determine and advertise. For example, this site specifies “ will be deemed to have been duly given when received, if personally delivered or sent by certified or registered mail, return receipt requested; when receipt is electronically confirmed, if transmitted by facsimile or e-mail; or the day after it is sent, if sent for next day delivery by recognized overnight delivery service” - any other method of delivery (Whatsapp, Facebook, even their own chatrooms etc.) is not a valid method of service, if you use those methods, then legally, you have not communicated. So, if the company requires complaints to deal with by online chat, they can safely ignore any letter or email you might send them.

Technically speaking, such emails are copyrighted by the sender. However, showing such an email to a third party, or posting it publicly in order to comment on it would almost surely be a fair use in the US. In any case, such an email would have no commercial value, and so there would be no financial damages possible. A lawsuit over such a technical copyright infringement would, in my view, be quite unlikely, and even less likely to be successful. Indeed, filing such a suit would be one of the best ways for the business to draw attention to the issue, in an example of the Streisand Effect.

Does returning an illegal product back to the seller for the refund make one liable to said product distribution? The offence, in the USA, relating to posting counterfeit goods (such as bootleg copies of copyrighted items) is at 18 U.S. Code § 2320 (a)(1) Whoever intentionally - traffics in goods or services and knowingly uses a counterfeit mark on or in connection with such goods or services ... (f)(5) the term “traffic” means to transport, transfer, or otherwise dispose of, to another, for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, or to make, import, export, obtain control of, or possess, with intent to so transport, transfer, or otherwise dispose of My reading of (f)(5), is that the element of possession with intent refers back to the transportation for advantage or gain which would not be the case for a straight refund, so it may be lawful to return the goods - subject to any prohibitions imposed by the postal carrier. However, there is no requirement to return counterfeit goods to the seller according to EBay's Money Back Guarantee Counterfeit items If a buyer reports that an item is counterfeit, and there are strong indicators that the item is counterfeit, we may not require the buyer to return the item to the seller. The buyer agrees to cooperate with us to ensure proper disposal of the item. In such instances, we refund the buyer for the full cost of the item and original shipping, and the seller is required to reimburse us for the refund. The buyer may not sell the item on eBay or elsewhere.

What if the enemy gives aid & comfort to you instead? Is that treason? Is it covered by a different crime? This is not treason on the part of the recipient, although it could involve receipt of a bribe, or failure to register as a foreign agent, if it were in exchange for the performance or expected performance of some official act or a fee for service. Motives and the identity of the donor would matter. Also, "enemy" is a term of art in the law of war and the law of treason in the United States. Basically, it means someone who is a national of a country which the U.S. is in a declared war. Other than members of some some terrorist groups (including ISIS), and possibly citizens of North Korea, I do not believe that anyone else in the world counts as an "enemy" at this time for legal purposes. The U.S. Constitution in Article 1, Section 9, Clause 8 does specify that it is improper to receive "emoluments" from a foreign power. It says: [N]o Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them [i.e., the United States], shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State. In other words, no federal government official may receive any gift or title from a foreign government or monarch. State Department protocol ratified by Congress mandates that when gift from a foreign government or monarch is received by a U.S. government official because international etiquette requires it, that it be turned over to the United States government to become federal government property as soon as it is reasonably practical to do so without offending the donor, since the purpose is to prevent a government official from personally benefitting from his or her office. I suspect that it is a crime to receive an emolement without turning it over to the U.S. if you are a federal official whether or not an "enemy" provided it. If I have time I will look up the chapter and verse.

It is cl;early not legal to charge for an optional warranty without ever having gotten approval for it. The customer could simply ask for a refund on teh ground that this was an error, and take it to small claims if that was refused. I am sure it is legal to offer such an optional warranty and point out its (alleged) benefits. I do not know if consumer law forbids making this pitch multiple times in the same selling encounter.

Yes, it's illegal new-south-wales s118 of the Crimes Act says: Where, on the trial of a person for larceny, it appears that the accused appropriated the property in question to the accused’s own use, or for the accused’s own benefit, or that of another, but intended eventually to restore the same, or in the case of money to return an equivalent amount, such person shall not by reason only thereof be entitled to acquittal. QED

You will have to pay import toll and taxes. There is no way around that unless you get only tiny deliveries, and that would be tax evasion. Atop that, make sure your wares are declared properly and are not regarded as counterfeit or not importable. Fashion products might require to follow some special rules on ingredients that are allowable. You can get the information you need at your customs office or at the customs office website

Can my husband get arrested if I don't attend court with him? My spouse got arrested for domestic violence because someone else called the cops on him for me, however I did not press charges. Now he's got to go back to Vegas. We reside in California but I can't go to court with him. Can he get arrested if I do not show up with him?

Possibly. I wonder if you mean "convicted" rather than "arrested"? There is no way that he will be "arrested" because you don't accompany him ("arrested" is when he taken by the police before a trial). On the other hand, if he plans to call you as a witness for the defence, then your absence may mean he is convicted at his trial when otherwise he would be found innocent. The final possibility is that you might act as a character witness after conviction, and your absence may mean he is sent to jail rather than fined. It may be possible for you to write a witness statement describing what happened, and to have this notarized. On the other hand, the prosecution may well want to cross examine you. I am pretty sure you can write a character witness statement (saying, if true, that it's a first offence and that you have forgiven him, etc) and get it notarized. That might persuade a court to be lenient. I think you (as a couple) need to talk to his lawyer.

If you are arrested for assault, you have available to you the defense of the right to defend real or personal property: you "may use reasonable force to protect that property from imminent harm. Reasonable force means the amount of force that a reasonable person in the same situation would believe is necessary to protect the property from imminent harm". The level of force proposed is clearly within the boundaries of the reasonable.

When you breach a contract, you can get sued in local court, and if you don't show up to defend yourself, default judgment will be entered against you. Then the aggrieved party will have to collect, but the court in Washington (to invent a jurisdiction) can't enforce an order against a person in Norway (to invent another jurisdiction). So the aggrieved party would need to take enforcement of the judgment to the Norwegian courts. In the actual case of Norway, this is fairly simple, you just call an attorney in Norway to do the paperwork. It might be harder if the other jurisdiction is Belarus. If you return to the US, even if there is a money judgment against you for the rent owed, you will not be arrested for that debt. Depending on the state (about half of the states), you might be arrested for failing to comply with a court order to pay the debt. The difference lies in refusing to comply with a court order, versus simply having a debt. The State Department conveniently lists the reasons for denying a visa. Owing money or having an uncollected judgment against you is not one of the possible reasons, in fact even having been ordered by a court to pay, ignoring the order, and the court issuing an arrest warrant does not make you inadmissible.

Contempt of court is still a remedy, because fines can be issued. The mayor or chief of police can still be arrested and held (enforcement would be via the county court bailiff or sheriff, for example), and the city can be fined. It is possible but not normal to arrest government personnel for disobeying a court order.

It is a felony to escape from a jail; see California Penal Code section 4532. (Escapes from a prison are covered in section 4530). However, California law recognizes a necessity defense when a crime is committed in order to avoid "significant bodily harm". (See the link for other important elements of the defense.) This defense would probably only be viable if after escaping, the inmate turned himself in as promptly as he reasonably could, once clear of the immediate danger of harm. He could go to any police station or law enforcement office; or he could call any police agency, explain the situation, and wait for them to come and arrest him. He would then presumably be taken to a different jail. If the inmate thinks the jail is unsafe, he can sue the state in either state or federal court (the latter as a civil rights case). It's unlikely that a court would order his release on this basis; more likely, they would order the state to improve conditions in some specific way, and they might award monetary damages to the inmate if he is injured. He also would probably not be able to stay out of jail during the suit. If the state arrests him, they'll put him in jail unless a court orders his release (or he's granted bail, or his case is otherwise resolved). If he hides to avoid arrest, then he's a fugitive. I seem to recall there's a general principle that fugitives don't have access to the courts.

You will still have to pay A ticket can be ammended if the state so chooses (they can look up what color and model your car is). The car is probably on video. The officer can testify if they wrote your car info down somewhere else. And if they identified you inside the car as the violator, the car's color hardly matters. The idea that minor mistakes or omissions on tickets can get you off is a myth. From an actual lawyer

No, you would be guilty of perjury. In order to go through the legal formality, you have to obtain a license, Washington example (King County) seen here. You must swear that you are single, divorced, or widowed. If you leave the box unchecked, you won't get a license. If you are married and check any box, you have committed perjury.

The parties are generally entitled to present their case as they see fit, as long as they stay within the rules of evidence. If they want a straight yes or no, the court will often require the witness to provide one, which keeps lawyers happy, makes the answers clear for the jury, and limits the parties' grounds for appeal. If a yes or no answer is not as accurate as a more qualified answer, the other lawyer would typically have an opportunity to invite the witness to provide a fuller answer on redirect. If a yes or no answer is inappropriate because of assumption embedded in the question -- as in your "beating his wife and kids" example -- the question should quickly elicit an objection from the defense attorney, who would note that the question lacks foundation or assumes facts not in evidence. Assuming there isn't any evidence of domestic violence, the court should sustain the objection, in which case the witness would not need to answer at all.

How do US municipalities get their authority to govern? Municipalities in the US can: Make laws that apply to all people who find themselves within their boundaries. Tax residents. Tax economic activity (e.g. sales). Arrest people and apply other police powers. Where do municipalities get the authority to make all of these impositions on people? Can an individual buy up a parcel of land, declare it to be a municipality, make arbitrary laws, and use armed police to enforce those laws? Clearly not, but why not?

A common phrase regarding US cities is, "cities are creatures of the state." All of their authority comes from the authority granted states, and states can limit the authority of cities, counties and their other political subdivisions. In the US cities cannot have additional authority beyond the authority the containing state has, as opposed to, for example, cities granted Royal Charter in the United Kingdom, which may have equal or greater authority than their containing counties. Most states have constitutional and legal descriptions of what powers cities and towns can exercise. Recently many cities have begun passing laws to ban things like plastic grocery bags or hydraulic fracturing, and states have then passed laws to remove that authority from cities. States also set requirements for creating new towns. In Texas, any town smaller than 5,000 population is a general law town. General law towns have very little authority to create laws, but they can have a police force to enforce state laws. A city in Texas with population larger than 5,000 people can enact a charter by popular vote and become a home rule city. Home rule cities in Texas can enact some laws with criminal punishments (only citations and class C misdemeanors) and have greater taxing authority, but really can only pick from a menu of options created by the state.

In general, a "mandate" is not a legal term. It can refer to any situation is whch people are "required" to do something, such as wear masks or become vaccinated. A mandate can come from a private business, that imposes rules on customers; it can come from a business that imposes rules on employees, it can come from executive action not directly authorized by any law, it can come from a regulation authorized by some law, or be directly imposed by law. Mandates imposed by law or regulation are likely to be enforceable in court, depending on their exact terms. Mandates imposed by executive action may perhaps be enforced in court. Mandates imposed by private businesses can often be enforced by the business ejecting a customer, refusing to deal with an entity that does not comply, or by disciplining or discharging an employee. In each case the exact terms of the mandate will matter, and may define how it may be enforced.

No. Arizona tried passing a law that, among other things: criminalized failure to comply with federal alien registration requirements, criminalized working without being authorized to work in the United States, and authorized state officers to arrest aliens without a warrant if they had probable cause that the alien had committed a crime that made them deportable. All three provisions were struck down in Arizona v. United States. The federal government has "occupied the field" on most immigration issues. That means they've regulated it so extensively that there is zero room for states to act independently. One of Arizona's laws that was struck down exactly duplicated a federal criminal statute, but even that went too far by allowing the state to apply its own enforcement priorities and prosecute cases the federal government would not. If a state made it a crime to be unlawfully present (which is not a federal crime), that intrudes even further on the federal immigration scheme. This doesn't mean a state can't alert the federal government to people who are unlawfully present. It doesn't necessarily mean state officers can't arrest for federal immigration crimes: a previous Ninth Circuit decision held that Arizona officers could arrest for federal immigration crimes on the same basis that they could arrest for state crimes, and the Supreme Court in Arizona v. US explicitly didn't address the question. However, if state officers make an arrest for a federal crime, the federal government still gets to decide whether or not to prosecute. What you're asking about would remove that federal control, so it is preempted by federal law.

Can someone be arrested for not being ‘nice’ to police? Yes. The arrest may later be declared unlawful, and the cop could later be disciplined by his boss, but if a cop wants to arrest you now for any reason they just can. Seems weird and an abuse of power to me. The available means of dealing with abuse of power have never been in excess. Could they win such a case? Yes. So could your friend. It depends on many many factors.

Usually this answer would be provided by a local government land use ordinance, and not by the constitution, national law, state law or common law caselaw rules. It would vary considerably from place to place within India. You would need to review your local land use ordinances to find the answer.

Of course a city can enforce their own laws. The possible laws that LA (or any other city) could enforce against the video producers and vbloggers are many: zoning laws (enforcing laws against operating a commercial film set or business in a residentially zoned area); the requirement for an open burning permit, either all year or during times of fire danger; excessive noise ordinances, either 24hr or in a time span from late evening until morning; ordinances regarding excessive traffic and street parking; ID age checks for drinking, if police can get access to the property through warrant or other means; and investigations of criminal behavior shown in the videos. "Basically, after today, if we film in this house we could face up to six months in prison because we need permits," https://www.popbuzz.com/internet/social-media/jake-paul-banned-from-vlogging-in-house/ He could be talking about filming permits, traffic permits, burn permits, occupancy permits, etc. Cities and municipalities can quickly enact new ordinances that criminalize behavior that impacts the neighborhood as a whole after taking into account complaints from neighbors and advice from police regarding activities of the problem residents. Another aspect of the story is that it appears that Jake Paul is a renter. That means the city and neighbors can put pressure on the landlord to encourage Paul to obey the law; failing that, the landlord could possibly evict Paul in a very short amount of time due to possible damage and other clauses in the lease regarding illegal activity, if the lease stipulates anything like that.

1-3: This would be prohibited under Article VI, paragraph 2 of the US Constitution, which provides that federal law, and the ability to enforce that law, has supremacy over state law. As summarized by Cornell Law, the Supremacy Clause: establishes that the federal constitution, and federal law generally, take precedence over state laws, and even state constitutions. It prohibits states from interfering with the federal government's exercise of its constitutional powers... 4: Not legally; see above. 5: Yes, probably a lot of laws. Those charges could range anywhere from interfering with a federal investigation, wrongful imprisonment, assault, or kidnapping. I think it's important to point out that it is highly unlikely the situation would ever escalate to 4, let alone 5. The federal government is incredibly well resourced with regards to being able to move its law enforcement officers throughout the country. And that's not withstanding that the FBI and other agencies (CBP, TSA) are already stationed in any particular state. A non-zero number of those agents are also residents of the state they're stationed in, which would complicate things further.

Generally, no. Legislatures pass laws. The fact that someone else knows more about the thing they're passing laws about is utterly irrelevant -- the power to make laws is given to the legislature, not to experts. If the legislature thinks experts should make the rules on something, they can delegate (this is why the FDA approves medicine rather than Congress), but the legislature of a state generally has the power to pass any law that is not unconstitutional. Your analogy to paper money is a poor one: that's a federalism thing, not an expertise thing. Congress has established a system of paper money, and states can't interfere with that. It's not that the Fed thinks paper money is good, it's that Congress said paper money shall be a thing. That could stop a state from banning an FDA-approved drug; however, since marijuana is illegal under federal law, it would be odd to conclude that banning it at the state level as well is preempted. Legislators aren't inherently experts on anything (except being elected). That doesn't matter. They have the authority to pass laws, even if those laws directly go against the views of people who are recognized experts in the area. You appear to think there must be a judicial remedy against bad policy. You would be wrong. The role of the courts is not to decide what policies are good or bad; they are concerned only with what is legal. Deciding what policies are good or bad is a matter for the democratically elected representatives of the people, or for the people themselves in states with ballot questions. It is not the job of the courts.

DUI conviction in TN. What happens in CA Found guilty of DUI in TN and license suspended for 1 yr. My lawyer, nor anyone in TN can tell me what will happen to my CA license. What should I do?

Tennessee is one of 5 states not party to the Interstate Driver's License Compact. If the arrest were in a Compact state, then information is automatically shared, and California would treat the situation as though it had happened in California. This source indicates that Tennessee can revoke your right to drive in Tennessee, and that is as far as they can go, but also they indicate that if your home state finds out, they may suspend your license. Section 13352(a) of the California Vehicle Code states that the Department of Motor Vehicles shall immediately suspend or revoke the privilege of a person to operate a motor vehicle upon the receipt of an abstract of the record of a court showing that the person has been convicted of a violation of Section 23152 or 23153 Subsection (d) further states that: A conviction of an offense in a state, territory, or possession of the United States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, or Canada that, if committed in this state, would be a violation of Section 23152, is a conviction of Section 23152 for the purposes of this section So it depends on whether Tennessee tells California. If they do, then under CA law, your license will be suspended. Under a new law (June 9), Tennessee is required to report convictions to the National Crime Information Center, whereas previously some 18 counties did not report such convictions and arrests.

According to Virginia law, Every person convicted of reckless driving under the provisions of this article is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor. That speed easily qualifies as reckless driving: A person shall be guilty of reckless driving who drives a motor vehicle on the highways in the Commonwealth (i) at a speed of twenty miles per hour or more in excess of the applicable maximum speed limit or (ii) in excess of eighty miles per hour regardless of the applicable maximum speed limit. The punishment for a class 1 misdemeanor is "confinement in jail for not more than twelve months and a fine of not more than $2,500, either or both." But wait! An airplane is heavy, so this may also apply: If it is found by the judge of a court of proper jurisdiction that the violation of any provision of this title (i) was a serious traffic violation as defined in § 46.2-341.20 and (ii) that such violation was committed while operating a vehicle or combination of vehicles used to transport property that either: (a) has a gross vehicle weight rating of 26,001 or more pounds or (b) has a gross combination weight rating of 26,001 or more pounds inclusive of a towed vehicle with a gross vehicle weight rating of more than 10,000 pounds, the judge may assess, in addition to any other penalty assessed, a further monetary penalty not exceeding $500. By the way, I couldn't find a general reckless endangerment statute (unrelated to specific objects like firearms or specific results like injury or death) in Virginia law. The closest thing I could find was disorderly conduct, which is also a class 1 misdemeanor. It's possible I just don't know where to look.

To be very straightforward, yes, a police department would very likely have records of their past interactions with you in the form of police reports. They cannot just throw them away because it's been scrubbed from your public record. They detail the interactions the police officer had with you. That being said, those records would not show up in a general inquiry into your record, because those records are meant to protect the officer and the department as a reference point they can go back to in case some dispute arose in the future. If a police officer really wanted to find them, they'd have to do a bit of digging for them. The difficulty in finding them would depend on what system the particular police department uses to store those records. Smaller departments may just file them in a cabinet somewhere, whereas larger ones may actually have their own searchable database. But a traffic cop out on the street is only gonna see what you're seeing at the DMV - nothing. There is also a formal NCIC database, but traffic violations would never end up in there. That is a national database that basically stores red flag persons of interest (think stolen vehicles, sex offenders, and gang members). Sometimes multiple departments within a state will share their information with each other, but a department's database is usually kept to that department only. Also keep in mind court records. The court case that had a violation removed under such and such conditions is still gonna be a public record. Those records would generally be available to a judge overseeing your case so if you repeatedly end up in court for the same thing, they're gonna know and they're gonna stop scrubbing it from your record or offerring certain options because you're clearly not learning your lesson. Many laws allow you to have one offense stricken per year and similar stuff like that, but that kind of stuff doesn't just permanently disappear. They have to keep record of it in order to know you've already had your once per year etc. Also a note about parking violations: not all of those are actually issued by police. If it was issued by a private firm then that is not something that would ever show up on your record. It would just be in a database somewhere with whatever private firm issued the fine. Those kind of tickets get sent to collections and hurt your credit score if you don't pay them, rather than affecting your driving record.

According to the California Vehicle Code, the thresholds for driving under the influence are: 0.04% BAC if driving a commercial vehicle 0.01% BAC if under a DUI probation 0.01% BAC if the driver is under the age of 21 0.08% BAC if none of the above cases apply California law permits the blood-alcohol content to be determined through a breath test, a blood test, or in limited circumstances, urinalysis.

You are right, the entry and exit photos are only evidence that you were there. This is something they need to prove so the photos may only be for that. Their statement that you didn’t display a valid ticket/permit is, at present an unevidenced assertion. If you contest this, they will provide evidence that you didn’t (e.g. the actual records they refer to) and you would provide evidence that you did and, if it goes to court, the judge will decide what evidence they prefer. As this is not a criminal matter, they need to prove the offence on the balance of probabilities. However, there are almost certainly administrative remedies which will allow you to contest the fine without going to court. This would involve you sending them a copy of the permit and them assessing whether their belief that you didn’t display it is justified or not.

From a US perspective, in a word, "no". Firstly, "presumption of innocence" is in a trial, not in police interactions. Being arrested does not violate the presumption of innocence. Police do not need any reason to interact with you or ask you questions. Police can arrest you if they have probable cause to suspect you have committed a crime, but this is not always necessary. More on this later(in the fourth section). Secondly, I wouldn't describe requesting to see your ticket, or any document as a "violent communication", in general. It may be rude or insulting, but not violent. (Also "violent communication" is not a legal term. The closest legal terms, verbal assault and threatening communication, are also not this.) More over, there is no indication of am implication of lying in this request. Thirdly, there are many situations in which possessing a document or credential is not sufficient; one must legally display or present them upon request. For example, multiple occupational licenses such as liquor licenses and barber/cosmetology licenses require that the licenses be prominently displayed; whereas, in California at least, a vehicle driver on a public road must not only possess their driver's license and proof of insurance, they must produce them upon the request of any law enforcement officer (Source: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/pubs/brochures/fast_facts/ffvr18). Fourthly, there are situations in which you can be legally searched and questioned without reasonable suspicion. Examples of this include boarder searches and sobriety checkpoints. Sources: (US Supreme Court rulings): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Martinez-Fuerte; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_Department_of_State_Police_v._Sitz A note on sources: bdb484 and I have opposing court case sources. My sources have binding precedent over all courts in the US, save the US Supreme Court, whereas theirs don't have any binding precedent, but are more directly on-topic.

Has friend A got any chance of disputing the cost of the seizure as the police didn't issue the notification? I don't think so (see below for why), but you should pay a lawyer if you need legal advice. The met say A FORM 3708 seizure notice will have been given to the driver where practicable, giving full instructions on the reverse. A notice letter will also be sent to the registered keeper, if they were not the driver. In the meantime, this information will assist you. (my emphasis). Section 165A of the Road Traffic Act 1988 does not, so far as I can see, mention any legal requirement for the Police to issue a paper document at the time of seizure. Here's 165A in full 165A Power to seize vehicles driven without licence or insurance Subsection (5) applies if any of the following conditions is satisfied. The first condition is that— a. a constable in uniform requires, under section 164, a person to produce his licence and its counterpart for examination, b. the person fails to produce them, and c. the constable has reasonable grounds for believing that a motor vehicle is or was being driven by the person in contravention of section 87(1). The second condition is that— a. a constable in uniform requires, under section 165, a person to produce evidence that a motor vehicle is not or was not being driven in contravention of section 143, b. the person fails to produce such evidence, and c. the constable has reasonable grounds for believing that the vehicle is or was being so driven. The third condition is that— a. a constable in uniform requires, under section 163, a person driving a motor vehicle to stop the vehicle, b. the person fails to stop the vehicle, or to stop the vehicle long enough, for the constable to make such lawful enquiries as he considers appropriate, and c. the constable has reasonable grounds for believing that the vehicle is or was being driven in contravention of section 87(1) or 143. Where this subsection applies, the constable may— a. seize the vehicle in accordance with subsections (6) and (7) and remove it; b. enter, for the purpose of exercising a power falling within paragraph (a), any premises (other than a private dwelling house) on which he has reasonable grounds for believing the vehicle to be; c. use reasonable force, if necessary, in the exercise of any power conferred by paragraph (a) or (b). Before seizing the motor vehicle, the constable must warn the person by whom it appears that the vehicle is or was being driven in contravention of section 87(1) or 143 that he will seize it— a. in a section 87(1) case, if the person does not produce his licence and its counterpart immediately; b. in a section 143 case, if the person does not provide him immediately with evidence that the vehicle is not or was not being driven in contravention of that section. But the constable is not required to give such a warning if the circumstances make it impracticable for him to do so. If the constable is unable to seize the vehicle immediately because the person driving the vehicle has failed to stop as requested or has driven off, he may seize it at any time within the period of 24 hours beginning with the time at which the condition in question is first satisfied. The powers conferred on a constable by this section are exercisable only at a time when regulations under section 165B are in force. In this section— a. a reference to a motor vehicle does not include an invalid carriage; b. a reference to evidence that a motor vehicle is not or was not being driven in contravention of section 143 is a reference to a document or other evidence within section 165(2)(a); c. “counterpart” and “licence” have the same meanings as in section 164; d. “private dwelling house” does not include any garage or other structure occupied with the dwelling house, or any land appurtenant to the dwelling house. Also what consequences could Friend A face for knowingly allowing friend B to drive his (Friend A's) car whilst he was drunk and didn't hold a valid license or insurance? A few random thoughts: B is clearly committing several criminal acts and A appears to have possibly aided and abetted them. I imagine A's insurance company might consider this invalidates A's insurance. I'm just some random bloke in the intertubes, not a lawyer.

There doesn't seem to be any indication I could find that your Indiana license would expire or be revoked. That said, that question is likely moot for your purposes per the comment you left. Your Indiana permit is no longer valid in Florida if you have been a Florida resident for 91 days or more. Florida handgun license reciprocity is covered by S 790.015 and applies to non-residents. Individuals who establish residency in Florida and have a license from another state have 90 days to acquire a Florida license (emphasis mine): (3) If the resident of another state who is the holder of a valid license to carry a concealed weapon or concealed firearm issued in another state establishes legal residence in this state by: (a) Registering to vote; (b) Making a statement of domicile pursuant to s. 222.17; or (c) Filing for homestead tax exemption on property in this state, the license shall remain in effect for 90 days following the date on which the holder of the license establishes legal state residence

When can my wife apply for US passport (she has a green card)? My wife is a citizen of Ukraine. She came over on a K-1 visa and we married. She had a 2 year green card and now has a 10 year green card. The question is this, how soon can she apply to become a US citizen? I heard that it was 2 years, but have not found any documentation on this (at least nothing that is specific to this case and on a government website.)

I assume that since your wife entered on a K-1 visa, that you are a U.S. citizen. This makes a difference because the time limit is different in each case. Spouses of U.S. citizens can apply for naturalization once they have been lawful permanent residents and married to their spouses for three years: The spouse of a ​U.S.​ citizen who resides in the ​United States​ may be eligible for naturalization on the basis of ​his or her ​marriage​.​ The spouse must ​have continuously resided in the ​United States​ after ​be​coming​ a​n LPR ​for at least three years immediately preceding the date of filing the naturalization application and must have lived in marital union with his or her citizen spouse for at least those three years.​ If this doesn't apply for whatever reason, then the general rule for naturalization of permanent residents applies, and she will have to wait five years instead: An applicant must also reside continuously in the U​nited ​S​tates​ for at least five years as an LPR at the time of filing,​ though the applicant may file his or her application up to 90 days before ​reaching the five-year continuous residence period.​

The relevant part of the 22nd amendment to the US constitution says: No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of President more than once. The question is dues "more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President" mean "more than two years of any single term ..." or "more than two years of any and all such terms taken together". The former is closer to the plain meaning of the text, but the latter is almost surely what Congress intended, given the history of the 22nd. There is no case law, because there is no case in which a person has been elected VP and become president in two or more different terms. Indeed there is no case of a person who, having become president on the death or resignation of a president, then ran again as VP. There is no telling how a court would rule in such a situation, but I rather suspect that the 10-year limit interpretation would be upheld.

I have heard that you have to spend at least six months in a year in US to remain eligible for naturalization. Is that really true? No, that is not true. There is no requirement regarding amount of time you have to spend in the US in a year. The only requirements are the continuous residence requirement and the physical presence requirement. You are presumed to break continuous residence if you have an absence of more than 6 months (though it is possible to overcome the presumption with strong evidence for absences of between 6 months and 1 year). Since your trips are less than 6 months, they should be okay. It is possible that if you returned for just a day, and then leave again, the officer might consider the absences are really just one big absence, which would then potentially jeopardize continuous residence. I don't think that should be an issue in your case. The physical presence requirement is just physical presence for half of the required period (30 months if you are applying under the 5-year rule). So you would not meet it if you were gone for more than half the year every year. But being gone more than half the year for just one or two years, with the other years being here the whole time, should not be a problem for the physical presence requirement.

switzerland A mariage that is only made to get citizenship or a residence permit is illegal. The german legal term for it is "Scheinehe". This is defined as Eine [Scheinehe] liegt dann vor, wenn das heiratswillige Paar offensichtlich keine Lebensgemeinschaft führt, sondern die Bestimmungen über Zulassung und Aufenthalt von Ausländerinnen und Ausländern umgehen will. A sham marriage (see below for terminology) is on hand when the couple that requests the marriage obviously doesn't live in a partnership but wants to circumvent the laws about immigration and residence of foreigners. The marriage registrar may deny the marriage, or it may even later be voided. This source says that you can get a fine or a prison sentence of up to three years for this. If one even takes money to enter a fake marriage with someone, the sentence can be up to five years. So, better wait for the right one ;-) Terminology remark: It needs to be distinguished between the terms "Scheinehe" (english "sham marriage") and "Konvenienzehe" ("marriage of convenience"). The later is a marriage mostly to keep one's social status and is typically arranged by the parents. This is legal and was very common in former times. In some countries, e.g. in India, it is still common. It differs from the sham marriage by the fact that the social status of both spouses is the same.

A US citizen who resides abroad can register to vote in federal elections in the last state or territory where they resided in the US. So in your example, the US citizen who was resident in Puerto Rico, and who moves to Canada without first residing in any other state or territory, would register to vote in Puerto Rico. Since he is registered to vote in Puerto Rico, he does not vote in an election for choosing presidential electors since Puerto Rico doesn't have any presidential electors. Only the 50 states and DC have presidential electors, and each of them chooses the electors based on elections by people registered to vote in that state (or DC), so he would have to be registered to vote in some particular state or in DC to participate in an election for choosing presidential electors, but he does not qualify to register to vote in any of the states or DC, because he was not resident there last. Yes, US citizens who are neighbors in Vancouver, Canada, one of whom is a former New Yorker and the other of whom is a former Puerto Rican, would be registered to vote in two places (one in New York and the other in Puerto Rico). They would get two different ballots, and may even have different dates for elections (for elections that are not held on the November election day). They would have different offices to vote for, and, in the case of the ballot for the November election in a presidential election year, the New York ballot would contain an election for a slate of presidential electors, while the Puerto Rico ballot would not.

There is a note attached to the relevant section of the Revised Code of Washington. It used to be "not more than one year", but in 2011, Substitute Senate Bill 5168 changed this and many similar instances to "up to 364 days". They explained their purpose in the first section of the bill: The legislature finds that a maximum sentence by a court in the state of Washington for a gross misdemeanor can, under federal law, result in the automatic deportation of a person who has lawfully immigrated to the United States, is a victim of domestic violence or a political refugee, even when all or part of the sentence to total confinement is suspended. The legislature further finds that this is a disproportionate outcome, when compared to a person who has been convicted of certain felonies which, under the state's determinate sentencing law, must be sentenced to less than one year and, hence, either have no impact on that person's residency status or will provide that person an opportunity to be heard in immigration proceedings where the court will determine whether deportation is appropriate. Therefore, it is the intent of the legislature to cure this inequity by reducing the maximum sentence for a gross misdemeanor by one day. In federal law, 8 USC 1227 (2) (A) (I) provides that: Any alien who— (I) is convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude committed within five years (or 10 years in the case of an alien provided lawful permanent resident status under section 1255(j) of this title) after the date of admission, and (II) is convicted of a crime for which a sentence of one year or longer may be imposed, is deportable. The Washington State legislature didn't think that deportation was an appropriate punishment for an alien who committed a gross misdemeanor. Therefore, they reduced the maximum sentence by one day so as not to trigger deportation under 8 USC 1227 (2) (A) (I).

Your children may have automatically become US citizens at birth, depending on how long their mother lived in the US before they were born. US law says that any child born abroad to an unmarried US citizen mother is automatically a US citizen, as long as their mother had lived in the US continuously for at least one year before the child was born. There is a clear discussion of the legal requirements in Chapter 3 of the USICS Policy Manual: US Citizens at Birth . Your specific situation is covered by § C.2: Child of a US Citizen Mother (also at the bottom of the page!). (The underlying statute, §1409 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, is here. Like most of the INA, §1409 is not reader friendly.)

There are several reasons people wish to get a marriage annulled. I'll try to list them in order of frequency -- though I'm unaware of any statistics that confirm that my ordering is correct. Money. As per Nij's comment, when people are divorced, their property is subdivided 50-50. If one person can get away with an annulment, and keep the property which he earned, then it will be in his interests to do so. Religious reasons. As per SJuan76's comments, several churches, including Catholic, Mormon, and Russian Baptist, do not allow a person to marry if his previous spouse is still alive. An annulment is a way around that. Fraud marriages. This is rare, but under Trump it happens more often then you might think. People (usually women) come to the US illegally, marry someone (generally significantly older), and after the wedding day they are never again seen by their spouse. They use their marriage certificate to ensure permission to stay in the US -- but, they were never interested in marrying that person in the first place. When found, often such people are living with another illegal alien "as a boyfriend", with kids born before the fraud marriage even took place. It is in such cases, that their new spouse often tries to attain an annulment of the marriage -- to make sure that the illegal alien doesn't get rewarded for cheating them. Personal reasons. For some people, having never been married means it's easier to get a spouse who also has never been married -- and being able to check the "Single -- Never married" box on a form is always a plus in such cases. Now, don't ask me why people prefer to marry someone who's never been married, over someone who's been divorced. :) Incest. Under the US law, if you marry someone who's your close relative, then you are guilty of a felony -- even if you didn't know they're your close relative at the time of marriage. However, if you annul the marriage, then you can avoid prosecution.

Can I restrict a contractor from disclosing to others information that is not patentable? Suppose I am contracting out some research / experiments to improve upon a process my company already practices. Obviously I need to first tell him what we practice under status quo. Now I want to restrict the contractor from disclosing any of this to third parties. On the other hand, a lot of stuff we practice is not exactly patentable since there are old papers and expired patents out there describing some of these steps and innovations. i.e. If some third party did indeed independently come up with the same combination of process steps there's not much we could do about it. But then again there's a ton of patents and articles and the value lies in knowing which ones to combine to produce a commercially viable product. Can I still structure the agreement such that I prohibit the contractor from disclosing what we practice? Although he could argue that all of it is described somewhere in the open literature? As an extension, if a third party hypothetically started practicing what we do on the basis of stuff disclosed by the contractor, we'd have no patent to sue them for. But could we still do anything about it? Just want to get opinions on what the body of law is (or precedents) that I ought to be reading to understand such situations.

Anything that helps you with your business and that you keep secret is a trade secret. The "keeping it secret" is an important part. Competitors are free to discover the same information themselves and use it, but stealing it from you is illegal. If a contractor needs to learn this information to do their job, you make them sign a non-disclosure agreement or confidentiality agreement which forbids them to pass that information on. That way, it remains a trade secret. If the contractor gives your trade secrets away, that is breach of contract and you can sue for damages. If a competitor pays your contractor to give them your trade secrets, that's not just illegal, it's criminal. On the other hand, if the contractor puts the information on his blog for example where everyone can read it, without having been enticed by someone to do this, then I believe your trade secret is gone and competitors can use it. Same as if you left documents on a park bench and your competitor finds them and reads them. You have to keep a trade secret a secret; if you fail to do so you lose. Asked about patents: If there is a non-disclosure or confidentiality agreement in place, then nobody can apply for a patent. The whole idea of a patent is that you get legal protection in exchange for disclosing your invention. Applying for a patent would mean violation of the non-disclosure agreement.

Notwithstanding in this case takes its ordinary meaning - "despite": Despite anything to the contrary contained in this Agreement, any provision of this Agreement which provides for me to assign any of my rights to a Work shall not apply to any invention developed on my own time without using equipment, supplies, facilities or trade secrets… Without having the text of the rest of the relevant parts of the contract, my initial interpretation is that the effect of this, is that you would not need to assign your rights to Works produced in your own time without connection to your paid employment. Also, if this was subordinate to the other clauses you mentioned, then it would have little or no effect. Finally, the general legal principle is that works produced in your own time with no connection to your employment (resources, knowledge or otherwise) are not assigned, unless specifically stated. That is, the contract would generally explicitly state that works produced in your own time with no reliance on your employment are assigned to the Employer. However, such a term is almost certainly unreasonable and could be challenged in court if the employer ever attempted to enforce it.

This depends on the representations that were made at the time of forming the contract, the prior knowledge of possible interference, and the nature of the interference by the third party. If the interference, or likely interference was known: To you, the vendor, and you made representations that your service would work despite this, or you did not disclose this, then you may have sold a product that was not fit for purpose and the client may be entitled to statutory relief, or may not be required to fulfil their contractual obligations To you and the client, and you notified them that this may prevent use of your service, and despite your advice they decided to enter into the contract, then the client is unlikely to be entitled to relief and must fulfil their contractual obligations To only the client, then they are unlikely to be entitled to relief and must fulfil their contractual obligations If the interference is of a nature such that the third party was aware of your contractual relationship, caused such an interference resulting in a breach of contract, and was not entitled to create such a breach, then the third party may have committed the tort of economic interference (generally known as tortious interference) and either you or your client may be entitled to seek damages, if any.

You need a lawyer There is no magic phrase to do what you want. The company will care about defending their assets, while you will want to defend yours. Only a lawyer will be able to tailor the condition that makes sense based on what your job's domain covers and your side projects. It is entirely possible that your personal projects conflict with your employer's, and you must then put your personal projects on hold or risk getting sued. e.g.) developing two pieces of software that does the same thing. Your lawyer will be able to advise on how that looks and what to do. No random strangers on the internet can give you accurate advice.

Law (regardless of its type) supersedes contract, provided it has jurisdiction over the persons bound by that contract. Contract provisions that are counter to law are generally held to be void. State law has authority over an employer's policies or hand book. However, there may be exceptions in state law (so I would double check). A frequent exception (at least in California law, which I am most familiar with) is for very small businesses. Another exception, from C.R.S. § 8-4-101(5), is if you are considered a "contractor" rather than an employee, per the government's determination. It is possibly worth your time to let you employer know of this conflict before termination if possible, so that they can adjust their policies, rather than in an adversarial position after termination, if only to avoid the headache.

Until and unless a patent is issued, the inventor has no exclusive rights. Assuming a patent is granted, the issued claims will be what defines infringement. What you do before the patent is issued is not infringement since there is nothing to infringe. However, if there is a finding of infringement in the U.S. for activity after a patent is issued, the patent owner can possibly also get royalties for activities you engaged in (in the U.S.) before the patent was issued under 35 U.S.C. § 154(d). This ABA article explains its effect in practice. The rights the patentee has in this regard are called "provisional rights". Nothing at all to do with provisional applications. In the U.S., once a patent application is published, someone who does something that would infringe a hypothetical future patent with claims very similar to the published claims and who is on notice of the publication, can be subject to future royalties. If the issued claims are quite different from the published claims, this law does not apply. As mentioned in the ABA article this was put in place by Congress when the 18 month publication requirement went in. That was part of an international treaty that has the U.S. conform to the publication regimen the rest of the world had been doing. Prior to that treaty U.S. patent applications were confidential up to the day of grant. If an applicant decided the allowed claims were not worth the disclosure, they could abandon the patent application and opt to keep it a trade secret instead. This is still possible by asserting, in a non-publication request, to the USPTO that no filing outside the U.S. will be made.

Is that legal given that the original deal was as a contract-to-hire basis? No, unless the contractor agrees to an amendment/contract that incorporates a non-compete clause. A party is not allowed to unilaterally modify against a counterparty's will an existing, binding contract. What you describe seemingly falls short of being a cognizable amendment to the contract. What would someone do if they were offered employment and then the contracting agency threatened to sue the person? The person might want to educate the intermediary/agency about the invalidity of unilateral amendments that are not agreed upon. The intermediary's awareness of this tenet of contract law --or its awareness that the threatened person is knowledgeable of that principle-- might dissuade the intermediary from litigating its unviable claim. Regardless, given the prospect of litigation, the person needs to make sure that henceforth all his communications with the intermediary are in writing. The person might also want to inquire of the employer whether its contract with the intermediary contains a clause entitling the employer to hire the intermediary's contractors. If it does, the intermediary's threats to the person sound in intermediary's breach of that contract. A claim of tortious interference with relation is unavailable unless the intermediary's misconduct actually disrupts the relation or prospect between the employer and the person, but it is clear that the intermediary's acts are in the direction of frustrating that relation. Even if there is no such clause between the employer and the intermediary, the person might want to update the employer on how the intermediary is trying to disrupt their tacitly agreed contract-to-hire basis.

I don’t understand why you think this is a “3rd party communication” - as I read it it says it’s an email from you. You are most definitely not a third party. Notwithstanding, communication between 3rd parties is not prima facie excluded. For example, correspondence between your company and your accountant (who are both third parties) is likely to be extremely relevant to a family law case. Assuming that it is relevant (which is hard to say without context) and that it doesn’t fall foul of one of the evidentiary rules (hearsay, opinion, privilege etc.) there is no reason why it wouldn’t be admissible.

What's the most crucial issue when deciding Senator Cruz's citizenship? Donald Trump is threatening to sue Senator Cruz for his citizenship issue. I understand Senator Cruz was born to an American mother and Cuban father in Canada . I understand it would not be an issue if he had been born in the U.S. or its territory or if he had been born to both American citizens. But because he was born in Canada and his father was Cuban, there could be some legal issues. I have searched for a clue and read the related article, but I don't fully understand what the real issue is. I mean, he must have a birth certificate as an American citizen, and ran for the Senate and lawfully elected senator. What is the real issue now? Other related articles: A New Challenge to Cruz's Eligibility, Memorandum: Is Ted Cruz Eligible for the Presidency? [Source: theAtlantic.com]

At time of answering, the question is: What's the most crucial issue when deciding Senator Cruz's citizenship? The 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, Section 1, states: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States[.] Cruz did not go through a naturalization process. He was also not born within the territorial limits of the US. If either of those facts were different, those would be the crucial issue. Since they are not, we then look to the Naturalization Act of 1790, passed by the first Congress, which states that children born to citizen parents outside the United States are also citizens, specifically: The children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens[.] (emphasis added) According to the Wikipedia article and/or sources it cites, this is the only legislation to use the phrase "natural born citizens" and it seems clear this is intended to refer to Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution which states a requirement: No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States. (emphasis added) The 1790 Act was repealed and replaced in 1795, but the new law also contained the language (lacking "natural born"): The children of citizens of the United States, born out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States, shall be considered as citizens of the United States[.] The specific laws have been further changed, as the naturalization process has, reintroducing ambiguity about the "natural born" requirement, but birthright citizenship from parents is not in question and the "natural born" aspect is not in this question. So, to answer the question directly, the most crucial issue is: Were Cruz's parents citizens when Cruz was born? Cruz's Wikipedia page says his father was not naturalized until later, but his mother was born in Wilmington, DE, which is in the United States, and so unless she renounced her citizenship she would have been a US citizen at the time of Cruz's birth. This means there's a crucial issue: Did Cruz's mother renounce her US citizenship before Cruz was born? "Kaithar" commented on this answer with speculation that she voted in a Canadian election at a time (1947-1977) when Canada didn't recognize dual citizenship in that it required its own citizens to give that up if they acquired foreign citizenship; "user102008" refutes that. However, if we don't want to end this issue-identifying answer at that question, let's assume the answer is "no" and that Cruz's mother was a US citizen when Cruz was born. Then we have to see if birthright citizenship from parents extends to Cruz. For this, we can look to Public Law 414 (66 Stat. 236), passed June 27, 1952, especially section 301(a)(7): The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth: […] A person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than ten years, at least five of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years: Provided, That any periods of honorable service in the Armed Forces of the United States by such citizen parent may be included in computing the physical presence requirements of this paragraph. Side note: Section (4) (modern (d)) would matter if Cruz's father were considered a noncitizen national of the US, slightly relaxing the requirements so that the mother only had to spend only one continuous year in the US prior to the birth. The armed forces exemption was broadened Nov. 6, 1966 to cover the parent (or their parent's) nonmilitary employment by the US government or certain international organizations. If that's relevant, this answer can be edited to expand on this point. Section 309 of that law addresses children born out of wedlock, and says that section 301(a)(7) (quoted above) applies directly as if the parents were married, "if the paternity of such child is established while such child is under the age of twenty-one years by legitimation." To the best of my knowledge, section 301(a)(7) applies to Cruz. If I were wrong on that, we'd look to Section 309(c): A person born, after December 23, 1952, outside the United States and out of wedlock shall be held to have acquired at birth the nationality status of his mother, if the mother had the nationality of the United States at the time of such person’s birth, and if the mother had previously been physically present in the United States or one of its outlying possessions for a continuous period of one year. The equivalent of the first quote today is in 8 U.S. Code § 1401(g) if parents are married at the time of a child's birth, replacing "ten years, at least five" with "five years, at least two" (Nov. 14, 1986; see Section 12 in this law). The quote from 309(c) is now 8 U.S. Code § 1409(c). So then the crucial question is: Did Cruz's mother spent the requisite period of time in the US before Cruz was born? Apparently she did, regardless of marital status, and if that's true it means Ted Cruz is a US citizen and has been since at least birth*. Again, the "natural born" aspect is omitted from this now-answered question. The answer to the question you meant to ask (perhaps "What's the most crucial issue when deciding if Senator Cruz's citizenship makes him eligible for the Presidency?") is "What does the phrase 'natural born citizen' mean in context of Article II, Section 1 of the US Constitution?" (*) Which may mean that he hasn't been a citizen his whole life, using a Cruz definition for when life begins. That's a separate discussion, though, and not very relevant to this one.

Based on some quick searching, this would likely be a wrongful death action. I have to pick a state, so I'll pick Nevada. The first question is what damages could be. I don't know offhand what is typical in wrongful death suits, but this appears to be beyond mere negligence: there was a hit and run involved. I have no trouble believing the claim would reach at least six figures. This is important, because federal diversity jurisdiction only includes lawsuits with over $75,000 at stake. Now, Santa Claus's citizenship matters; if he were stateless it'd be an issue, but he is a citizen of Canada. That means that federal court has diversity jurisdiction: because the lawsuit is between a citizen of one state on one side and a foreign citizen on the other (no state has citizens on both sides of the lawsuit), and meets Congress's extra requirements (enough money at stake), it can be in federal court. The way diversity jurisdiction works is that the plaintiff can file in federal court, but if they choose to file in Nevada court then the defendant can remove the case to federal court. Either party can get it into federal court. Conventional wisdom is that federal court is more defendant-friendly than state court on state law claims. It is likely that if Grandpa files the case in any court in Nevada, the case will end up in the United States District Court for the District of Nevada. But suppose it is in state court? Most states don't have separate "county court" and "state court" systems; county courts are a thing, but they're a specialized thing and the serious stuff is not in those. A six-figure wrongful death claim won't go in Nevada's equivalent of small claims court. It'd go in Nevada district court, if it's in state courts. But what about other courts? Grandma was walking home, so it can be assumed she was a Nevada resident. Assuming Grandpa lived with her (which is rather likely), so is he. They then can't sue in any US state other than Nevada without being laughed out of court -- a lawsuit needs to have something to do with where you're suing. The other option is Canada, but such a suit is unlikely.

At the time of annexation of country X someone would have to decide the status of the countries citizens: If all citizens of X are now citizens of the USA, and whether they are legally citizens from the date of annexation or since they were citizens of X, and if they are considered residents in the USA since the day they became residents of X, and if they are retrospectively "born in the USA" if they were born in X. And other things, like whether non-citizen legal residents of X are now non-citizen legal residents of the USA. That has to be decided for many reasons, and the answer to your question follows naturally from this. Maybe you could check on a history site if anyone knows how this worked with Hawaii.

In the case of United States vs Wong Kim Ark 169 U.S. 649 (1898) (a 6-2 decision), the Supreme Court wrote: [T]he real object of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, in qualifying the words, "All persons born in the United States" by the addition "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof," would appear to have been to exclude, by the fewest and fittest words (besides children of members of the Indian tribes, standing in a peculiar relation to the National Government, unknown to the common law), the two classes of cases -- children born of alien enemies in hostile occupation and children of diplomatic representatives of a foreign State -- both of which, as has already been shown, by the law of England and by our own law from the time of the first settlement of the English colonies in America, had been recognized exceptions to the fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the country. ... [T]he Fourteenth Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens, with the exceptions or qualifications (as old as the rule itself) of children of foreign sovereigns or their ministers, or born on foreign public ships, or of enemies within and during a hostile occupation of part of our territory, and with the single additional exception of children of members of the Indian tribes owing direct allegiance to their several tribes. The Amendment, in clear words and in manifest intent, includes the children born, within the territory of the United States, of all other persons, of whatever race or color, domiciled within the United States. ... To hold that the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution excludes from citizenship the children, born in the United States, of citizens or subjects of other countries would be to deny citizenship to thousands of persons of English, Scotch, Irish, German, or other European parentage who have always been considered and treated as citizens of the United States. In short the phrase “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” excludes three and only three groups of people: Children born to foreign diplomats here on diplomatic business, who have diplomatic immunity to US Law; Children of members of an invading army that has occupied and controlled some part of US territory, born on that occupied area, who are obviously not subject to US Law (which has rarely happened in the US, although Guam was occupied during WWII, and parts of Alaska, and small parts of Maine during the War of 1812); and Members of Native American tribes, subject to the jurisdiction of their tribal governments, who do not pay US taxes. (This was true when the 14th amendment was passed, but it no longer is. See section below on the act that changed it in 1924.) Any other person born in the proper US or in incorporated US territory is a citizen, no matter who his or her parents are or were. (The case is less clear for unincorporated US territory.) See also the Wikipedia article on the case This view was confirmed in 1995 in an opinion from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel written by then-Assistant Attorney General Walter Dellinger, taking the position that this rule could not be changed by legislation, only by Constitutional Amendment, writing: My office grapples with many difficult and close issues of constitutional law. The lawfulness of this bill is not among them. This legislation is unquestionably unconstitutional. The Fourteenth Amendment declares that “[a]ll persons bom or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” U.S. Const, amend. XIV, § 1. The unmistakable purpose of this provision was to constitutionalize the existing Anglo-American common law rule of jus soli or citizenship by place of birth and especially to extend it to persons of African descent and their descendants. In Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982) the Supreme Court of the United States struck down both a state statute denying funding for education to children in the United States illegally and a municipal school district's attempt to charge an annual $1,000 tuition fee for each student. The case upheld the same principle that the constitutional phrase "within the jurisdiction" applies to the children of people who had entered the US illegally. According to the Wikipedia article on the case: Texas officials had argued that illegal aliens were not "within the jurisdiction" of the state and thus could not claim protections under the Fourteenth Amendment. The court majority rejected this claim, finding instead that "no plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment 'jurisdiction' can be drawn between resident immigrants whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident immigrants whose entry was unlawful." The dissenting opinion also rejected this claim, agreeing with the Court that "the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment applies to immigrants who, after their illegal entry into this country, are indeed physically 'within the jurisdiction' of a state." Thus the question of whether such aliens were "within the jurisdiction" of the US was very much at issue in Plyler v. Doe EDIT: Since the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 was passed, all Native Americans born within the US have been citizens by birth, and the third class of exceptions noted in the earlier cases non longer exists. Prior to this act Native Americans were in many ways treated as foreigners by the US. They were not citizens by birth, and their tribes had some but not all of the attributes of independent nations. The text of the law is: Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all non citizen Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States be, and they are hereby, declared to be citizens of the United States: Provided That the granting of such citizenship shall not in any manner impair or otherwise affect the right of any Indian to tribal or other property. (End edit on Indian Citizenship Act of 1924) Edit: On reading through the decision of the case of Wong Kim Ark I find one more small exclusion: persons born on board a foreign naval ship, even though present in US waters in time of peace, are not citizens of the US because of their birth location. This is apparently not a usual case, but is premised on the ground that a military vessel remains the territory of the nation it belongs to. Such persons might of course be citizens by inheritance if one or both parents are US citizens, and the statutory conditions are complied with. (The term "public ship" in the 1800s was used to mean a national ship, that is a military ship.) (End edit on naval ships) I just learned that some parts of the State of Maine were occupied by the British during the war of 1812. I do not know if anyone was born during that occupation whose citizenship might have been affected.

So can Congress itself just declare someone guilty of insurrection and bar them from standing in elections, without that being considered a bill of attainder? No. Even if it isn't a bill of attainder, the Congress can't do that. Or do they have to delegate the finding of fact (in re insurrection) to another body, e.g. to the judiciary? The issue would be presented when someone ran for public office and their qualifications were challenged, and would be resolved by state and local election officials, subject to judicial review. If that was not done, Congress could nonetheless refuse to recognize a state certification of someone's election on these grounds.

Exact wording might matter here, so I looked up the law. It says "a permanent resident complies with the residency obligation with respect to a five-year period if, on each of a total of at least 730 days in that five-year period, they are physically present in Canada". Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, 28(2)(a). If you visit the Canadian side of the park, you're "physically present in Canada". It would therefore appear that this would meet the requirement. I am by no means an expert in Canadian immigration law, though.

Under the Constitution, the president has to be a natural born citizen of the US, a resident for 14 years (relevant in the early years), and 35 years of age or older. Any action to preclude a candidate has to be based on these qualifications. Art. II of the constitution spells out the powers of the executive branch. His primary power is to carry out laws enacted by Congress, therefore executive orders have to be based on some statute, or specific Constitutional authority (e.g. as commander-in-chief). No law allows the president to nullify the fact that Biden is a natural born citizen of the US, a resident for many time 14 years, and 35 years old. Congress has not passed a law declaring that Biden has been previously impeached and removed from office (another way to stop a person from being elected). There being no such authority, an order to that effect would not be legal. In addition, executive orders give orders within the executive branch, and the executive branch isn't in charge of certifying the next president: POTUS cannot give orders to the House of Representatives, or to the Supreme Court.

What discrimination? As explained in Conflict between a religious belief that accounts for the existence of transgender people vs. one that doesn't the Constitutional protection of the Free Exercise Clause applies to the exercise of a deeply held belief (religious or not). So, let's accept that a person believes that certain sexual practices or gender identity is morally repugnant for whatever reason and that belief triggers the Constitutional protections. That means, that the person cannot be forced to engage in those sexual practices or adopt a different gender identity. It does not mean that they have a licence to discriminate against people who do in a work or public environment - they can, of course, choose to avoid such people in their private life. Alternatively, if the person believes that they are required by their faith to discriminate on the basis of those characteristics then such a belief does not get Constitutional protection as it is now affecting the rights of others. In the same way that someone who believed in human sacrifice would not get Constitutional protection.

How do professional sports leagues in the U.S. avoid anti-trust action? The National Football League (NFL), Major League Baseball (MLB), National Basketball Association (NBA) and the National Hockey League (NHL) are, essentially, professional sports monopolies. How have they avoided anti-trust action by the federal government? (Or have they?)

Well baseball for historical and frankly crazy decisions of SCOTUS is exempt because it is not a business that crosses state lines (by definition of the court if by no one else's). The other sports have had their run-ins with antitrust laws; some they've won and some they've lost. All of these have been to do with antitrust provisions in restraint of trade between leagues and clubs and clubs and players. As for monopoly powers: The elements of monopolization are twofold: possession of monopoly power in a relevant market; and willfully acquiring or maintaining that power. There are two clear defences to allegations of running a monopoly: the definition of the market - if the market is defined as "baseball" then there is a clear monopoly, however, if the market is "professional sports" it is not so clear that there is a monopoly. Certainly, both definitions of market are arguable. that the monopoly was "the result of superior skill, foresight, and industry". These types of monopoly are allowed as the acquisition of monopoly power was not willfull.

Generally, yes Can players and coaches be held criminally liable for actions that they take beyond the scope of their game? Yes. For example, Todd Bertuzzi was convicted with assault causing bodily harm for punching Steve Moore. Since that event happened in British Columbia, it was a British Columbia court that had jurisdiction. In 2000, Marty McSorley was found guilty of assault for slashing another player in the head with his stick. This also happened in British Columbia: R. v. McSorley, 2000 BCPC 116. The judge quoted an older case, saying: Patently, when one engages in a hockey game, one accepts that some assaults, which would otherwise be criminal, will occur and consents to such assaults. It is equally patent, however, that to engage in a game of hockey is not to enter a forum to which the criminal law does not extend. To hold otherwise would be to create the hockey arena a sanctuary for unbridled violence to which the law of Parliament and the Queen's justice could not apply. The judge recognized that there is an "unwritten code of conduct agreed to by the players and officials" including norms of fighting, but that McSorley's actions were outside of those norms. Even a slash directed at the upper shoulder area was too risky (that it might miss, and instead hit the head) to be covered under any consent. A rugby player was convicted of manslaughter when he aimed to "Pile drive [an opponent] hardest I could into ground" and ended up causing his death: R. v. C.(C.), 2009 ONCJ 249. The judge noted that consent will be implied "with respect to force that is outside the rules but within the scope of the accepted standards by which the game is played." He also found that "[t]he defendant intentionally applied force that was outside the rules of the game or any standard by which the game is played. [The deceased] did not explicitly consent to that force and I am satisfied beyond any doubt that no such consent can be implied." The issue will be what degree of contact and force was consented to. The factors often cited come from R. v. Cey, 1989 SKCA: the game of hockey involves a continuous series of assaults. Obviously, most of the body contact is consented to merely by the decision to participate in the sport. To determine at what point this consent disappears is not an easy task, but it must be identified in order to determine when a player moves from conduct calling for the imposition of a penalty into conduct which involves a criminal assault calling for a criminal conviction and sentence The conditions under which the game in question is played, the nature of the act which forms the subject-matter of the charge, the extent of the force employed, the degree of risk of injury, and the probabilities of serious harm are, of course, all matters of fact to be determined with reference to the whole of the circumstances. In large part, they form the ingredients which ought to be looked to in determining whether in all of the circumstances the ambit of the consent at issue in any given case was exceeded. Bountygate seems trickier The rest of this is opinion and is less well researched. I do not believe the above theory of liability (assault vitiating implied consent) is easily applicable to the circumstances of of Bountygate. First, I am not sure this theory of assault is applied in the United States. Second, it seems to me that there would be near insurmountable evidentiary hurdles in establishing that any particular tackle was motivated by an intent to injure (normally, ulterior intent is irrelevant for assault, but it seems to be a factor in considering whether implied consent has been vitiated in the sports context). However, there may be some kind of conspiracy-based offence available. Given that the offence would have happened entirely in the United States, it would be state or U.S. federal law that would apply and I will need to leave it to another answer to fill in the details of this theory, if it would indeed be viable.

The answer is more complicated than you may think. The over riding controlling authority is the Law of the Seas treaty signed by almost all nations but not ratified by the US (mainly because the LOS requires equal distribution of mineral wealth in the oceans). A lot of what the LOS covers is what is called the COLREGS which are basically traffic laws for vessels on the oceans. But COLREGS are applicable in some, but not all US federal, state, and local harbors. While the US Coast Guard is the primary enforcer of these laws in the US plenty of other law enforcement agencies have agreements with the USCG to enforce the rules. While you mentioned a local county agency that has agreements to enforce this, and other laws, so do a host of other agencies. In Florida the FWC is the primary enforcement agency for Florida laws and has an agreement with the USCG and other federal agencies to enforce not just Florida laws but US laws as well. One historic area of conflict has been fishing laws. The US claims a 200 mile economic zone and enforces fishing laws, which sometimes conflict with Florida laws (things like how big a fish must be and how many you can catch and when you can catch them). The FWC has a much greater presence on the water and the USCG does not really deal that much with fishing. On the other hand the USCG spends lots of time with drug interdiction and illegal alien interdiction. As an example of how convoluted this can get I was in the Dry Tortugas when the FWC boarded a commercial fishing boat anchored close to me. The Dry Tortugas is a National Park so under federal jurisdiction and the fishing boat had anchored rather late at night and turned on it's working lights and and was loudly running a water pump during turtle egg laying season so the rangers in the park called the FWC to come down hard on the boat. The only violation the FWC found was a pistol on the commercial boat (firearms are prohibited in the National Park). Another example is that according to Florida Law a boat in a recognized anchorage on a mooring ball does not need to display an anchor light after sunset. While Boot Key Harbor in the Keys is a recognized anchorage run by the city of Marathon it is under COLREGs and you must display an anchor light on a mooring ball; something that I have seen enforced by both USCG and FWC. On the East Coast of Florida in the crowded ICW both city and county LEOs in boats enforce things like speed limits and boating while under the influence; not to mention drug enforcement. Bottom line is while federal, state, and local laws are not always the same there are wide spread agreements that agencies from all three levels of government can and do enforce each others laws.

I'll ignore whether a recipe is actually a good example, but I assume you're asking how a person who owns the exclusive rights to copy a thing (copyright) or to use a thing (patent) can allow multiple other entities to copy or use the thing. This is possible by granting each a non-exclusive licence. In the case that the piece of knowledge is not protected by any intellectual property regime, the holder of the information could just treat it as a secret. The information holder could enter into contracts to sell that information to various entities, each promising in return not to further disclose that information. This is the case for lots of sports data.

Law is more like sport than mathematics You don’t know how it will turn out until you play the game. If a case goes to trial it’s because at both sides believe they can win. Both sides probably have good reasons for their belief. At least one of them is wrong.

This is known as a retroactive or ex post facto law. Such laws are explicitly forbidden by the US Constitution (Wikipedia reference), and are generally frowned on in jurisdictions where the rule of law applies, partly because it is difficult to prove criminal intent when your action was not at the time criminal.

From the link, it appeared that: Payments were made so that exam answers would be corrected before marking Payments were made to have an athletic offer extended for a person who would not otherwise qualify. Fraud and bribery are both applicable crimes. Victims are not necessary for either crime.

We cannot and will not try to answer "what should i do?" questions here. Nothing in the linked page makes me think that the views expressed in the previous question here are any less correct. They certainly have not changed the law on copyright. The linked page is an open forum. Many of the posts o9n that thread express ill-informed and incorrect views of how copyright works, and what it protects. Several google searchs find no trace of the suit described in the thread. Note that in US law no copyright claim may be heard in a small claims court, except for the federal copyright office's small claims tribunal. I am not sure if the same is true in Canada, but it might be that the suit was simply dismissed on such a basis. In any case small claims cases do not establish legal precedents in Canada or the US. Of course it is true that anyone can sue over almost anything, even when there is no valid legal basis for the suit. If the suit had been won by the claimant, or even settled that would be larger grounds for worry. A person seriously worried over publishing a book such as that described in the question might do well to consult a lawyer with relevant expertise. A single consultation plus an opinion letter might not cost very much. But 17 USC 102 (b) is very clear that copyright never protects facts, as are the copyright laws of other countries. Note that reports of the events of sports matches are not protected by copyright, although expressive language and analysis may be. 17 USC 102 (b) reads: (b) In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work. Article 2 paragraph (8) of the Berne Copyright Convention provides that: (8) The protection of this Convention shall not apply to news of the day or to miscellaneous facts having the character of mere items of press information. There seems little room for copyright protection of the moves of chess games.

Was (is?) pre-marital sex illegal anywhere in the United States? I read this summary of laws banning adultery in the United States. Now, the wording of some of these laws made me wonder if any of them are remnants from a time when pre-marital sex (not just adultery) was banned. For example, maybe the pre-marital parts were removed, and the adultery parts were retained. Or maybe they are just interpreted differently now. I certainly know that it was once illegal in certain European countries. Has pre-marital sex ever been illegal anywhere in the United States?

The legal term for premarital sex, as a crime, is fornication. I found a paper that gives an extensive and well-referenced history and analysis of such laws: Sweeny, JoAnne. Undead Statutes: The Rise, Fall and Continuing Uses of Adultery and Fornication Criminal Laws. Loyola University Chicago Law Journal 46 (2014), 127–173. http://www.luc.edu/media/lucedu/law/students/publications/llj/pdfs/vol46/Sweeny.pdf Sweeny finds that many states (or even most) had such laws. As of 2014, six states still do: Idaho, Utah, North Dakota, Illinois, Mississippi and South Carolina (see map on page 156 of the above paper). However, they are likely unconstitutional under Lawrence v. Texas. Virginia and North Carolina also have laws that have already been found unconstitutional, but have not been repealed.

New Jersey is not a community property state, but it is an equitable distribution state. This means that in a divorce marital property is divided, not automatically 50-50, but in a way that seems financially fair to the supervising judge, or according to an agreement entered into by both spouses. This also means that the state considers a car bought during the course of the marriage "marital property". There are also special rules for property bought before May 28 1980, which do not seem to apply in the case in the question. However, "marital property" mostly applies when a marriage ends which the question says is not in view here. NJ does allow for a car to be titled to only one, or to both. A title with both names may read "John Doe OR Mary Doe" or "John Doe AND Mary Doe". In the AND case both spouses must sign to sell or borrow against the car, in the OR case either signature will do. If only one name is on the title, that person must sign to sell or borrow. If it comes down to a dispute, the person whose name is on the title can decide where it is to be garaged, and who has permission to drive it. If the "sporty" car is in the name of both parents, either could move it to some other location, and either could move it back. Going back and forth could easily get ugly. If both names are on the 'sporty' car's title with an OR, the husband could sell it without consulting the wife. if there is an AND he would need her to agree. If the older car is in the husband's name alone, he could deny the wife or the son the right to drive it. The wife could, of course, buy a different older (used) car and allow the son to use it. Obviously it would be a good idea if the husband and wife came to a voluntary agreement about all this, but no law requires them to do so.

No, it is not illegal to use the symbol of the federal government for your own personal use as it is a public domain symbol. However, the USMC will frown upon it. Marines have a sort of warrior culture ethos to them, when compared to the other branches of the U.S. military and a strong culture among those who served. Among Marine culture "there is no such thing as a former Marine"... that is, once you enter the service, you are a marine even if you retire (a former Marine is usually someone who was dishonorably discharged OR committed an action that would have gotten him/her discharged had they not retired). They do not take kindly to Stolen Valor (pretending or seeming to pretend you served when you did not). While this is legal to do per SCOTUS rule, it's not considered advisable. Most of the US military have dim views of Stolen Valor and will react very negatively. And seeing as how the Marines like to boast in song that they Guard Heaven for God upon Death, these are not enemies you would like to make. Tread extremely cautiously while doing this.

School districts / states do generally have the power to set the curriculum including the viewpoint that will be officially conveyed. One well-known major restriction on such viewpoint restrictions is that the schools cannot restrict the free exercise of a religion, and cannot take a position on a religion. Apart from the religion third-rail, schools have pretty free reign in setting the curriculum, see Evans-Marshall v. Tipp City for one instantiation. In this case, the teacher assigned various books, including Heather Has Two Mommies, one of the books that prompted an outcry. The upshot of that case is that a teacher cannot invoke the First Amendment to override policy. This article (draft version, easier to handle) (published version, annoying footnote structure) reviews the topic, and section III covers prior cases. It notes that the cases of Lawrence, Windsor, Obergefell do not address the constitutionality of these education laws, though the reasoning in the prior cases might be applicable if there were a suit over curriculum. There is an implication that some of these rules have been enforced in the past, but most of the evidence is in the form of news stories (Beall v. London City School BOE is not available in the open). The article does engage in a somewhat deeper study of enforcement in Utah, where it was enforced (until it was repealed). Enforcement is necessarily indirect. The law require school districts to have a particular curriculum; violation would come when an individual teacher taught contrary to the prescribed curriculum. Those laws do not contain any provision like "a teacher who violates these rules gets fired", instead, punishment is via the general rule that you have to teach what is in the state-mandated curriculum. Rather than officially terminating a teacher for violating this curricular guideline, districts use vague reasons for non-renewal such as "due to problems with communication and teamwork" (from Evans-Marshall).

The Louisiana Civil Code of 1870 (it was revised between 1868-1869, but enacted in 1870) applied specifically to civil cases (i.e. disputes between private parties); it's organized by topic area, and is there to keep people from having to comb through every law ever passed that has to do with civil cases. The Revised Statutes of 1870 gathered all the laws of "general character" into one place, for the same reason. The difference between the two was almost certainly an error. In general, there is one official version of the law; other versions are a convenience. The official version normally defaults to the individual laws passed by the legislature (which are organized by date, not by anything useful for finding relevant laws), but that can be changed by statute. In this case, the Revised Statutes contains section 3990, which says in so far as there may be any conflict between the provisions of this act and any provision of the said Revised Civil Code and Code of Practice, that said Code shall be held and taken as the law governing So, the Civil Code took precedence. Your revisions of 1876 and 1882 were not successor laws; rather, they were compilations of the Revised Statutes and Civil Code of 1870 with the amendments to those that had since been passed. The Revised Statutes from 1876 were really the Revised Statutes of 1870, modified by later laws (that didn't touch the divorce provisions). Likewise, the Civil Code from 1882 was really the Revised Civil Code of 1870, modified by later laws. The Civil Code of 1870 still took precedence over the Revised Statutes of 1870, so the divorce provisions of the Civil Code were authoritative.

Such laws or rules most likely would be on a state-by-state basis. As an example, a rule in Minnesota (and the next part which can be accessed with the arrow in the upper right of the web page) requires that "all electrical equipment, including material, fittings, devices, apparatus, fixtures, appliances, and utilization equipment, used as part of, or in connection with, an electrical installation shall be listed and labeled by a testing laboratory." This rule only forbids use of unlisted cheater plugs, not sale. I have not found a law or rule that forbids selling them. Searching the usual places online, I see it is possible to find 3 prong to 2 prong adapters that are UL listed. I will add that essentially the same skills are needed to figure out whether a cheater plug is more or less safe to use in a certain receptacle as would be needed to replace the two-prong receptacle with a three-prong one, and a properly installed three-prong receptacle is going to be safer.

Volokh commented on this. There is no 2nd Amendment issue, nor does federal law. It may be illegal in some states, depending on whether age is included in public accommodation anti-discrimination laws. For instance, Conn. Gen. Stat. §§46a-64 says (a) It shall be a discriminatory practice in violation of this section: (1) To deny any person within the jurisdiction of this state full and equal accommodations in any place of public accommodation, resort or amusement because of race, creed, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, gender identity or expression, marital status, age, lawful source of income, intellectual disability, mental disability or physical disability, including, but not limited to, blindness or deafness of the applicant, subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law and applicable alike to all persons; §46a-63 defines "public accommodation" (1) “Place of public accommodation, resort or amusement” means any establishment which caters or offers its services or facilities or goods to the general public, including, but not limited to, any commercial property or building lot, on which it is intended that a commercial building will be constructed or offered for sale or rent Public accomodation laws are how states deal with discrimination in sales, such as selling wedding cakes Illinois 775 ILCS 5/1-103 likewise prohibits age discrimination in public accomodations, but defines "age" as "the chronological age of a person who is at least 40 years old". Connecticut used to define "age" as "any age between forty and sixty-five, inclusive", but that clause was deleted. Lousiana also prohibits age discrimination (La. Rev. Stat. §51:2247). Their statement about age likewise limits anti-discrimination protection to "individuals who are at least forty years of age". Maryland in MD State Govt Code § 20-304 also bans age discrimination, and does not redefine "age" or limit the scope of those ages that are protected. So while it is generally legal to refuse to sell goods to the young (and sometimes mandatory, e.g. alcohol, firearms, tobacco), there are a few states where such a policy would violate state anti-discrimination laws. There can also be city laws (Seattle has very broad anti-discrimination laws), but they exclude age from the Public Accommodation subset of discrimination.

Just below the section you quoted it says: (3) The victim’s prior sexual conduct is not a relevant issue in a prosecution under this section. There is no stated provision for the case you mention. I suspect that the law would apply. Whether the authorities would choose to prosecute in such a case is a very different question. There might be caselaw of this subject. I wouldn't know. If this is more than hypothetical, i would urge consulting a lawyer with local knowledge of criminal practice.

Is it legal to work for a foreign company you own that has no entity in the USA As the question stipulates. If a US citizen living in the USA wants to work for a foreign company he owns and that has no US entity. Is this legal? He would basically be in a situation where he's doing everything as if he were residing in that foreign country but simply residing in the USA. I know that the US consider taxable income to be income generated on american soil. So filing taxes in the US would be a requirement. But is the setup even legal? Or is it an obligation for the foreign entity to open a US entity and pay through it?

You are mistaken: The U.S. governments (both federal, and states that impose income tax) assert a right to tax both: Income earned within their jurisdiction (e.g., "on their soil"), and Income earned by citizens (or residents, in the case of states). So it is perfectly legal for a resident U.S. citizen to operate a foreign business entity, earn profit, pay himself, and even bank the money overseas. However, a resident in such a situation would be in violation of tax law if he failed to report his interest in the foreign entity and his earnings, as prescribed by the IRS, on his tax filings.

Links are in French. As the author of a work, you would generally hold copyright unless there's a contract otherwise. L113 of the Code de la propriété intellectuelle determines who is the rights holder of a given work and I don't see anything there that changes things for you as a contractor. Even if you assigned some rights to your employer through a contract, France has moral rights which can never be ceded. In fact, even if you were a salaried employee, you still hold the rights by default, unlike the US. There are a few exceptions to that though: software, inseparable joint works, and works where the creative process was purely directed by your superiors.

what taxes or fees does he need to pay? According to this glimpse of Austrian tax law, Franz would still have to pay income tax on any non-monetary compensation he gets from the company. See section of "Vermietung und Verpachtung [...]". Non-monetary compensation is typically known as benefits. The term serves to distinguish that compensation from (1) any cash flows from the company to Franz, which you ruled out in your description, and (2) any expenses the company incurs for business purposes involving Franz. Your mention that "nor does he take money out of the company in any other way" might mean that you ruled out benefits as well. I just wanted to be safe and preclude any misunderstanding in case you had in mind only cash flows from the company to Franz.

The territorial scope of the GDPR is defined in Article 3. It covers "personal data of data subjects who are in the Union", whether they are EU citizens or not. So to answer your questions: 1) are EU users, but moved to USA a few years ago, and signed-up on my website? They are not in the EU, so are not covered. You don't need to know if someone is an EU citizen, just if they are currently in the EU. 2) went for holidays in USA, signed-up on my website, and then came back to EU? (note - potentially skipped any Consent questions at sign-up, because IP was from USA) If someone moves into the EU while using your service then they fall under the GDPR for the time they are in the EU. If their home address is in the EU then that is covered, and monitoring of their behaviour while in the EU is also covered. Your other two questions are about VPNs. If a VPN is used to evade IP address geolocation and you have no other clue about where someone is then you can't be blamed for not knowing where they are (although I'm not aware of any actual case law on this topic). But if someone with a USA IP address gives a home address in the EU then you should probably treat them as being in the EU to be on the safe side. Basically, if you don’t know if they are in the EU or not, you should treat them as if they were.

In business dealings, you would have a contract with a company, not with its owner. The new owner inherits both the assets and liabilities of the company. It's up to the buyer of the business to do due diligence before buying the company. The old owner may escape obligations to clients and suppliers once the sale of the business is complete, but the new owner could sue the old owner for fraud. (It may be possible to escape some liabilities by declaring bankruptcy, but that's not the situation you described. One unethical accounting trick that a company can use is to split the company into two corporations such that one branch inherits the liabilities, and it go defunct.)

That is private. Who you work for is not information that is disclosed publicly by any state actor in Germany, just like your taxes. In fact, that or who you are employed at is often regarded as personal and private information. Nigh impossible through agencies Public agencies like the Fiskus (tax), Agentur für Arbeit, and immigration are not allowed to give any information about a person to anyone but that person or another agency that has the right to that information. Yes, (generally speaking) the tax office may not even say that a person exists (or doesn't) and what their tax number is to anyone but the person in question.

Like many US legal questions, there is a Congressional Research Service report about this. It is not generally a violation of US law to do things in another country where the only connection with the US is that the offender is a US citizen. However, there are a number of general situations where the US has jurisdiction over federal crimes if either the victim or offender is a US citizen: if a place isn't within the jurisdiction of any country (e.g. Antarctica); a place used by a US government entity (like an embassy or airbase); crimes by American soldiers and those employed by or accompanying the military; etc. These are considered to be within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the US. Other laws apply if they say so. For instance, any US national committing war crimes inside or outside the US can be punished under US law; ditto for treason. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act makes it illegal for a US national to bribe a foreign official anywhere outside the US for business reasons (if it's inside the US, there are more requirements). For instance, you aren't allowed to pay kickbacks to a foreign government's acquisition officer to buy your product. The CRS report has more (it doesn't include the FCPA, but that appears to be an oversight). Note that extraterritorial jurisdiction doesn't just apply if the person is a US national. US laws can also confer it if the victim is a US national, if the offense has a significant US component, if it's directed towards the US, if it's in violation of international law and the offender later turns up in the US, etc. For your scenarios: Dual citizenship doesn't matter. A US citizen is a US citizen, and is required to obey all laws that apply to US citizens, unless those laws explicitly exempt dual citizens. A dual citizen isn't treated differently by the government; as far as the US government is concerned, their US citizenship is all that matters (except for certain specific purposes like security clearances). In Kawakita v. United States, a US-Japanese dual citizen was convicted of treason against the US for aiding Japan in WWII. Depends. Plenty of these laws have no requirement that anything related to the crime actually happen in the US; for sex tourism, the subsection about traveling in foreign commerce for the purposes of engaging in illicit sexual conduct is followed by a subsection about engaging in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places. "Travel with the purposes of X" or "with intent to X" means you must have intended to do X at the time you traveled, but most extraterritorial laws don't control travel with intent to X (they cover X directly). Depends on the law. Some laws (like child sex tourism) apply to any permanent resident of the US as well as any citizen. Some apply to anyone, because they're based on a conspiracy started in the US. Others apply just to US nationals; a noncitizen isn't bound by them (for instance, no one but a US national can be charged with treason against the US, for obvious reasons). Still others apply to anyone who later turns up in the US, even if that is literally the only connection between the US and the offense (this is basically reserved for crimes against international law, like genocide).

Per Art 3(2), GDPR only applies to non-European companies when their processing activities relate to the offering of goods or services to people in Europe, or when the processing activities relate to monitoring people in Europe. However, the word “offer” of this targeting criterion requires some level of intent. It is not enough for GDPR to apply that they're marketing to someone who happens to be in Europe, but GDPR would apply if they are intentionally marketing to people who are in Europe. I don't know what they are marketing, so I don't know if that would be the case here. Even if GDPR were to apply, it would not be the most appropriate law. Yes, there's the GDPR right to erasure, which applies under some conditions (though there's a pretty absolute right to opt-out from marketing). The EU's ePrivacy Directive provides more specific rules though, in particular that every such marketing email must offer a way to unsubscribe. Other countries have comparable anti-spam laws, potentially also the home country for this online service.

Driving without physical copy of License If you have a license and drive but forget your license and get pulled over what happens? Do you get a penalty for forgetting it at your house?

If you have a license and drive but forget your license and get pulled over what happens? You could receive a summons or citation (a.k.a. "ticket") for failing to carry a driver's license. Section § 46.2-104 of the Virginia Code states that it is a traffic infraction with a $10 fine to not have your license while driving. The operator of any motor vehicle, trailer, or semitrailer being operated on the highways in the Commonwealth, shall have in his possession: (i) the registration card issued by the Department or the registration card issued by the state or country in which the motor vehicle, trailer, or semitrailer is registered, and (ii) his driver's license, learner's permit, or temporary driver's permit. Every person licensed by the Department as a driver . . . who fails to carry his license. . . for the vehicle which he operates, shall be guilty of a traffic infraction and upon conviction punished by a fine of ten dollars. (Emphasis added.) Do you get a penalty for forgetting it at your house? Yes, if you have a valid license that you left at home, you can get the case dismissed by showing the license to the the court (presumably a clerk), but you will still have to pay "court costs." However, if any person summoned to appear before a court for failure to display his license . . . presents, before the return date of the summons, to the court a license or permit issued to him prior to the time the summons was issued . . . or appears pursuant to the summons and produces before the court a license or permit issued to him prior to the time the summons was issued . . . , he shall, upon payment of all applicable court costs, have complied with the provisions of this section. Va. Code Ann. § 46.2-104 (2016).

would it be a problem to file both ways, or would there be no point and would it cause problems? File only once. Duplicate filing is likely to cause recurrent confusion and annoyance because everyone else will be uncertain as to whether both filings differ on anything other than the signature. If filing electronically does a physical copy signed in ink still need to be mailed or filed in person, or would that also just cause confusion? Filing electronically precludes the need for filing a physical copy. Even if filing a physical copy is allowed, it would impose on the clerk the needless burden of scanning and processing the physical copy.

Is something considered stolen if it possibly could have been lost? Something is considered stolen if it was stolen. You don't have your passport + Someone entered the room where it was ≠ They stole it Can this be brought to small claims court? What damage did you suffer that could be remedied by a monetary settlement? Sure, the landlord entering your room without your permission is probably unlawful but it's not clear that it did you any damage. No damage; no case. Should the police or some other government agency care? Here is a ranking of government cares: Getting reelected National security Economic Management ... 42,567. Murder ... 421,762. Passport Fraud ... 7,656,232. Passport theft ... 58,432,546. Passports that might have been stolen but probably weren't

You will still have to pay A ticket can be ammended if the state so chooses (they can look up what color and model your car is). The car is probably on video. The officer can testify if they wrote your car info down somewhere else. And if they identified you inside the car as the violator, the car's color hardly matters. The idea that minor mistakes or omissions on tickets can get you off is a myth. From an actual lawyer

According to the Illinois Legal Aid site you may be entitled to the services of a public defender. That site suggests that you: Tell the judge that you cannot afford to hire a lawyer. The judge may then ask you questions about your employment, expenses, and assets (money in the bank, home, car, etc.). The judge may also ask you to fill out a form that shows how much money you owe, how much you earn, or how much you have in the bank. You may also want to read This cook county FAQ or find a similar site for the county where you live. According to the Legal Aid site linked above, speeding by more than 40 MPH (limit +40) can result in up to 1 year in jail. So can driving with a suspended or revoked license. I suspect that driving with no license ever issued might be similarly serious. You would be very wise to do all that you can to secure the assistance of a lawyer. You may be able to call the clerk of the court, or your local public defender's office, and start the process of getting a PD before your court date. Either of those offices will probably be able to explain in some detail what you might expect from the court.

If you are facing felony charges, you need to hire a criminal defense lawyer, not ask for legal advice on the Internet. Do not talk to the police without your lawyer present. Do not attempt to represent yourself in any kind of hearing. Ignore any advice based on what seems fair or reasonable to someone on the Internet unless it is based on a real case in North Carolina or written by a real lawyer. That said, it appears to me that you have at least two strong defenses. First, if you you returned the laptop (It will help if you sent it by registered mail or otherwise kept a receipt, although, remember, they need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you kept it), that shows you had no “intent to steal” or “purpose to steal” it, which is a necessary element of the crime. Second, according to the University of North Carolina criminal law blog, you appear to have been charged with the wrong offense (although I don’t think that will actually help you if the prosecutor decides to bring the charge that matches what your former employer alleges you to have done). It cites a relevant North Carolina Supreme Court ruling on the difference between larceny and embezzlement, State v. McDonald, 45 S.E. 582 (N.C. 1903). I would focus on getting yourself cleared of these charges first. You can ask your lawyer if there is any recourse you might have against your former employer. I’m skeptical that suing them would be worth it, but I don’t know the circumstances. If you have proof of what they said to you and about you, hang on to it.

There's the question whether something is lost property or abandoned property. You'd be allowed to keep abandoned property, but keeping lost property without looking for the owner is in many places considered theft. A car on your land is quite likely abandoned by the last driver (people don't usually lose cars). But the question is whether it is abandoned by the owner; if the car looks like it has some value then it is unlikely to be abandoned by the owner and more likely that it has been stolen. I'd report the car to the police; then it's up to them to find the owner or not. If they can find him, and the car was not abandoned, but actually lost (unlikely) or stolen (more likely), you have the satisfaction of being an honest person helping either a very stupid car owner or a crime victim to get their property back. If they can't find him, usually the property will then belong to the finder.

Silence is not cause. However, this may not prevent a search. The officer does not need to tell you that he has probable cause, he must simply have it in order to conduct a search. If he obtained the probable cause before he pulled you over (this is likely), then he will order you out of the car and search over your vociferous (and silent?) objections. If the officer does not have probable cause, searches anyway, and can't come up with a convincing one in time for the court date, then yes you have a claim. But remember, just because the officer didn't inform you of the cause doesn't mean it didn't exist. Always consult an attorney before any legal action.

Questions regarding legal aspects of John Oliver's debt forgiveness giveaway John Oliver made news a few months ago by purchasing nearly $15 million in outstanding medical bill debt for $60,000 -- less than a penny on the dollar. But, I read that cancellation-of-debt ("COD") is taxable income. How Oliver got around this ("...no tax consequences whatsoever...") seems odd... Oliver set up a dummy corporation ("CARP") and then as CEO of CARP, he negotiated the debt purchase (presumably from some other collection agency). But, rather than forgive the debt directly, CARP turned around and donated the debt to RIP, a charitable organization. Am I to understand that this second transfer was necessary in order to explicitly avoid the tax consequence of COD? I do understand that COD is taxable income, but "gifts" are not. CARP is a simple $50 setup-fee LLC (and presumably not a charitable organization), whereas RIP was/is an established 501(c)(3) charity. I'm assuming that Once CARP purchased the debt, it then had rights of ownership with respect to debt collection, i.e. it could (1) continue pursuing collections from the debtors, (2) do nothing with the debt, (3) forgive the debts individually or en masse, or (4) donate it to a charity (which is what it did). After CARP gave (donated) the debt to RIP, then RIP was free to forgive the debts (which is its explicitly-stated mission). Had CARP pursued option (3) above, then does that mean all that forgiven debt was/is taxable income as COD? ADDENDUM: I just now realized that, in a theoretical situation where CARP chose option (1) -- attempt to collect on the debt. Pretending that CARP successfully collected e.g. $1 million, is this simply money that CARP can keep? (Subject to corporate income tax, of course.) I'm also assuming that "purchasing" debt gives the purchaser rights of ownership such that any collected money from a debtor cannot be further claimed by previous creditors. Is this indeed the case?

Oliver or his shell corporation could have directly forgiven the debt as a gift to the debtors. As a gift, it would not have to be reported as income, according to the IRS. In that case, he would need to file Form 709 and he would have to pay federal gift tax. There is an annual exclusion of $14,000 per donee, which probably is a drop in the bucket. It may not be required to pay tax on gifts to a 501(c)(3) organization, since the gift-bump is offset by the associated charitable gift deduction. The charity can then forgive the debt as a gift (and as tax-exempt, would not have to pay gift tax). In that sense, the second transfer was necessary, although it would not have been if RIP had directly obtained the debt (or if CARP were a 503(c)(3)).

the first two highlighted parts seem to contradict each other. No, in this case they do not. The first highlighted portion refers to works or items produced "for or under the direction of the Company", whereas the second highlight refers to your creations that satisfy conditions (a) and (b). Where contradictions actually exist, the doctrine of contra proferentem entitles you (the non-draftsman of the contract) to adopt the portion or reasonable interpretation that favors your legal position. Also wondering how valid those statements actually are They are valid and become enforceable as soon as you sign the contract or your subsequent conduct reflects your acceptance thereof. it's a matter of privacy. So the question is what I can do or what the reality is of the situation The reality is that you are asked to sign a contract that is abusive and ridiculous. One vulnerability from describing your inventions (presumably in Appendix A) is that the employer gets "irrevocable, worldwide, etc" rights on them as soon as you "use or disclose any [items listed in Appendix A] when acting within the scope of [your] employment". This means that if instead of reinventing the wheel you share or apply any portion of your prior creations so as to enhance your productivity, you knowingly and irreversibly grant to the employer perpetual rights to those items. Legal disputes regarding APIs can become extremely intricate. And, since judges usually have no decent background on IT, even those few judges with integrity are unlikely to grasp the key subtleties that would lead to a correct ruling. "not useful with or related to any Company Interest" is very vague. The company could be interested in literally anything these days. Clauses which are too vague or excessively wide-encompassing are supposedly stricken as unconscionable, unenforceable, etc. However, I personally would foreclose upfront the risk of judicial hassle and decline the abusive contract. Legal issues aside, keep in mind that you are offering your expertise (in terms of supply & demand, you are on the supply side). This fact has a less derogatory connotation than "asking for a job". Accordingly, the relation between the parties should be more leveled.

I am unfamiliar with a "perpetual contract" and that phase does not appear in any reported appellate court decision of the State of Oklahoma. However, usually unpaid utility bills do constitute a lien against the property that is enforceable against a subsequent purchaser, which has the same practical effect. This kind of obligation is also sometimes described as an "encumbrance". Usually, in an arms length sale of real estate through real estate agents, a title insurance company is hired and is responsible for determining if there are any outstanding liens, pro-rating utility bills, pro-rating property taxes, etc. at closing. If the title company fails to find a lien and there is one, the title company is responsible for paying off the lien that it failed to find (although it can often force the previous owner to indemnify it for the payment it has to make). It could be that since water service was not currently being delivered, that the title company did not search in the manner that it should have to find this lien, or it could be that there was no title company used and so no one ever checked. Also, if the property was conveyed with a "warranty deed" such a deed contains a promise from the seller that there are no liens or encumbrances not listed on the face of the deed that have to be paid, and the seller has liability for breach of the warranty of title. But, if the property was conveyed with a "quitclaim deed" there is no such warranty.

In business dealings, you would have a contract with a company, not with its owner. The new owner inherits both the assets and liabilities of the company. It's up to the buyer of the business to do due diligence before buying the company. The old owner may escape obligations to clients and suppliers once the sale of the business is complete, but the new owner could sue the old owner for fraud. (It may be possible to escape some liabilities by declaring bankruptcy, but that's not the situation you described. One unethical accounting trick that a company can use is to split the company into two corporations such that one branch inherits the liabilities, and it go defunct.)

I looked for a link to the CJIB pages on paying fines in monthly bits. It is here: https://www.cjib.nl/betalen-delen-aanvragen-voor-een-verkeersboete. He will have to make a request for such an arrangement at the CJIB himself. It will depend on what type of communication he has received from the authorities, and how quickly he responds to it.

There's some artistic license in play there - the US Treasury will replace damaged (or "mutilated" as they call it) currency for free under certain conditions. Lawful holders of mutilated currency may receive a redemption at full value when: (1) Clearly more than 50% of a note identifiable as United States currency is present, along with sufficient remnants of any relevant security feature; or (2) 50% or less of a note identifiable as United States currency is present and the method of mutilation and supporting evidence demonstrate to the satisfaction of the BEP that the missing portions have been totally destroyed. From your description they fail the first condition - they've burned it all so they aren't presenting > 50% of a note, 0% is clearly less than 50% [citation needed] and they also fail the second condition as it doesn't seem that they are carrying any "identifiable" portion of the money. Further: No redemption will be made when: (1) A submission, or any portion thereof, demonstrates a pattern of intentional mutilation or an attempt to defraud the United States. In such instances, the entire submission will be destroyed or retained as evidence. The "mutilation" was clearly intentional in this case. and (4) Fragments and remnants presented are not identifiable as United States currency. Seems to reiterate that you have to present some identifiable remnants. I suppose if the Embassy worker was a Bureau of Engraving and Printing representative, or the affidavits they provided were sufficient to convince the BEP that currency of x value was present, and completely destroyed etc. then the only hurdle would be the "intentional mutilation" aspect. The "intentional mutilation" itself is illegal under 18 U.S. Code § 333: Whoever mutilates, cuts, defaces, disfigures, or perforates, or unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, or Federal Reserve bank, or the Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt unfit to be reissued, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.

When you breach a contract, you can get sued in local court, and if you don't show up to defend yourself, default judgment will be entered against you. Then the aggrieved party will have to collect, but the court in Washington (to invent a jurisdiction) can't enforce an order against a person in Norway (to invent another jurisdiction). So the aggrieved party would need to take enforcement of the judgment to the Norwegian courts. In the actual case of Norway, this is fairly simple, you just call an attorney in Norway to do the paperwork. It might be harder if the other jurisdiction is Belarus. If you return to the US, even if there is a money judgment against you for the rent owed, you will not be arrested for that debt. Depending on the state (about half of the states), you might be arrested for failing to comply with a court order to pay the debt. The difference lies in refusing to comply with a court order, versus simply having a debt. The State Department conveniently lists the reasons for denying a visa. Owing money or having an uncollected judgment against you is not one of the possible reasons, in fact even having been ordered by a court to pay, ignoring the order, and the court issuing an arrest warrant does not make you inadmissible.

The shareholders can change who is the company director, but the company director runs the company (until he or she resigns or is forced to sign by the shareholders). So the company director is who has the say what happens in the company. If the contract is between Fred and John Smith directly, then I would expect John Smith to give the orders and to pay Fred. However, Tom is company director, so he can order Fred to stay off the company premises. He can't order Fred what to do, since there is no contract between Fred and the company, and the company won't pay Fred if it doesn't want to - it's up to John Smith to pay Fred from his own pocket. The whole setup is highly unusual. I would assume that the situation is unsatisfactory for everyone involved, so likely they will agree that the contract between John Smith and Fred is cancelled, that there is a new contract between Small Company Ltd and Fred, and from then on the company director gives the orders.

USA: Is the opposite of libel illegal? The dictionary defines libel as: a published false statement that is damaging to a person's reputation In the USA, is the opposite illegal? That is: a published false statement that is beneficial to a person's reputation For example, suppose a person was engaged in an organized campaign to spread the false idea that Donald Trump has an IQ of 160. Would this be illegal under any circumstances?

It may not be libel, but it may violate other statutes and may support a judgement against the person publishing this information as long as there is an injury-in-fact ("an invasion of a legally protected interest that is concrete and particularized and actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical"). A recent case, Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins 578 U.S. ___ (2016) considered the case where a company created a profile for a person. That profile stated "that he is married, has children, is in his 50’s, has a job, is relatively affluent, and holds a graduate degree". The plaintiff asserted that all of this was incorrect. The plaintiff made a claim under the Fair Credit Reporting Act because the information was false. However, mere violation of statute is not sufficient to meet the "injury-in-fact" requirement for standing. Congress can't create standing via statute. Injury-in-fact still requires a "concrete" injury. This does not need to be a physical, tangible injury. But, it does need to be concrete. On its own, publication of false information, even when statute prohibits it, does not create standing. There must be an injury-in-fact.

united-states Copyright 17 USC 101 says: “Publication” is the distribution of copies or phonorecords of a work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending. The offering to distribute copies or phonorecords to a group of persons for purposes of further distribution, public performance, or public display, constitutes publication. A public performance or display of a work does not of itself constitute publication. Note that the key element is distribution or offering to the general public. It has been held that distibution to only a small, selected group of people does not constitute publication in copyright law. Prior to the US 1976 Copyright Act, publication was a vital concept in US copyright law, because Federal copyright protection applied only after publication, and most copyright terms were measured from the year of publication. Publication without a copyright notice was usually fatal to US copyright protection. Since the 1976 law became effective (in 1978), the concept of publication is much less vital, but can still be important in copyright law. Copyrights of works made for hire or other works with corporate authors are calculated from the date of publication, not by the life of the author. Registration is effective to preserve the right to statutory damages if it occurs within three months of first publication. While fair use can apply to unpublished works, courts are generally less willing to apply it than they would be for published works. Publication may be significant in other aspects of copyright law as well. Defamation In the context of defamation "published" simply means "communicated to a third person" The communication need not be to the public at large. The LII page on Defamation defines "publication" as communication of [the defamatory] statement to a third person Nolo's page on "Defamation Law Made Simple" says: "Published" means that a third party heard or saw the statement -- that is, someone other than the person who made the statement or the person the statement was about. "Published" doesn't necessarily mean that the statement was printed in a book -- it just needs to have been made public through social media, television, radio, speeches, gossip, or even loud conversation. Of course, it could also have been written in magazines, books, newspapers, leaflets, or on picket signs. The page on "Publication and Libel Laws" by LegalMatch says: Publication is the delivery or announcement of a defamatory statement to another person through any medium. With respect to libel, the defamatory statement must be communicated through a tangible medium ... Generally, publication occurs once a single individual sees or hears the defamatory statement. However, America has a long history of protecting free speech. As a result, courts will sometimes require more action than just the act of seeing a defamatory statement in print to determine when publication occurs ... The exact time of publication is very important in a libel case. Generally, the time of publication will have an effect on a libel case in two ways: Statute of Limitations – Depending on when the publication of a defamatory statement took place, that is when the period of limitations begins to run. Knowing the exact time of publication can be very important if a statute of limitations is at issue. Damages – The time of publication can have a large impact on the damages a defamed person can recover. Generally speaking, the earlier the date of publication, the more damages a person has suffered. The Law Dictionary's page on "How Do You Prove a Defamation of Character Claim? says: The interesting thing to note about publication is that it’s not in the modern context, where it’s been published. It just means that it was done in a way where other people heard, saw, read, or otherwise came across this harmful lie about you. IE: it was public in some way where a third party was exposed to the statement. Exception: Confidential Communication If an allegedly defamatory statement is communicated to another in confidence or as a privileged communication, this often will not constitute "publication" for the purpose of a defamation action. For example, if it is part of a lawyer/client communication, or a privileged marital communication, or an employee/employer communication made in confidence or protected by an NDA, it might not count as publication. The Difference The key difference is between providing a work to the general public (copyright), and communicating a statement to any third party (defamation). In addition,. publication is an essential element of any defamation claim, but only sometimes a relevant fact in a copyright claim. My understanding is that this will also be true in most common-law countries, and possibly in some civil-law countries as well. But I cannot support that with sources.

This falls within the penumbra of Feist v. Rural Telephone. The principle articulated there is that facts are not subject to copyright protection, but the expression of facts can be. Quoting from the ruling, "no author may copyright his ideas or the facts he narrates...however, it is beyond dispute that compilations of facts are within the subject matter of copyright". The distinction between protected vs. not protected hinges on originality: "The sine qua non of copyright is originality. To qualify for copyright protection, a work must be original to the author". But it is not sufficient that the work is created by the "sweat of the brow" of an author: it must possess at least some minimal degree of creativity. Thus "[t]he writings which are to be protected are the fruits of intellectual labor, embodied in the form of books, prints, engravings, and the like". As a concrete example, the ruling states "Census-takers, for example, do not 'create' the population figures that emerge from their efforts; in a sense, they copy these figures from the world around them...Census data therefore do not trigger copyright because these data are not 'original' in the constitutional sense." But, compilations of facts can be protected: Factual compilations, on the other hand, may possess the requisite originality. The compilation author typically chooses which facts to include, in what order to place them, and how to arrange the collected data so that they may be used effectively by readers. These choices as to selection and arrangement, so long as they are made independently by the compiler and entail a minimal degree of creativity, are sufficiently original that Congress may protect such compilations through the copyright laws An email list requires nothing more than brow-sweat, and even then, not much. A cleverly annotated and arranged email list would involve substantial creativity and would be subject to protection. That does not mean that you didn't sign some agreement that prohibits you from copying or using the list, but it isn't a matter of copyright.

Yes. The First Amendment protects all speech, outside a few historically recognized exceptions, which include libel, perjury, incitement, and true threats. There is no exception for speech that injures the speaker himself.

If a factual statement is implied, rather than explicit, it can still constitute defamation. "T looks like a thief" may be an expression of opinion ("I think that T might be a thief") or it might be a slightly oblique way of saying "T is a thief". That would ultimately be a matter for the finder of fact, often a jury in the united-states, to determine. See HG.org,s page on "Defamation by Implication" The article "Libel and Slander 101: Defamation By Implication" by Daniel R. Warner of RM Warner, a lawyer specializing in Internet defamation, among other kinds of cases, cites and discusses as cases where US coiurts have upheld defamation by implication: Kendall v. Virgin Island Daily News in March 2013. (3rd Circuit) Plaintiff was a public figure and had to show actual malice, defendants were a reporter and a newspaper; Woods v. Evansville Press Co: (7th Circuit). The Court held that "an implied statement, just as a statement made in direct language, can be defamatory." Newton v. National Broadcasting, Co.:

There is a general belief that a term being trademarked means that it's illegal to use the term without permission from the trademark holder, but that is false. It is illegal only if it is done in a manner that suggests endorsement by the trademark holder. For instance, selling a football as a "Super Bowl football" would be trademark infringement, as it implies NFL involvement in the production of the football. Simply talking about the Super Bowl, such as saying "Our construction company built the stadium the Super Bowl is being played in" is not trademark infringement. Simply using a trademarked term to discuss the thing it refers to, without implying endorsement, is known as "nominative use". However, even if one would be on solid legal footings and could win a lawsuit on the basis of nominative use, one might avoid using a trademark to avoid the hassle of being sued.

(Assuming the jurisdiction is the US.) Your question I was wondering whether there are any limitations on using photos of private individuals on websites. is the least of your potential problems. Photos of the public taken in public are mostly legal to use and publish, and you own the copyright on the photo, and generally don't need a model release. But your plan of posting the photo with accompanying information about (alleged) fraud: There's a fraud conducting business in my state and I want to create a website that warns others of his fraudulent practices. is potentially legally problematic. As phoog indicates in his comment, you need to be aware of defamation, both at the federal level and among states, as some have criminalized defamation (Wikipedia). Libel is the publication of provably false facts by one person about another person. For a full outline of defamation (libel and slander, and including private and public figures), see Libel and Slander | Nolo.com. What you want to do is publish "facts" about this alleged fraud on the website with a photo of the individual, linking the fraud allegations to them. That is potentially libelous. The facts of the fraud may be provably true, or they may be provably false; that remains to be seen. But the facts don't matter when considering what actions the person can take against you if you publish such information on your website. If this business and the individual(s) feel they are not committing fraud, they can sue you for libel in civil court, alleging that you have damaged their reputation and impacted their business by publishing those facts on your website with the photo identifying the person and their business. If they take legal action, and you can prove the business and the individual(s) are committing fraud with provable facts - hard evidence of fraud, such as legal documents and court judgments - than you should (no guarantees) be able to successfully defend yourself in a libel suit brought against you by that person. Even if the business and the individual(s) are aware of facts that prove their fraud, and know they will probably not prevail in court, they can still take you to court, and it will cost you whatever time and money it takes to defend yourself. My responses above concern what legal actions the alleged could take against you if you published the website with the photo and information about the alleged fraud. No one here is advising you to put up the website with the photo and the "facts" as you see them, even if you have hard proof of the facts of the fraud; you should find legal representation before taking any action with the website. And, no one here is advising you to open any legal action against the person; that's your choice in terms of determining your case and if you can show actual harm that was caused by the alleged fraud by the individual, and you should find legal representation before taking any action.

What a country claims to be the case certainly doesn't guarantee what is the case. The constitution (at least as of 2012) of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (aka North Korea) says: Article 67. Citizens are guaranteed freedom of speech, the press, assembly, demonstration and association. The State shall guarantee the conditions for the free activities of democratic political parties and social organizations. Needless to say, North Korea is not generally considered a bastion of free speech. The People's Republic of China has a similar provision in its constitution. When we get to countries where those outside the country consider there to be some level of freedom of speech, there are still restrictions. In the UK, the Official Secrets Act makes it a crime for any person to republish leaked classified information. Germany makes it illegal to deny that the Holocaust happened. Until 2013, Canada made it illegal for a person to use telecommunications to say something that would expose people to hatred for some reason covered by antidiscrimination law. Many, many countries criminalize child pornography. Many, many countries have copyright laws. "Free speech" does not mean "you can say whatever you want and the government can't stop you." It means "as a general rule, the government can't restrict what you're saying because they don't like it." I am unaware of any country with a functional government with unfettered freedom of speech.

USA - City ordinance violation Suppose an individual had some rocks for landscaping dropped off at their house, and placed in the street in front of their house. Without any correspondence from the city on the issue, the city removed the rocks, paid to have them dumped as waste, and is now billing this hypothetical individual 200$. Suppose upon investigating the city code, it would seem these actions are not in line with how the process is supposed to take place; namely, they did not notify this hypothetical individual that it was an issue that needed to be addressed. Suppose this hypothetical city code is verbatim the code found here: http://4.17.232.139/vcode.asp?show=section&id=6145 or here, under Chapter 38: Section 81: Removal of Obstruction: http://www.cityblm.org/index.aspx?page=262 Also suppose the superintendent in charge of this particular branch of the city government, upon being spoken to, claimed the city acted properly, and was otherwise dismissive. What might one suppose would be the legal basis for challenging this decision? Is this a proper interpretation of these hypothetical city codes given this hypothetical circumstance? Thank you EDIT: for whatever reason this SE requires 50 rep to comment, so in reponse to user6727's answer: The city has the home-owner on file, they know where to send the water bill to; they even had the address on hand to send this fine to. Therefore, it would stand to reason that "they we're unable to contact" the responsible party would not be a very solid legal defense, no?

The ordinance is not very specific about how notice is to be given: therefore, it need not be in writing, and it need not be sent by mail. It would not be surprising if the "notification" came in the form of a city person inspecting the reported obstruction, walking up to the house and knocking and finding nobody home (thus triggering the "In case the owner cannot be found" condition), whereupon the city removes the rocks. That clause does not mean "In case we do not know who the owner is", it almost certainly means "in case the owner cannot be contacted immediately". Article III is in general about obstructions on streets, which are not allowed, except by permit in section 78 under "Permit to Obstruct Traffic Lane". Assuming that no obstruction permit was obtained, what usually happens is that an officer is sent to tell the owner to remove the obstruction (more or less immediately), and if nobody is at the site whom they can tell, they probably won't go any further (e.g. asking neighbors where the owner is). There is no legal definition of "reasonable time", instead the law simply takes that to mean "the amount of time a reasonable person would require". It would thus depend particularly on the size of the obstruction and the volume of traffic. One measure would be how quickly the rocks were moved -- if it was a matter of days and there was no notice, written or otherwise, then there would not be the kind of urgency that might justify the "We knocked and nobody was home" version of notification.

A reasonable hypothetical example of where your clause "C" would be applied: A defendant is written a citation for "spitting on the sidewalk," in violation of a hypothetical Portland city ordinance. In presenting extenuating details, the defendant indicates that the expectoration occurred because she had taken a bite of vended food that was belatedly discovered to have been infested with maggots. The notion of encountering rotted food would clearly not have been contemplated by the definition of the "spitting on the sidewalk" ordinance, where the notion of having a cheekful of chewing tobacco definitely would be.

Is this charge legal in Georgia? No. It seems unlawful. First, it appears that the landlord was negligent and failed to mitigate damages. Since in general utilities are billed monthly, it is unreasonable for the landlord to have waited this long for a $2 charge that occurred on the first day of your tenancy. Second, legislation typically sets a deadline for a landlord to send a former tenant an itemized bill to cover for damages other than normal tear and wear. According to O.C.G.A. § 44-7-34(a), that deadline in Georgia is 30 days. Whereas the $2 charge is right (at least from a moral standpoint, as you mention), the $50 surcharge is devoid of merit.

Does the town have any responsibility towards the direct and indirect damage done to these properties? What can be done to hold the town responsible for potentially lost property value, and direct property damage? Most claims are barred by some sort of governmental immunity and also face strict procedural hurdles, but it isn't impossible that the defectively installed storm drains could give rise to some liability for property damage if the suit were brought swiftly in the proper manner. Also, even if there is liability this will almost certainly not extend to lost property value, only to direct property damage, because while the direct property damage might be caused by something that the government has waived sovereign immunity for, the lost property value is almost entirely due to its discretionary regulatory decisions about land use and whether it should provide storm drainage at all. There are several potential theories of municipal liability that need to be considered. One is that the township has liability because it approved development that foreseeably caused this problem. This claim is probably without merit although there might be a claim against the homeowners who inadequately drained their properties in a way that impacted their neighbors. This is because land use regulation is a discretionary governmental action. A second is that the township has liability because it had a duty to an individual property own to provide adequate storm drainage and failed to do so. This claim is probably also without merit. This is also a discretionary governmental action and even if it was not, would not meet New York State's "special relationship" test set forth below. A third theory is that the township has liability because once it undertook to install storm drains the workmanship of the storm drains that it installed fell below the standard of reasonable care in workmanship that applies to all construction work that foreseeable causes injuries to persons or property. This is a much closer call and might prevail, although it would still be subject to the strict procedural limitations of the New York Court of Claims Act including a 90 day statute of limitations under Section 10(3) of the Act and a notice requirement. There would also be no right to a jury trial in the case. Once the storm drain is actually built, there is arguably a non-discretionary duty to build it in a workman-like manner and the location of the particular defective drain may trigger New York's "special relationship" test. Also, it might be possible to sue the private contractor that defectively installed the storm drain for the township. As explained in a July 8, 2014 article written by a lawyer in the New York City law department which is more or less identical in its sovereign immunity status to a New York State township: When municipalities are sued in tort, two of the most powerful bars to recovery are the public duty principle and the governmental function immunity defense. When these two principles are applicable, the City will not be made to pay compensation even if a City employee had been negligent and caused an injury. . . . An injured person alleging an injury caused by the City’s failure to perform a public duty cannot recover unless the injured person alleges and establishes, as an element of his or her claim, a special relationship by which the City assumed a specific duty with respect to the injured person. . . . the plaintiff, to present a prima facie case for recovery, must first successfully establish a special duty. If the plaintiff cannot get past the special duty hurdle, there is no need for the court to address the applicability of the governmental function immunity defense, which provides absolute immunity for discretionary determinations where discretion has been exercised. The often-repeated policy reason for limiting governmental tort liability is that government would not be financially viable if it were made the insurer of the safety of the public for injuries caused principally by third parties. Governmental entities could have a disincentive from providing important governmental services if they knew that doing so could seriously jeopardize the public treasury. The courts do not limit recovery, however, when a municipality acts in a proprietary capacity — when its activities essentially substituted for or supplemented those undertaken by a private enterprise, such as property ownership, operation of a motor vehicle, or providing hospital services. When a municipality acted in its governmental capacity, sovereign immunity historically protected the municipality against tort recovery by injured persons. That absolute protection against tort recovery lasted in New York until the State Legislature, in 1929, waived New York State’s sovereign immunity as part of the Court of Claims Act. Although the waiver by the State Legislature only mentioned the State of New York, the Court of Appeals in 1945, in Bernardine v. City of New York, 294 N.Y. 361 (1945), interpreted the waiver to apply as well to municipal entities like New York City. But as the Court of Appeals subsequently held, the waiver did not eliminate all governmental immunities or other bars to governmental liability. In the years since 1945, courts wrestled with sorting out when liability was appropriate and when it was not. For example, courts generally refused to hold municipal governments liable for failing to prevent fires or crime. Municipal governments undertake all sorts of public duties like police protection, fire protection, child protection, education, building inspections, and the like. Were a municipality liable every time a crime was committed that governmental actors had failed to prevent, or an inspector made a mistake, or a student was not sufficiently educated, it would be under a crushing financial burden that could result in bankruptcy. At the same time, courts created exceptions that allowed negligence claims to proceed even where municipalities performed quintessential governmental functions. Special duty was one such exception. Another exception allowed for liability where the governmental action was ministerial rather than discretionary. . . . In October 2011 the Court of Appeals [*ed. the highest court in the state of New York called a state supreme court in most other states] in Valdez v. City, 18 N.Y.3d 69 (2011) clarified 70 years of jurisprudence and articulated an analysis to be applied when considering whether an individual may sue a municipal government for negligent performance of, or failure to perform, governmental functions. The decision in Valdez must now be the starting point in analyzing liability in any negligence tort suit against the government or governmental actors. First, the Court of Appeals confirmed the basic tenet that although sovereign immunity was waived in the Court of Claims Act, tort liability will generally not attach to governmental entities or government employees performing governmental functions, regardless of whether the function is discretionary or ministerial. Where statutory or regulatory mandates require a government to act for the benefit of the public as a whole, the government and its actors cannot be sued for failing to provide or negligently providing such services. The Court articulated this principle as the “public duty” rule, not as “immunity.” In order to overcome the public duty bar, an individual as a threshold issue must show that there existed a special duty running in favor of the claimant as an individual. The Valdez Court held that for a litigant to proceed successfully with a tort suit against a municipality, a plaintiff must first plead a “special duty” running specifically to him or her. A special duty can be formed when a municipality or its employee: • violates a statutory duty enacted for the benefit of a particular class of persons; • assumes positive direction and control in the face of a known, blatant, and dangerous safety violation; or • voluntarily assumes a duty that generated justifiable reliance by the person through the employee’s actions or promises to the person. The Valdez Court also held that whether the facts are legally sufficient to establish a special duty is an objective question of law for the court. The Court of Appeals made clear, therefore, that special duty is neither an exception to immunity nor a defense, but instead is an initial and essential element of any tort claim against the government and governmental actors. The Court of Appeals also made clear that, even if a plaintiff succeeds in articulating a viable special duty, tort liability may still be barred by the “governmental function immunity defense.” Valdez, 18 N.Y.3d at 75-76. That defense shields governmental entities from liability for discretionary actions taken during the performance of governmental functions. This discretionary defense is qualified in that the municipality must establish that the governmental action related to the incident was both a discretionary one and that discretion was, in fact, exercised. A government employee’s failure to perform a ministerial action, on the other hand, may subject the government to liability if a special duty has been established. In late 2012 and mid-2013, the Court of Appeals issued two additional opinions which reconfirmed Valdez’s analysis of when the government may be sued in tort. In Metz v. State, 20 N.Y.3d 175 (2012), twenty people were killed and many others injured when a tour boat on Lake George capsized. Plaintiffs claimed that State inspectors had negligently inspected the vessel and had failed to exercise any discretion in fixing the number of passengers who could safely travel on the tour boat. They argued, therefore, that the State was not entitled to immunity for their actions. The Appellate Division, Third Department, ruled that the inspection function was governmental and found that plaintiffs had failed to establish a special duty. However, the Third Department went on to find a viable claim against the State because the State could not demonstrate that it exercised discretion in certifying the vessel as seaworthy. The Court of Appeals reversed and rejected the Third Department’s analysis. The Court, relying on Valdez, ruled that, since inspections are a governmental function, the Appellate Division’s analysis should have ended with the finding that plaintiffs had not established a special duty. Insofar as the plaintiffs did not and could not articulate a special duty, no liability could be imposed against the State and the nature of the governmental conduct – discretionary or ministerial – was not relevant. There was no reason to address the immunity defense since the plaintiff had not established the initial requirement of a special duty. In Applewhite v. City, 21 N.Y.3d 420 (2013), plaintiff, a 12-year-old child living at home and cared for by a private nurse, went into cardiac arrest after being administered certain medications. The plaintiff’s mother called 911 and an ambulance arrived within minutes. The plaintiff child and mother sued the nurse and the City, claiming that the child suffered severe brain damage as a result of negligent treatment at the scene. Plaintiffs argued that, although maintaining the 911 system and ambulance services are governmental functions, once the EMTs cross the threshold and tend to the patient, the function becomes a proprietary one. The City responded that the function continues as a governmental one and that no special duty was created. The Court of Appeals agreed with the City’s argument that the emergency rescue function is a governmental police protection function both before and after the emergency medical personnel arrived. Because these were governmental and public duties, the plaintiffs needed to articulate a special duty in order to state a viable tort claim. The Court then ruled that there existed a question of fact as to whether the City assumed a special duty under the unique circumstances of the case and remanded the case for trial. For litigants against the City, step one in developing a claim is to distinguish the City’s proprietary activities from the governmental. If proprietary, then there generally is no issue of a public duty bar and the claim may proceed. If the activity is governmental, however, the public duty bar must first be overcome. As an element of the plaintiff’s claim, the plaintiff must allege and establish the existence of a special duty. Assuming a plaintiff successfully overcomes the special duty hurdle, the government will still not be liable if the challenged conduct was discretionary and it exercised discretion. If plaintiff overcomes the public duty principle and the immunity bar, the plaintiff’s tort claim may then proceed.

The statement ABCGym refuses to refund payment it accepted for membership to a gym ABCGym closed. ABCGym has substituted an inferior-to-me option. could certainly be considered as defamatory. However, in the US and many other countries, truth would be a valid defense, if the person making the statement could prove that the statement is true. I don't see how it could be construed as solicitation. If worn on a shirt into ABC, the management could surely ask the wearer to remove it. If that request is refused, they could ask the wearer to leave. If the wearer has a valid membership, then it would depend on the exact terms of the membership contract, and provisions of local law, whether ABC could insist that the wearer leave, or have the wearer arrested for trespass should the wearer refuse. Any regulations incorporated by reference into the contract would also matter. At least in the US. walking back and forth on a public sidewalk just outside ABC's door, wearing such a shirt or carrying a classic picket sign with such a message would be pretty clearly legal, provided that others are not unduly obstructed, and no valid local ordinance is violated. In the wear-the-shirt-inside case, if the wearer refuses to remove the shirt or leave, the management would probably call law enforcement. LE will not want to decide whether wearer has the legal right to remain in the club wearing the shirt. They will probably ask the wearer to leave. If the wearer protests that s/he has a valid membership and thus a contractual right to stay, who knows what they would do. If they still ask the wearer to leave, the wearer would be wise to comply and perhaps take legal action to enforce his or her membership rights, which will depend on the contract details as mentioned above. A lawyer would probably be very helpful if the wearer wants to take that route. The wearer would be wise to remain polite and appear calm, not yelling or using epithets.

My guess is the answer to this question is going to be in your lease. You likely signed a lease that agreed that you would pay accept this practice and spelled out what ever rights you have to challenge the billings. My guess is they are as limited as the courts will allow in Florida. And the only way to ensure access to those records would be to get the court to compel they provide you with the records. Perusal of the Water codes in Florida does not appear to directly engage this practice(I could have missed it). However it appears that there is code regulating the management of electrical limits the billing to no more than the actual costs to the customer of record(probably your real estate management company.) According the the NCSL (This refers to electrical service. I am assuming there is similar language used elsewhere for plumbing, or that the intent of the law is uniformity of these codes in all utility billings. Where individual metering is not required and master metering is used in lieu thereof, reasonable apportionment methods, including submetering may be used by the customer of record or the owner of such facility solely for the purpose of allocating the cost of the electricity billed by the utility. The term “cost” as used herein means only those charges specifically authorized by the electric utility's tariff, including but not limited to the customer, energy, demand, fuel, conservation, capacity and environmental charges made by the electric utility plus applicable taxes and fees to the customer of record responsible for the master meter payments. The term does not include late payment charges, returned check charges, the cost of the customer-owned distribution system behind the master meter, the customer of record's cost of billing the individual units, and other such costs. Any fees or charges collected by a customer of record for electricity billed to the customer's account by the utility, whether based on the use of submetering or any other allocation method, shall be determined in a manner which reimburses the customer of record for no more than the customer's actual cost of electricity. Each utility shall develop a standard policy governing the provisions of submetering as provided for herein. Such policy shall be filed by each utility as part of its tariffs. The policy shall have uniform application and shall be nondiscriminatory (Fla. Administrative Code §25-6.049). Now here is where the 3rd party comes in. The 3rd party is the one levying fees for the management on your landlord. Granted if you follow the strings ill bet you find that the billing company is owned by the same company that owns your rental management firm. So your landlord can collect no more than what it costs to provide you with the service, but part of providing the service is employing this 3rd party utility management firm.

The potential problem is if there is a form which you had to sign which says "I am a US citizen", and you signed the form (who reads the fine print, anyhow?). Unfortunately, that statement is false, and there are consequences for making a false statement. However, that law penalizes false statements with the intent to deceive, not mistaken statements. Nevertheless, this is a matter that a professional really needs to deal with. If there was no form and they didn't verbally ask you to assert that you are a citizen, then there is less of a problem (for you), but still one needs to be extremely cautious in dealing with the court. [Addendum] It is highly likely that the form contained wording like "swear" or "certify" and mentions "perjury", so the error would be in the ballpark of perjury. Perjury is making "a false statement under oath or swears to the truth of a false statement previously made and the statement is required or authorized by law to be made under oath". Aggravated perjury is perjury which "is made during or in connection with an official proceeding and is material". The term "material" means "matters; is not inconsequential". The consequence of a non-citizen improperly serving on a jury is that a mistrial has occurred, which is not inconsequential. Aggravated felony is a third degree felony. The penal code says that An individual adjudged guilty of a felony of the third degree shall be punished by imprisonment in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for any term of not more than 10 years or less than 2 years. (b) In addition to imprisonment, an individual adjudged guilty of a felony of the third degree may be punished by a fine not to exceed $10,000. I must emphasize that an essential element is "intent to deceive and with knowledge of the statement's meaning", an element that cannot be present if there is no awareness of such a statement. Thus an innocent mistake could be legally excused. When you become aware that a statement made under oath was false (assuming such a statement was made), then in maintaining the falsehood, that would be intentional deceit. This is why it is necessary to consult with a lawyer. On the Houston form, you would have to check the "are a US citizen" box. The Fort Bend county form has you certify and sign on the front page: it does not require you to certify that you are a US citizen, only to certify (and sign) if you are not – so if you failed to read the back side, that isn't a literally false statement. I can't locate an online form for Tarrant county, so dunno if that out is available.

There is a saying that you can't sue city hall: that is applicable here. Governments enjoy sovereign immunity, and cannot be sued for their errors of judgment unless they specifically allow it. Safety regulations are an example of a situation where the government hold all of the power and shoulders none of the responsibility. If a government forbids sale or use of a substance on some grounds (could be safety, could be economic impact, could be something about preventing the moral decay of society), and the grounds later turns to be false, you cannot sue the government because of lost business opportunities. Generally speaking, that which is not prohibited is allowed, so there would have to be an affirmative duty for the government to prevent all forms of harm. If there were such a legal duty, there is a miniscule legal foundation for suing the government for shirking its duty. That is not a completely hypothetical possibility, in that the state of Washington imposes a constitutional duty on the legislature to provide public education, and the Supreme Court has done things to enforce this duty (the contempt of court fines are up in the realm of $80 million). Since there is no jurisdiction that imposes a duty on the government to absolutely prevent all harm, you won't be able to sue the government if they fail to outlaw a thing that is eventually proven to harm someone.

Someone owes money in Australia Someone owes money in Australia, Can I file case against that person? He owes more then $14K+ and he does say he will pay back, but he hasn't made any payment and does not attend calls anymore, it's been over year now.

Yes, the correct forum is the Local Court in the relevant state (in some states these are called Magistrate's Courts). The amount is too large ($10,000) to qualify as a small claim . If you want to do it yourself the court websites are very informative and in NSW, at least, the process can be initiated online including your paying for the Sheriff to serve the summons (they will not find the person, you have to give them an address). After being served they have 28 days to file a defence or you can get a default judgement and begin recovery. If they do file a defence then things will get more expensive. Of course, you may want to hire a local lawyer.

In Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski (2021), the US Supreme Court addressed a case that sought one dollar in nominal damages. I'm assuming you mean only claims involving money damages as a remedy, because there are many claims every year involving no literal money damages and the remedy sought is some other kind of relief (although such relief would still have practical or economic value).

Yes, in england-and-wales the Criminal Finances Act 2017 introduced 'Unexplained Wealth Orders', which compel the respondent to provide a statement: (a) setting out the nature and extent of the respondent’s interest in the property in respect of which the order is made, (b) explaining how the respondent obtained the property (including, in particular, how any costs incurred in obtaining it were met), (c) where the property is held by the trustees of a settlement, setting out such details of the settlement as may be specified in the order, and (d) setting out such other information in connection with the property as may be so specified. There a few requirements set out in section 362B, for example, the property must have value of over £50,000; there should be "reasonable grounds" for suspicion that the respondent would have been unable to obtain the property using their lawfully obtained income; the respondent or their connections must have either been involved in serious or organised crime, or be a politically exposed person, and so on. If the respondent refuses to make such a statement, the police may apply for a Civil Recovery Order to confiscate the property, with the property in question "presumed to be recoverable property" (section 362C(2)). Giving false information in such a statement is a criminal offence.

You will almost certainly be sued For a small amount like this they would use junior lawyers and while the suit may take a while I’d be surprised if a lawyer spent a week all up on such a simple case. Say 40h at $200 = $8,000 which, when they win, you have to pay. Bargain.

It seems that you have a valid contract and he has breached it. You could sue for the value of a year's hosting in a small claims court. Whether this is worth the effort ...

That's the entire point of a summary proceeding. You're allegedly found committing an offence, that isn't worth the court's time to hear but nevertheless requires some penalty. The only way to "unambiguously deny liability" is by requesting a hearing and denying liability in the notice of this. The court doesn't care what you say to everybody else, it cares what you say on its record. The reasoning is, if you're so sure you're not guilty of an offence, why haven't you sought to argue this in court? And if you weren't committing the offence, why did the informant serve the infringement notice in the first place? The act is not silent at all on this. If you don't request the hearing and serve such notice by the date required, you are liable to enforcement action - whether you deny liability out of court is irrelevant.

Yes. Usually a lawyer can charge until a court formally withdraws him from representing you in a case for representation in that case (even if a new lawyer has entered an appearance and you have fired him). A terminated lawyer, even after withdrawal, can also charge you for legal fees incurred to collect the lawyer's bill from you if the fee agreement allows him to do so. Many lawyers don't charge their clients for billing matters, but the law allows lawyers to charge clients for billing matters if their fee agreement says that they can. The post-termination charges you describe in the question sound like costs of collection of the bill, so they are legal if they are authorized by the fee agreement.

In the US, when a person has unpaid debts and dies, those debts are to be paid from any assets of the estate (as in, any assets). The executor has the responsibility to use those assets to pay the debts. Presumably the executor did that, and there are no co-signed accounts or anything like that, so your mother isn't responsible for these debts in some obscure way. The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act has a provision that you can tell a collection agency to stop communicating with you, and they must then stop communicating with you except to say they are stopping attempts to collect, to indicate possible remedies (i.e. lawsuits), or notify of an actual remedy (they have actually filed suit). Since they are no longer allowed to discuss anything with you once you give them the go-away notice, one should probably hire an attorney to exercise the nuclear option. You can also request proof that you owe the money: they are suppose to notify you of the right to dispute the debt with 5 days of first contact, which gives you 30 days to dispute the debt. Persuading a debt collector that they are pursuing the wrong person is probably easier than persuading a jury in a lawsuit.

Is a defense attorney required to report child abuse and violate attorney-client privilege? Say that a defense attorney is assigned to defend a client for some crime. They communicate with each other to discuss their defense, and their conversations are subject to attorney-client privilege. The confidentiality has consistently been upheld by courts. But what if at some point while working together, the attorney sees clear indications of child abuse. Or perhaps even the client flat out tells the attorney that they are abusing their child. This creates a conflict: the attorney is obliged to keep the information confidential and prove the client's innocence in the current case. Having this be reported will not only break that confidentiality, but also likely damage their client's character such that the case is much less likely to win. However, the safety of a child is at stake and inaction may have tragic consequences. Is the defense attorney required to report the child abuse and violate attorney-client privilege?

Attorneys’ Duty to Report Child Abuse addresses your question. Based solely on Rule 1.6(1) of the ABA's model rules (A lawyer may reveal information relating to the representation of a client to the extent the lawyer reasonably believes necessary to prevent reasonably certain death or substantial bodily harm...), some people read an exception to attorney-client privilege in the case of child abuse. Many states have mandatory reporting for people that become aware of child abuse. Some states make all people mandatory reporters. Others make only certain professions (e.g. teachers, firefighters, physicians, clergy, many others) mandatory reporters. Some of these states include attorneys as mandatory reporters. Some states that include attorneys as mandatory reporters allow for the attorney to invoke the attorney-client privilege as a reason to not report. The laws in each state as of 2004 are summarized in the table on pages 69-71 of the article. I'm not familiar with the law in every state today, but California's is not significantly different from 2004. Attorneys are not mandated reporters.

A self-represented person, as a practical matter, has no choice but to engage with the court when an oral argument is conducted. A person present in a courtroom likewise has an obligation to acknowledge a judge addressing them. Usually it wouldn't be contemptuous to fail to appear at oral arguments of a fully briefed matter (e.g. a motion for summary judgment, or an appeal), but it would generally be viewed negatively. One could respond to a question from the court with "I don't really have anything more to say, my brief speaks for itself." And, sometimes a court would leave it at that, but if the court insists there is really no other option than to clarify and explain yourself. Most often, this helps more than hurts a pro se party, although I've certainly seen cases with ghost written pleadings (which are authorized if disclosed in many jurisdictions) where this isn't the case. A fairly common tactic in civil litigation is the take a deposition of a party, or to call a party to the witness stand, and to ask them if they really want the relief that their filed legal documents says that they do, as a way to narrow the scope of the claims brought against the questioning lawyer's client. But, this is less of an issue with a pro se party when the person who drafted the legal documents and the person engaging in oral arguments are the same person. This can't be done in criminal litigation, but I could see a prosecutor trying to do something similar in oral argument, although usually in that context, the judge and not the prosecutor, is asking the questions.

Is it unethical to file a claim against an attorney who lied? No. It is actually encouraged if the claimant can submit proof of attorney's misconduct. The grievance is to be filed in the claimant's jurisdiction rather than with the American Bar Association. An attorney's lies may be severe enough to constitute fraud on the court and possibly warrant disbarment. See Matter of LaRosee, 122 N.J. 298, 311 (1991). The real question from a practical standpoint is whether the Disciplinary Review Board and related entities will follow through or be unduly lenient about that attorney's misconduct. What if the Judge ultimately rejected the attorney's claim? That does not reduce the impropriety of the attorney's misconduct. The so-called "zealousness" with which lawyers advance their clients' position does not justify indulging in dishonesty devised to result in miscarriage of justice. Is it wrong to bring it to the attention of the judge or do judges frown on such things (since the attorney is representing the other party)? No. Judges generally are not up-to-date about attorneys' misconduct. Putting them on notice might frustrate a crook's further attempts to mislead the court in that and other cases the judge presides. By not reporting a crook, the public remains exposed to risks from that lawyer's pattern of misconduct.

united-states In General In the U.S., the ethical rules contemplate circumstances in which a valid statute may authorize or require a lawyer to act in a manner contrary to the rules of professional ethics that generally apply to U.S. lawyers. But, the converse is not true. There are no circumstances under which the rules of ethics provide that violating the law is ethical. In particular, the rules of ethics for lawyers state that: A lawyer's conduct should conform to the requirements of the law, both in professional service to clients and in the lawyer's business and personal affairs. A lawyer should use the law's procedures only for legitimate purposes and not to harass or intimidate others. A lawyer should demonstrate respect for the legal system and for those who serve it, including judges, other lawyers and public officials. While it is a lawyer's duty, when necessary, to challenge the rectitude of official action, it is also a lawyer's duty to uphold legal process. A lawyer is required to vigorously represent their client's interests, but this is subject to the requirement that a lawyer not allow his or her services to be used to perpetrate a crime or a fraud. Threats Of Criminal Or Administrative Action The closest the rules of professional ethics come to something similar is the rule (which varies in detail from jurisdiction to jurisdiction that have this rule and is omitted from the ethical rules of some jurisdictions) is the prohibition as a matter of professional ethics, against threatening to bring criminal charges, or to seek ethical or administrative remedies, to gain advantage in a civil lawsuit. Colorado's rule on this issue is here, but this has been dropped from the Model Rules of Professional Conduct that the ABA recommends that all states adopt. Dealing With Misconduct By An Entity Client Another similar situation involves the protocols that a lawyer for a corporation or other entity that believes that the entity is acting or about to act unlawfully must follow. This basically involves trying to get the entity to change its conduct by all available means as opposed to going public as a whistle blower, and often forbids a lawyer from revealing his or her client's misconduct learned about in his or her capacity as an attorney for the entity (in cases involving misconduct not facilitated by the lawyer's own services). Duties That Don't Apply To Lawyers And, there are some duties that apply to the members of the general public, but do not apply to lawyers. No Duty To Report Past Client Crimes For example, there are certain crimes that, in some jurisdictions, there is a duty to report. But a lawyer does not have to report an already completed crime of a client that is disclosed to the lawyer in confidence. But this is really more a matter of the scope of the duty to report than it is of ethical rules authorizing a lawyer to violate the law. No Litigation Related Defamation Liability Another generally applicable law that does not apply to lawyers is the law of defamation in certain circumstances. Statements made by a lawyer in the course of representing a client in litigation or in anticipation of litigation are subject to a litigation privilege from defamation liability, although they could still be sanctioned by the court presiding over the case being litigated, or by the professional ethics authority for the jurisdiction, if the statements that would otherwise be actionable as defamatory violate ethical rules regarding public statements about litigation (also here). This litigation privilege was invented to prevent ordinary lawsuits from triggering satellite litigation in parallel cases over statements made by lawyers in the course of litigation, instead consolidating that authority in two sets of public officials (the presiding judge in the case and the ethics enforcement authority) that are not under the direct control of the litigants. It serves a purpose similar to the rule prohibiting threats to seek criminal or administrative sanctions for the purpose of gaining advantage in a civil case. Not All Violations Of The Law Are Ethical Violations Also, there are violations of the law which are not violations of a lawyer's professional ethics - for example, failing to pay a personal credit card bill, or speeding, or parking illegally. But this is simply because there is not an ethical rule that expressly says "it is unethical to ever violate any law", not because there is an ethical rule that states something along the lines of the means justifies the ends in some circumstances. But it is also the case that some violations of the law by an attorney unrelated to the practice of law itself are still considered ethical violations, for example, if it "reflects adversely on the lawyer's honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer in other respects." (Sometimes this is referred to as the "officer and a gentleman clause" in reference to a Uniform Coded of Military Justice prohibition that is similar in character). Fiduciary Duties To Put A Client Above Oneself Beyond the formal ethical rules for lawyers, lawyers are also fiduciaries for their clients. Fiduciaries are generally required to put their client's interests above their own. So, for example, suppose that a client will lose his claim if a lawsuit is not filed by the statute of limitations, and the lawyer will violate the law by failing to file his tax return on time which is due with no further extensions on the same date as the statute of limitations, and the lawyer has the ability to do one or the other but not both. A lawyer's fiduciary duty to his client would probably require him to file the lawsuit for the client, even though this would mean that the lawyer would necessarily violate tax laws by not filing his own personal tax return on time. But again, that is more like guidance in a trolley problem that arises for no fault of the lawyer's own, and less like a justification for breaking the law. The lawyer's failure to file his taxes on time is not justified or excused by his fiduciary duty to his client, it is simply a matter of choosing to avoid harm to client over avoiding harm to himself or herself when the conflict arises from the lawyer's arguably unethical procrastination (another professional ethical obligation of an attorney is a duty of diligence in work for clients, at least). Situations When The Law Is Unclear Another issue that comes up is that the law is often not perfectly clear. This is why we have lawyers at all. Legal ethics somewhat address the situation in which some official has declared that certain actions are illegal or are required, but the lawyer, on behalf of a client, defies the order because it is believed to be unlawful. There are some circumstances where it is permissible to do this (e.g. an unlawful order from a law enforcement officer), and there are other circumstances where it is not (e.g., an incorrectly decided preliminary injunction entered by a judge. that is being appealed). But in all cases, once the law has been determined as applied to a particular case finally and beyond further opportunities to dispute that decision, a lawyer must comply. For example, the ethical rules for lawyers provide almost universally in the U.S. that a "lawyer shall not counsel a client to engage, or assist a client, in conduct that the lawyer knows is criminal or fraudulent, but a lawyer may discuss the legal consequences of any proposed course of conduct with a client and may counsel or assist a client to make a good faith effort to determine the validity, scope, meaning or application of the law."

canada The Supreme Court has said (Descôteaux et al. v. Mierzwinski, [1982] 1 SCR 860): In summary, a lawyer’s client is entitled to have all communications made with a view to obtaining legal advice kept confidential. Whether communications are made to the lawyer himself or to employees, and whether they deal with matters of an administrative nature such as financial means or with the actual nature of the legal problem, all information which a person must provide in order to obtain legal advice and which is given in confidence for that purpose enjoys the privileges attached to confidentiality. This confidentiality attaches to all communications made within the framework of the solicitor-client relationship, which arises as soon as the potential client takes the first steps, and consequently even before the formal retainer is established. While the judgment somewhat conflates the terminology of confidentiality and privilege, these are distinct concepts. Privilege is the right of the client. It is a rule of evidence and has a constitutional dimension that protects against state intrusion. The duty of confidentiality is imposed on practitioners by law society rules. Descôteaux was in context clearly speaking about privilege and has been cited for this point related to privilege in many subsequent cases. See e.g. Maranda v. Richer, 2003 SCC 67 at para. 22.

Defamation requires communication to a third-party I can say (or write) anything I want about a person directly to that person and, unless it is a threat, they have no recourse at all. I can call them a liar, a thief, a Nazi, or a goat fornicator. Of course, I have to be careful – calling them a “bastard” might be a slur on their mother communicated to a third-party (them) which would give her a right to sue although that would require a literal and largely archaic use of the term. That said, you do need to check with your lawyer if you can redact names in the face of a subpoena - complying with a legal obligations is a legitimate use of personal data under GDPR.

Attorney-Client privilege is a one-way duty: The Attorney has to maintain protected information in confidence. It's a professional duty supported in law. There is no corresponding duty for the Client to maintain anything in confidence. The client can waive the privilege at will. Some sample limitations to waivers are governed by Federal Rule Evidence 502. (Granted, in this scenario the concerned board member may be bound by some confidentiality agreement or fiduciary obligation as a consequence of service on the board, or membership in the association, but that's a different matter.) The ABA points out , in its article "How to Lose Attorney-Client Privilege" that: Either voluntary or inadvertent disclosure to outside or non-covered recipients, professional advisors outside the privilege, and experts and consultants, can result in waiver as a matter of law. In this "Ten Things" article the author points out: Business advice, however, is never privileged and – for in-house counsel in particular – the line between the two can appear blurry. ... If a document that is otherwise privileged is shared with third parties, then the privilege is lost. ... A common misperception among the business is that all confidential information is privileged or if they label the communication as privileged they can keep the documents out of the hands of third parties. As we’ve seen, this is not correct and the fact that there is a non-disclosure agreement or other type of confidentiality agreement in place will not make a document privileged nor will it preserve the privilege if it is disclosed to a third party.

Is it acceptable for person A (representing themselves) to refer to person B as "their neighbor" instead of by their name, or would that cause the suit to be dismissed? Omitting the neighbor's name in the pleadings & proceedings cannot singlehandedly cause the dismissal of a defamation suit. The matter would result in dismissal only if the plaintiff repeatedly disobeys court order(s) (if any) to disclose that information. Before the proceedings get to that point, the plaintiff will have had one or more hearings to dispute the defendant's alleged need for identifying a non-party by name. When opposing to that disclosure, the plaintiff's goal is to establish that the false narrative about robbing a neighbor at gunpoint is defamatory regardless of neighbor's name. Keep in mind that the focus in a claim of defamation is the defamed person, whereas the relevance of details such as who the non-parties are pertains to context and evidence. Lastly, the fact that a party to the suit is a pro se litigant is irrelevant from both substantial and procedural standpoints.

Does using Java or Mono open me up to the possibility of being sued by Oracle or Microsoft? Given the recent lawsuit between Google and Oracle due to Oracle's claims of the unfair usage of the Java API's in Android. I have a large amount of Java and C# code for certain back end processes on my systems and on my phone (Android). I am about to extend some of my code to Raspberry PI and other micro / SOC devices. I do no plan on selling my code etc... But this might become a group project at some point. Because I am using Java for these projects and the code is running on my mobile devices and other devices (SOC that might be using Java ME), can I get sued or in trouble in anyway according to the Java license on fair use an use for commercial use? Now on to the second question: If I am doing all of this in C# using the Mono Framework, can I be sued by Microsoft for using the frame for commercial use etc? The third question: According to each one's license, which one is more open source and has less patents? *** Note: Commercial use in this case might be something in the line of running a website / Cloud platform or installing the systems etc... and making revenue from that.

The Oracle Binary Code License Agreement for the Java SE Platform Products and JavaFX writes: LICENSE TO USE. Subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement including, but not limited to, the Java Technology Restrictions of the Supplemental License Terms, Oracle grants you a non-exclusive, non-transferable, limited license without license fees to reproduce and use internally the Software complete and unmodified for the sole purpose of running Programs. THE LICENSE SET FORTH IN THIS SECTION 2 DOES NOT EXTEND TO THE COMMERCIAL FEATURES. YOUR RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS RELATED TO THE COMMERCIAL FEATURES ARE AS SET FORTH IN THE SUPPLEMENTAL TERMS ALONG WITH ADDITIONAL LICENSES FOR DEVELOPERS AND PUBLISHERS. That is, Oracle is giving you permission to use Java for running any program, commercial or otherwise. Google vs. Oracle is not about calling the Java API, but reimplementing it on a new platform. Every computer program runs the risk of violating a third party's patents. That does not depend on the the programming language. Which is more "open source" is not clear cut, it depends on the particular JVM or CLR implementation in question. Mono is open source under the MIT licence, OpenJDK open source under the GPL v2 (with classpath extension).

Bulgaria is one of many countries in which intellectual property can be protected with a single international patent filing, in lieu of a Bulgarian specific filing. In generally, you should assume that any patented idea likely to have international application, such as Internet based software, which is patented in the U.S. is also the subject of international patent protection, unless you specifically know that this is not the case. Virtually all patent lawyers know how to make this filing and most would recommend doing so in this case. So, yes, it is something you should worry about, and the better practice, by far, would be to obtain permission from the patent owner if the app is likely to have any meaningful commercial value. Now, if you were sued, there is a good chance that it would be in Bulgarian courts under Bulgarian patent law, which may be somewhat less harsh in some respects like damages awards than U.S. patent law. But, the basis for patent liability for an infringement in Bulgaria would be very similar.

Germany may be different, however in the United States this would be considered work-for-hire and the employer would be the rightful owner of the source code. Regardless of jurisdiction, and from a more practical point of view, you are better off not having a copy of the source code. Using it as reference or example in the future could easily turn into (unintentional) copyright infringement. If, in the future, you write code you would like to be able to freely keep and reuse in any project, make sure the owner/employer licenses it using something like the BSD, MIT, or ISC license.

The problem is that open source licenses incl AGPL have legal force because copyright prevents copying + modifying software by default (software is treated as a “literary work” and therefore enjoys copyright protection). But copyright on datasets and ML models is very different – if it is even recognized at all. Thus, similar copyleft techniques would only work in particular jurisdictions. For example, the EU recognizes “database rights”. A copyleft license that accounts for this is CC-BY-SA-4.0, meaning that in an EU context, databases based on the original database would have to use the same license. However, database rights are not recognized in the US (facts are not copyrightable, and the “sweat of the brow” doctrine is not recognized). Thus, the CC-BY-SA-4.0 license would not have any copyleft effect with respect to databases in an US context. Independently of copyright in the database as a whole, the data in the database might be copyrighted material, for example if the database contains text or images, complicating matters further. Machine learning models derived from a data set are much more difficult. Clearly, ML models that have been trained are not a creative work and are therefore not eligible for independent copyright protection. At most, it can be argued that the model is an automatically transformed version of the input data, so that copyright in the input data implies copyright in the model.1 Perhaps hyperparameter choices could reflect some creative input. This is very much an active topic of debate. Given this uncertainty, it would be impossible to create a public license that works reliably. 1. An interesting discussion topic is the potential effect on Microsoft's Copilot ML model which was also trained on GPL-licensed source code. Instead of deriving force from copyright law, it would be possible to impose conditions via a contract, i.e. EULA-like terms that only provide access to the material after the terms have been accepted. But again, this is difficult. Contract law differs wildly between jurisdictions. For example, a contract is defined by the “meeting of minds” in some jurisdictions; by offer, acceptance, and consideration in others. But how does such a contract ensure appropriate consideration? How can acceptance be ensured if the material is publicly available? For these reasons, I think that unless broad international agreement emerges about IP protections for machine learning models, such a copyleft system for ML models is impossible. It is worth noting that the lack of such protections is probably quite good for innovation and research, since researchers are free to improve each other's work without legal concerns. The idea of copyleft is a hack to subvert the “everything is forbidden by default” system of copyright, but “everything is allowed by default” might be better.2 2. To continue the Microsoft Copilot example: some copyleft advocates like Bradley M Kuhn are sceptical about Copilot's GPL compliance, but remind us that copyleft maximalism means copyright maximalism, and that this is not the goal of open source. https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2022/feb/03/github-copilot-copyleft-gpl/

You are free to sell or not to sell to whoever you like (unless it is illegal discrimination, like not selling to white Christians), but it doesn't make a difference, because anyone who buys the software from you can legally sell it on to anyone they want. So you cannot control who ends up owning the software. If I want the software and you don't sell it to me, and I still want it, I'll just ask a friend to buy it and give them the money. Other people would just get a pirated copy if you refuse to sell to them (and would have very little bad conscience since they offered you cash and you refused to take it). You can put terms into a license, and in the USA this is binding. The customer may not agree with the license, and in that case they have the right to get a refund for the software. In the EU, I don't think a license is binding, so you'd have to sign a legally binding contract with the buyer. Apart from all that, you have very little chance to find out if the software is used against your wishes and to do anything about it.

Yes, in a sense. One patent is US 7444589 Automated patent office documentation by AT&T. Another is US 6434580B1 System, method, and recording medium for drafting and preparing patent specifications from NEC. In most locations patents on a business method are not allowed but, although controversial, they are allowed in the U.S. Of course the fundamental requirement for patentablity is to be new. Since patenting itself is very old any patent on the topic would need to cover some narrow aspect, like the AT&T and NEC patents. I do not understand the assumption that such a patent would necessarily be licensed freely.

You can't patent an algorithm, but I'll assume you are talking about the case where you have patented a machine or process that uses an algorithm, but that adds significantly more, and that the software being distributed implements much of this process. Courts might find an implied licence or promissory estoppel when distributing software under an open source licence that doesn't explicitly exclude patent licencing as part of its terms. It would be prudent to state your patent rights and explicitly exclude a patent licence if you intend to enforce your patent rights. As an example, this software implicates a patent , so they allow "permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its documentation for educational, research, and non-commercial" purposes. Users that want to use the software commercially need to contact the authors who also happen to be the patent owners, and I assume would negotiate a patent licence at that point.

This is unlikely to be a problem. There are many companies that have already registered software-related trademarks prominently involving an X or the name Xcom. That Twitter has changed to X branding does not substantially change this general situation. With trademarks, the general question is whether similar branding causes confusion. It is unlikely that someone would confuse the X display server / X.Org project / X.Org Foundation with the social media service now being branded as X or x.com. Of course, anyone can sue anyone, the real question is whether that's possible successfully. Here, I have my doubts that x.com could successfully demonstrate confusion in its favour. It is worth noting that the X.Org Foundation does not seem to hold any relevant trademark registrations at all. This is not unusual for Open Source software projects and doesn't mean that X.Org has no rights, but does make a defense a bit more difficult. However, there also doesn't seem to be a relevant registration by the ex-Twitter company or by the X Corp. The x.org domain name is unlikely to be threatened. If the x.org domain name was being used in bad faith it could maybe be seized, but the X.Org Foundation has a pretty strong claim on this name. For historical context, both x.com and x.org were among the six single-letter .org/.net/.com domain names when such registrations were stopped in 1993. But while x.com has been pretty much dormant since that company was renamed to PayPal, x.org has (I think) always been associated with the display server software, and has been used continuously by the X.Org Foundation since its establishment in 2004.

Copyright of the world described in the novells "A Song of Ice and Fire" I want to create from scratch a map that resembles the world described in the novells "A Song of Ice and Fire". My map will have a similar coastline and will use some of the names of the places from the books. Am I legally allowed to do that? Are there some restrictions to what I can do with this map (e.g. share it for non-profit purposes)? EDIT I have seen the map a while ago in a web site and I am recreating it from memory.

That would be pretty much a classical case of copyright infringement. Drawing a thing from memory is copying just as much as drawing a thing with the original before you or xeroxing a thing. The degree of match between the original and your copy may vary depending on how good your memory is, but that doesn't matter, because copyright protection is not about "making exact replicas", it is about copying in any form.

It is legsl to include references showing readers where facts you include in your article were derived, or where they can be supported. Indeed academic ethics generally require doing so, although there is (in most cases) no legal requirement to do so. Listing the title, author, and publication information of a source is not an infringement of copyright. That J. Jones published an article on "How to Find the Purple Moth" [imaginary example] in volume 28 of the Journal of Moth Science is a fact.Facts are never protected by copyright. Indeed in US law 17 USC 102(b) provides that: b) In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work. The laws of other countries are similar on this point. Indeed I do not know of any country in which facts are protected by copyright. So, including such references is fully legal, and no permission from the sources being cited is required. This is true whatever form the reference takes. In particular, if an online address for the content is included, this is still true. I do not know whether Medium, or any other specific publishing platform, will pat fees to authors based on clik-thru from such citations. That depends on their particular policies, which might be found in their Terms of Service or other policy document.

Under US copyright law, all works are protected by copyright except for US Government works. The concept of "public domain" is not legally well-defined, and is used colloquially to refer to government works, works whose protection has expired, works available to all, and works not copyrightable (such as scientific laws or old software). Under older copyright law, releasing a work without the copyright symbol effectively put the work in the public domain. One can simply say "I dedicate this work to the public domain", and that is typically taken to be enough. CC0 purports to do this (using more words). However, as far as I can tell, author rights under European law are so strong that it is simply impossible. Releasing works into the public law has to be consistent with other aspects of the law. If you grant an perpetual exclusive right to copy and distribute to a publisher, their right does not go away on your death (a right which they would not have with a real public domain work). A problem is that an author who makes such a dedication (a bare license) could revoke the license and reassert their copyright. They could be estopped from making that argument. As property, your heirs would inherit the copyright and could (try to) revoke the license. Presumably the courts would not allow them to pursue ostensive infringers. Nevertheless, your plan is neither trivial nor bullet-proof.

Yes, such a site can be created without infringing copyright Facts about the game are facts.They are not protected by copyright. Criticism of, and comment about the game, is an activity protected by the US First Amendment. Making such comments is very likely to be fair use under US copyright law. In general the author of a work, such as a book or a game, or the maker of a product, has no right to grant or withhold permission to discuss or comment on the work. This is true not only under US law, but also in the law of most countries (perhaps of all countries). The name of the game might well be protected as a trademark. But that does not allow the trademark owner to prevent discussion of the game, clearly identified by the name of of the game. As long as nothing is being sold or rented, or advertised for sale or rental under that name, and there is no attempt to claim that the site is sponsored or approved by the trademark owner, and there is no likelihood of confusion, there is no trademark infringement. This is true under US law, and under the trademark laws of most other countries. A wiki is a specific technology. It can be used for community discussion, or for a company's internal documentation, or for any of many other purposes. Wikipedia has popularized this technology. Not all community discussion sites are wikis, however, nor are all wikis for community discussion. Just as not all novels are books printed on paper, and not all books are novels. In any case, setting up a wiki about a topic such as a game, a movie, or a novel does not require permission from the owner or creator of the game or of any trademarks associated with the game or work. The same would be true for a discussion forum about such a game or work that is not a wiki. If a wiki uses excessive quotes from game dialog, or uses the game's logo without permission, or reproduces other game assets, such as character art, maps, and the like without permission, that might be copyright infringement.

It's allowed by the Creative Commons Attribution -ShareAlike license, and intentionally so. The Wikimedia Foundation wants things like this to be possible; that is part of the goal of open content. (This license is also used on Stack Exchange content, so the same applies to e.g. this answer.) However, it is important to remember that this is not a public-domain equivalent license. If you copy from a Wikipedia article (or an SE post), you must comply with the "Attribution" and "ShareAlike" requirements. Attribution: You must give credit to the author. For Wikipedia articles, which typically have many authors, a link to the page is sufficient; editors agree to this in addition to the license when they save their edits. For Stack Exchange content, a link to the post itself should be enough. (To get a link to a post, click the "share" link below the post.) ShareAlike: If you modify the content, you must release your modified version under the same or a compatible license. You can't copy this answer, add more information (or translate it into another language, or make any other change), and keep an all-rights-reserved copyright on it, or release it into the public domain; your version must also be released under CC BY-SA. As long as you follow these requirements, copying is allowed and encouraged.

The creator of the derivative work has copyright in the derivative work. The copyright would protect only the new elements of the derivative work. Wikipedia is a good place to start. In the case of a book with updated grammar, depending on the extent of the changes, it would probably be easier to copy the original directly than to eliminate the updates from a copy of the derivative work.

Wikipedia and you likely have no contract. If you don't have to click "I agree" to access the data, its likely there is no contract. Therefore this is a pure IP law question. The ONLY IP law issue that I see is copyright. The DATA is not subject to copyright. Only the expression of that data. So copying the html and selling that IS potential copyright infringement. Copying the data in some other format and using that is not. Finally, even if you do copy the full html (i.e. full expression), this MAY be licensed by their terms of use (as you suggested they have licensed some content). That is a more particularized legal question that I can't answer here.

No The Berne Convention requires member states to afford copyright protection equal to their own to works from other member states. A work first published only in non-member state(s) and by citizen(s) of non-member state(s) is not required to be given such protection but such protection is not prohibited either. A work can not acquire copyright retrospectively if it didn’t have it on creation.

Can a civilian lawfully use deadly force against bank robbers in California? Assume a bank robbery with one or more armed gunmen, in the City of Los Angeles, such as occur in movies or real life, who arrive yelling demands and brandishing firearms at victims but have not shot anyone. In fact, the robber(s) initially announce that "no one will be harmed if everyone cooperates". Obviously, any number of bad things could happen to innocent victims if some self-appointed vigilante assaults a robber, takes a robber's gun, or opens fire with their own weapon, say, from a cracked restroom door, or some other position where the advantage of surprise might exist. Or, they could be the hero of the day. To be clear, this question is limited to the case where the bank robbers have not physically harmed anyone at the moment the heroic civilian decides to be the first to initiate deadly combat. This civilian is not acting out of fear for himself or the lives of others, but simply believes they stand a decent chance of ending the robbery through superior position, tactics, or knowledge of deadly force or perhaps is hyped up on adrenaline and simply wants to "spin the wheel". How does the modern legal system deal with such a person? Note: The question is hypothetical, and I am not currently in California. There are a number of bank robberies there, so precedents may exist in case law.

In California (as in all states) there is a justifiable homicide defense which might be used in such a situation. For the force to be justified, you have to reasonably believe you are in danger of being harmed, that you need to use force to avoid the harm, and you may only use the minimum force necessary to eliminate the threat. It then is a matter for the jury to decide whether those principles were followed in your particular instance. The reason why it's hard to predict the outcome is that it depends on a subjective evaluation by the jury, as to whether the shooter had a reasonable fear and whether lesser force was a viable option. The jury's decision is guided by instructions to the jury (#506, #506) which focus on relevant distinctions. The jury will be told that "Belief in future harm is not sufficient, no matter how great or how likely the harm is believed to be", and that you have to reasonably believe there is "imminent danger of great bodily injury". My evaluation is that that does not describe the scenario in the question. There is some possibility of future harm... but not imminent harm. People v. Ceballos (1974) 12 Cal.3d 470" states that "the rule developed at common law that killing or use of deadly force to prevent a felony was justified only if the offense was a forcible and atrocious crime" and "Examples of forcible and atrocious crimes are murder, mayhem, rape and robbery", and that could support application of a justifiable homicide defense in a bank robbery. But in the present instance, the bank is being robbed and the shooter is a by-stander. Despite all of the bank robberies in California, there is no relevant case from which one could draw an analogy.

He would be thanked and sent on his way. We don't generally punish people for preventing murders, even if they are rogue cops or soldiers. If you wanted him to plausibly land in legal peril, he'd probably need to do more than simply save someone's life. The most obvious possibility, I think, would be if he were to continue inflicting harm on the attacker after cuffing him. At that point, there's probably no justification for a continued use of force, so he could face assault charges there. Also possible would be that the way he handled the situation -- the amount of force he used, the failure to de-escalate, failing to call for assistance -- just violates some police or military policy. I don't know if that would jam him up in the way you're looking for, though.

Despite comments in the Reddit thread you linked, I doubt it's the law in any US state, but it would be matter of policy in any state and in many other countries as well. It's not the emergency medical personnel's job, whether EMTs, paramedics or firefighters, to risk their lives giving emergency aid while a dangerous armed criminal is potentially in the area running around free. Instead they will wait for the police to let them know the area is clear and safe for them to do their job. It's easy to say that since the neighbours were giving aid, the EMTs should have been able to as well, but the EMTs wouldn't have seen the person armed with the knife leave the house and wouldn't have known that neighbours weren't themselves the ones who stabbed the victim. The neighbours also probably didn't fully appreciate the risk they were taking, that the "perp" could come back into the house at anytime. The EMTs on other hand would've heard plenty of horror stories about what has happened to EMTs that haven't waited for police to clear the scene. In other words, this could have happened in any US state, Canada, and in many other countries.

In the US, it depends on the jurisdiction because each state has its own homicide statutes: but, the defining elements don't differ a lot. Drawing on Washington state law, the first question is whether you intended to kill a person (it doesn't have to be a specific person). If you did, you have committed first-degree murder. It is first-degree murder, because it requires a certain amount of advance planning to kill with a drone. It does not matter that the drone houses the gun that killed the person and a program determines when the gun fires (the "it was the drone, not me" defense gets you nowhere: otherwise, you could always claim "It wasn't me, it was my gun / knife / fist".) If instead this is a badly-designed pig-slaughtering drone, then it could be manslaughter in the first degree, if the act was reckless, or manslaughter in the second degree, if the act was with criminal negligence. To determine which it is, you look at the definitions: A person is reckless or acts recklessly when he or she knows of and disregards a substantial risk that a wrongful act may occur and his or her disregard of such substantial risk is a gross deviation from conduct that a reasonable person would exercise in the same situation. versus A person is criminally negligent or acts with criminal negligence when he or she fails to be aware of a substantial risk that a wrongful act may occur and his or her failure to be aware of such substantial risk constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would exercise in the same situation. So it would depend on whether you decided that safeguards which would prevent shooting people were too much bother (you know there is a risk and set aside that concern), or it didn't occur to you that a flying gun might hurt a person.

Is a robbery that includes smashing a car window with the driver inside considered a non-violent property crime? Robbery is classified as a violent crime. Whether or not this fact pattern would count as robbery as opposed to burglary or theft and vandalism would depends upon California's penal statutes. Burglary is sometimes considered a violent crime (e.g. an armed home invasion burglary) and sometimes not considered a violent crime (e.g. an unarmed theft from an unoccupied residence). Theft is generally not considered a violent crime and if small in amount may not even be a felony. So is vandalism (i.e. the malicious destruction of property, rather than the taking of it). Robbery is defined in California Penal Code § 211 as "the felonious taking of personal property in the possession of another, from his person or immediate presence, and against his will, accomplished by means of force or fear." There is a very solid argument that this fact pattern constitutes robbery, a violent crime, under California law, but it could be argued either way. The close issues would be "immediate presence" and "by means of force or fear" (which by implication mean force or fear directed at persons rather than things). The OP fact pattern is probably not burglary under California Penal Code § 459 because while theft from a car can be burglary when someone is living in the car, this does not appear to be the case here. So, if a jury did not find that this constituted robbery, it would probably be the crime of theft (for the things taken) and vandalism (for the damage to the car windows), both of which are property crime misdemeanors. If the cars were unoccupied, this would clearly be merely theft. If the police witnesses such a robbery does it have the duty to intervene? No. The leading case for U.S. Constitutional law is Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748 (2005). I am not aware of any California law to the contrary. Failure to intervene might be grounds for the chief of police to fire them, but it is not a crime and not a basis for a lawsuit against anyone. The police have effectively absolute discretion to refrain from enforcing the law. Is it true that if the victim fights back in such situation and injures the assailant the robbery victim may be prosecuted for using violence against the robber? No. A victim may use reasonably necessary force in self-defense, so long as the situation continues to be a self-defense situation. Usually, deadly force would be justified in self-defense or defense of others from a violent robbery, although a jury would have to determine that the use of force was actually necessary or that the threatened crime was actually a genuine threat, according to the statutory standard for self-defense and defense of others. The relevant statutes include California Penal Code § 197 which provides in pertinent part that: (1) When resisting any attempt to murder any person, or to commit a felony, or to do some great bodily injury upon any person. (2) When committed in defense of habitation, property, or person, against one who manifestly intends or endeavors, by violence or surprise, to commit a felony, or against one who manifestly intends and endeavors, in a violent, riotous, or tumultuous manner, to enter the habitation of another for the purpose of offering violence to any person therein. (3) When committed in the lawful defense of such person, or of a spouse, parent, child, master, mistress, or servant of such person, when there is reasonable ground to apprehend a design to commit a felony or to do some great bodily injury, and imminent danger of such design being accomplished; but such person, or the person in whose behalf the defense was made, if he or she was the assailant or engaged in mutual combat, must really and in good faith have endeavored to decline any further struggle before the homicide was committed. But, the circumstances under which force can be used to arrest or stop a fleeing criminal are much more narrow, particularly in the case of a citizen's arrest as opposed to an arrest made by law enforcement. The U.S. Supreme Court case of Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1 (1985) narrows the scope of the lawful use of force in these circumstances beyond what California's statutes authorize on their face. For example, suppose the robber threatens you with a knife unless you give him his wallet. You or a bystander could probably lawfully shoot him at that point to prevent the robbery. But, suppose that at that point, the robber tosses the knife on the sidewalk and runs away. If someone shot the robber in the back to stop him from fleeing (unaware of any other crimes that the robber may have committed and unaware of any other weapons that the robber may have), the person shooting the robber would be guilty of aggravated assault if the robber lived, and of manslaughter or murder, if the robber died. The facts in this case are a bit muddy on whether self-defense should have been available or not, and different hypothetical uses of force could come out different ways within this fact pattern.

This is the Texas law pertaining to self defense, which says that "a person is justified in using force against another when and to the degree the actor reasonably believes the force is immediately necessary to protect the actor against the other's use or attempted use of unlawful force". Relatively little of the law pertains to firearms, and none of it restricts the right to self-defense based on whether you are a resident, or you are using your own firearm vs. a borrowed one. The one provision, subsection (b)(5), that refers to firearms is an exception whereby force is not justified, namely if the actor sought an explanation from or discussion with the other person concerning the actor's differences with the other person while the actor was: (A) carrying a weapon in violation of Section 46.02; or (B) possessing or transporting a weapon in violation of Section 46.05. (Sect. 46.02 is about conditions unlawful carrying of weapons, which covers such things as under-age carrying of certain knives, or not having control of your weapon, or being a felon in possession, etc. 46.05 is about machine guns, explosives, zip guns etc.) Deadly force is covered by a separate section, 9.32, adding the requirement that the actor "reasonably believe[] the deadly force [to be] immediately necessary". (A) to protect the actor against the other's use or attempted use of unlawful deadly force; or (B) to prevent the other's imminent commission of aggravated kidnapping, murder, sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault, robbery, or aggravated robbery. Note that "deadly force" is defined as "force that is intended or known by the actor to cause, or in the manner of its use or intended use is capable of causing, death or serious bodily injury". Sec. 9.33 likewise allows deadly force to be used analogously in defense of a third person, and intreestingly, in 9.34(b), "A person is justified in using both force and deadly force against another when and to the degree he reasonably believes the force or deadly force is immediately necessary to preserve the other's life in an emergency". In addition, deadly force can be justified in defense of property, per sec. 9.41, if you "reasonably believe[] the force [to be] immediately necessary to prevent or terminate the other's trespass on the land or unlawful interference with the property", and you may also use force to recover or re-enter the property (as long as the force is used "immediately or in fresh pursuit after the dispossession", and "the actor reasonably believes the other had no claim of right when he dispossessed the actor; or the other accomplished the dispossession by using force, threat, or fraud against the actor"). Sec. 9.42 then provides the possibility of justified use of deadly force in protection of property, if the force is immediately necessary (A) to prevent the other's imminent commission of arson, burglary, robbery, aggravated robbery, theft during the nighttime, or criminal mischief during the nighttime; or (B) to prevent the other who is fleeing immediately after committing burglary, robbery, aggravated robbery, or theft during the nighttime from escaping with the property; and (3) he reasonably believes that: (A) the land or property cannot be protected or recovered by any other means; or (B) the use of force other than deadly force to protect or recover the land or property would expose the actor or another to a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury. The short version is, if deadly force is justified in the particular circumstances, then deadly force with a borrowed weapon is justified. However, there are federal laws regarding non-resident aliens possessing firearms. 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(5)(B) says that It shall be unlawful for any person...who, being an alien (A) is illegally or unlawfully in the United States; or (B) except as provided in subsection (y)(2), has been admitted to the United States under a nonimmigrant visa (as that term is defined in section 101(a)(26) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(26)))...to ship or transport in interstate or foreign commerce, or possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition; or to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce Under subsection (y) there are exceptions for licensed hunters, government representatives etc. You can also petition the Attorney General for an exception. The point is that federal law would make possession of a firearm illegal for most visa types: here is the list.

So, as you say, these witnesses who try to help their buddy out may be committing perjury. Also, D himself, by lining this up, is probably on the hook for conspiracy to commit perjury and being complicit in perjury. Aside from that, I think your question is: would getting people to testify in a way that implies they did the crime lead to an acquittal for the murderer? The answer is: maybe. The jury will either vote to acquit or to convict. If the jury votes to acquit, then it's over. Double jeopardy protects D from being tried for murder again. But, if the jury votes to convict, the fact that D had his friends testifying in the way you suggest isn't going to get the conviction overturned on appeal because "a reviewing court resolves neither credibility issues nor evidentiary conflicts." People v. Young, 34 Cal.4th 1149, 1181 (Cal. 2005). I haven't done a trial yet, but it strikes me that that might not be the greatest trial strategy. I think generally defense lawyers would prefer to make their client look the furthest thing from gang affiliated as possible. Don't lie to a court or ask anyone to lie to a court for you.

That the cop claims to be your friend is not more illegal than a salesman claiming that he has "the best offer" for you because he likes you (in fact didn't you see any film about the good cop/bad cop routine?) The term you are looking for is Entrapment. The (very simplified) basic idea is that police officers can promote the comission of a crime to catch criminals but cannot "trap" innocent people into it; the difference being that their persuassion should not turn otherwise innocent people into criminals. An extreme example would be if the cop threatens the target into commiting a crime. For the more usual situation when a cop promotes a crime to catch the criminal, I saw it explained (just for illustration purposes, it is not that you are safe when the cop insists a third time) as it follows: Legal: Cop) Oh boy! The place where I work is full of cash and they don't even have alarms or store it in a safe box. If someone helps me, we could go this night and take all of it. Are you interested? Target) I don't know. Cop) Trust me, it will be easy, nobody is there at night and it will be just a couple of hours. Target) Ok, count me in. Illegal Cop) Oh boy! The place where I work is full of cash and they don't even have alarms or store it in a safe box. If someone helps me, we could go this night and take all of it. Are you interested? Target) I am not a thief. Cop) Come on, it will be easy, the place is insured and nobody will be hurt. Target) Not interested. Cop) We can get 5000 US$ each one, just for a night of work. Didn't you told me that you had troubles with your bank? You could solve those overnight! Target) Maybe you are right, but I have no experience with these things... Cop) Do not worry, I will tell you what you need to do. Target) Ok, count me in. Note that it is not only "the cop insisted a lot". For the drug dealer example, if the cop insisted a lot but, when agreed, the boy produced the drug from his pocket, already packaged for sale, it would not be entrapment. OTOH, if the guy had told "I do not know where to buy drugs" and the cop had told him "go talk with X so he sells you the drug", then it could be considered entrampment. In any case, this is generic information only, entrapment is difficult to prove and will depend on the views of the judge/jury so, no matter how enticing that criminal offer is, just don't do it.

Does householder have authority to confiscate guest's legal property? I visited a teetotaler relative, I'm completely aware of his personal views and stayed over in his house. A local store stocked exotic alcoholic beverages for a reasonable price and I purchased some bottles (I'm over legal drinking age). Some days later I got caught and all alcohol I had with me was taken away without my knowledge, I found empty liquor store bag later. Compensation of any kind was refused and I haven't got my belongings back. Drinks are potentially poured down the drain and it's possible he benefited financially from the crime (bottle deposit is 0,10€ for empty glass bottles and 0,15€ for cans) We have talked about the event, the relative believes he has "full rights" to do so. Does the owner of the house have authority to govern what (legal) items I'm allowed to carry with me?

There is no legal theory of which I'm aware which would allow a host to confiscate a guest's property without consent and consideration. Even if the host intends to return the property and both parties know this, the host still can't keep it even temporarily after the owner demands its return. File a police report, press charges and sue for damages. Take Indiana as a perhaps representative example of what you could expect in the US. See http://www.myindianadefenselawyer.com/criminal-charges/theft-shoplifting/ . Theft is knowingly depriving a person of their property with the intent to permanently deprive them of it. Conversion is knowingly depriving a person of their property without an intent to permanently deprive them of it. Both are crimes, though the former is a felony and the latter is a misdemeanor.

The pawn shop has the "use of property" of their own premises. The pawn shop has obviously the right to examine the gun to determine its value, for example, or to clean it if it needs cleaning to avoid damage, or to show it to a potential customer. And the pawn shop is allowed to let the police onto their own premises, even without a search warrant.

How far can one go to defend him/herself from an unreasonable search and seizures, in the same sense of one defending him/herself from an unlawful arrest? Not very far. Basically all you can do is try to talk the officer out of it. He thinks he sees evidence in sight... If the police officer reasonably believes that there is evidence of a crime in plain view, then the officer can proceed to seize the evidence. If the property owner tries to use force to prevent the seizure, then the officer can arrest the property owner. ... the property owner ... highly believes there is no possible way he could have seen the evidence from outside his property. It doesn't matter what the owner believes (unless the owner can somehow convince the officer before the search). What matters is what the court believes. But the owner cannot bring the matter to court before the officer enters the shed. If the officer insists on entering the shed and the owner can establish in court that the officer couldn't see the evidence and that there was no other lawful basis for a warrantless search or seizure, then the evidence will be inadmissible. The owner might also be able to prevail in a civil suit for the violation of civil rights, but the bar for such a suit is very high, so the likelihood is very small.

Generally, you would have to bring an eviction action just as you would for an ordinary landlord-tenant relationship. This means given written notice served as required by MA law of a deadline to leave, and then if the child did not leave, filing an eviction lawsuit and serving the papers on the child, and then attending an eviction hearing, and then, if you prevailed in that hearing as you probably would (probably with horrible TV and newspaper publicity that might go viral in social media), and then, arrangements would be made to remove him and his stuff from the house on an appointed day with law enforcement and movers and you would change the locks. It would probably take a few weeks start to finish. It is not something that a non-lawyer should try to do themselves. A lawyer would probably charge you a few thousand dollars for this proceeding. The main exception would be that generally a parent has a duty to support an adult disabled child who cannot provide for himself. You probably do not have the legal right to simply kick out your child without an eviction action, although few adult children would choose to push their legal rights not to be removed in that manner if they were. The fact that a child would likely end up homeless in some circumstances if you did this is something that most parents would not be at peace with and would regret later even if they felt good about the decision at the time, but that is a parenting decision and not a legal one.

british-columbia I am not aware of any judicial consideration of this issue. The Liquor Control and Licensing Act, s. 78(1) says: A minor must not, except as provided under this Act or unless the minor does so with other lawful excuse, ... consume liquor. (One of those exceptions are when the alcohol is supplied by the minor's parents, spouse or guardian in a residence for consumption in the residence. There are other exceptions, too. But I'll assume you're asking about a circumstance where no exception applies.) The Liquor Control and Licensing Act defines a "minor" to be a person under the age of majority established by the Age of Majority Act, which is age 19 today. The Liquor Control and Licensing Act, s. 57 makes it an offence to contravene s. 78(1). The Interpretation Act, s. 25.1 states that "A person reaches a particular age expressed in years at the beginning of the relevant anniversary of the person's birth date." The Interpretation Act also clarifies that the reference to time "is a reference to Pacific Standard Time" (or Pacific Daylight Saving Time, when it is in effect). Thus, a person is a minor until "the beginning [in Pacific time] of the relevant anniversary of the person's birth date." It is most clear in relation to the identification requirements when selling to a minor, but the Regulations (s. 158) refer to the date of birth as displayed on the person's identification card. This all suggests that when consuming alcohol in the greater Vancouver area, a person just about to reach the age of majority must wait until the date in the Pacific time zone is that which is displayed on their identification. Or barring any identification, until the date in the Pacific time zone is the date that is the person's birth date.

Maybe, Hence the Lawsuits In the absence of clear statute law these all circle around tort law. For the scooter companies, trespass to chattels, and for the affected landowners (who hire the removalists) trespass to land and nuisance seem applicable. In essence, I can’t take your stuff (trespass to chattels) but you can’t leave your stuff on my property (trespass to land) or impeding access to it (nuisance). If you do, I am entitled to the reasonable costs of dealing with it. Note that, as owner, you remain responsible for you stuff even if you rented it to someone else. Both sides are pushing hard into unexplored areas of law so we await the judgement with interest. Then we’ll know.

Owners can't be evicted from their own property. That's one of the fundamental rights of real estate ownership. You may have a contractual basis for a lawsuit that either leads to payment or provides for forfeiture of their share, but that relies on the details of your specific case and will require specific legal advice from your own lawyer.

No The criteria for adverse possession is that you have to be in possession without permission. A tenant, even one that pays no rent (or stops paying rent), has permission.

Why are damages awarded in civil suits far higher in the US than (continental) europe? In Bollea v. Gawker, Bollea was awarded $140 million damages for "invasion of privacy, infringement of personality rights, and intentional infliction of emotional distress". This seems orders of magnitude higher than would have been awarded in a continental european court. For instance, the German Wikipedia writes: Die höchsten von deutschen Gerichten zugesprochenen Schmerzensgelder finden sich u. a. in den Urteilen des Landgerichts Aachen vom 30. November 2011 – 11 O 478/09 (= 700.000 € im Falle eines auf das schwerste gehirngeschädigten Kleinkindes), .... Mit einer ganz anderen Thematik – nämlich einer schwersten Persönlichkeitsrechtsverletzung des bekannten Autors und Wettermoderators Jörg Kachelmann – hatte sich das LG Köln (Urteile vom 30. September 2015 – 28 O 2/14 und 28 O 7/14) zu befassen und dem Kläger ein Schmerzensgeld in Höhe von insgesamt 635.000 € zuerkannt; diese Urteile sind jedoch noch nicht rechtskräftig, – mit einer Entscheidung des OLG Köln ist 2016 zu rechnen. translation: The highest damages ever awarded by a German court were: 700.000 € to an infant that suffered most severe brain damage, ... and in a completely different matter, a most severe violation of personal rights of the well known author and weather presenter Jörg Kachelmann, 635.000 €, though that has been appealed. What difference in law causes US and european courts to award such vastly different damages?

One reason is that in a German civil suit, the cost for lawyers and for the court (court isn't free) is set according to the value that the parties are arguing about, which would be the value that one party demands, minus the value that the other party is offering to pay. Then the cost is divided between winner and loser according to the percentage of the value the claimant was awarded. So if I ask for €1,000,000 and I am rewarded €10,000 then the cost is calculated based on my €1,000,000 claim, and since I was rewarded only 1% of the claim, I'll pay 99% of the cost. The defendant will pay my €10,000 and 1% of the cost, that is my lawyers, their lawyers, and the court. With these rules, asking for the sky and then not getting much is a very, very bad strategy. On the other hand, if a huge company sues me for €10,000 then they can't snow me under with an army of lawyers: The court will get only a small amount of money for the case, so at some rather early point the judge would tell the huge company: Stop right now; I'm not paid enough money to listen to your army of lawyers.

The law that New York passed does not create any cause of action, it overrides existing rules regarding time-barring of civil claims, so the quick answer to the question "does this law apply in that kind of case" is "that law is irrelevant". There is a general legal question about the jurisdictional limits of a court. For example, a foreign insurance company will be subject to specific personal jurisdiction in a US federal court over a claim under a cargo insurance policy for a shipment to the US. The case Daimler AG v. Bauman seems to be similar to the type of case you are asking about. This case involves the Dirty War of Argentina, and the question of whether Daimler's business connection to Mercedes-Benz Argentina gives plaintiffs standing to sue in US courts over actions in Argentina. SCOTUS held in that case that Daimler is not amenable to suit in California for injuries allegedly caused by conduct of MB Argentina that took place entirely outside the United States The court first notes that For a time, this Court held that a tribunal’s jurisdiction over persons was necessarily limited by the geographic bounds of the forum but this has been modified to recognition of two personal jurisdiction categories: One category, today called “specific jurisdiction”...[which] encompasses cases in which the suit 'arise[s] out of or relate[s] to the defendant’s contacts with the forum' [and] distinguished exercises of specific, case-based jurisdiction from a category today known as 'general jurisdiction,' exercisable when a foreign corporation’s 'continuous corporate operations within a state [are] so substantial and of such a nature as to justify suit against it on causes of action arising from dealings entirely distinct from those activities.' The court observes that "general jurisdiction has not been stretched beyond limits traditionally recognized". As I understand the hypothetical, the proposed wrong does not derive because of the defendant's connection with the jurisdiction, and the connection to New York (or any other state) would be that it might be forum convenient for the plaintiff to litigate in. This would fall under the category of "general jurisdiction" (assuming that New York is not the company's corporate home nor is it their primary place of business), and the state's courts would not normally have jurisdiction in that case (lacking any specific statute creating a cause of action and explicitly declaring extraterritorial jurisdiction). The underlying constitutional rationale is the Due Process consideration that a person (including a corporation) should not be be forced to defend themselves in courts in states where they have no real connection. The question that would be asked is whether the corporation had sufficient connection to the state that the state courts would have jurisdiction. We should also turn to three SCOTUS cases, Nestle v. Doe et al, RJR Nabisco, Inc. v. European Community and Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., where questions of extraterritorial jurisdiction are considered. The Nestle court's analysis of the underlying principle starts by observing and citing from RJR Nabisco that First, we presume that a statute applies only domestically, and we ask "whether the statute gives a clear, affirmative indication" that rebuts this presumption. In Kiobel, the court states – reaching further back to Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain that [w]hen a statute gives no clear indication of an extraterritorial application, it has none, a principle which "serves to protect against unintended clashes between our laws and those of other nations which could result in international discord) (EEOC v. Arabian American Oil Co). The relevant statute under which these suits were initiated is the Alien Tort Stature, 28 USC 1350, which allows an alien to sue in US courts under certain circumstances, and states only that "The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States". ATS would clearly not be applicable to the case of a US person suing a foreign corporation, but the other cases have articulated a principle that transcends the specifics of the ATS – there would have to be a statute giving a state extraterritorial jurisdiction over the matter.

Venue The location where you file the claim is the court that will hear it unless: you both agree the judge orders a different venue based on submissions from the parties (unlikely in a small claim) Costs Costs awards in small claims are rare and generally do not extend to the legal fees and if they do, the amount is capped. Costs for reasonable expenses of witnesses are slightly more common. In general, costs are limited to what is reasonable - to get the costs of travel and accommodation for the Liverpool solicitor, the party would have to argue that there was no available equivalent representation available locally. This might be arguable if you need a QC expert in say, international maritime law, it seems unlikely for a small claims matter. Personal Comment Don't go to court for £100 - settle the damn thing or walk away. In the time and worry you spend on it you could earn that sum five times over.

Following the links in the article you quoted, you find that it is indeed illegal in Germany to insult a foreign head of state. For a prosecution to happen, the foreign government has to ask for prosecution, and it would be a criminal case. It's not clear to me whether a TV station could be sued as well. Where Mr. Böhmermann lives would be irrelevant, what would be relevant is whether the insult happened in Germany.

Every court in the United States from municipal traffic court to a state court to a U.S. District Court has both the right and the obligation to consider claims of unconstitutionality just like any other legal question that a case presents. Contrary to popular misconception, constitutional law issues are not the exclusive province of the U.S. Supreme Court. Indeed, constitutional issues are only ruled upon in the first instance in the U.S. Supreme Court (or even in a direct appeal from a trial court to the U.S. Supreme Court) in rare and isolated cases. Usually, at least one trial court judge and at least three appellate court judges, and often more appellate court judges, have ruled upon a constitutional issue before the U.S. Supreme Court considers it. This is just as true in Louisiana and Puerto Rico, which have legal systems based upon the civil law legal system, as it is in other U.S. jurisdictions, which have a common law legal system. There is usually only one difference between a case in which the constitutionality of a statute is called into question and one in which it is not. When the constitutionality of a statute is called into question, many state and federal rules of civil procedure require or permit the attorney general of the state whose statute's constitutionality (or the U.S. attorney general when a federal law's constitutionality is at issue) to be joined as a party for the purpose of litigating that issue. This allows the court to receive arguments on the constitutional issue from the public's perspective as well as the perspectives of the parties. A few states also provide that appeals from trial court decisions finding that a statute is unconstitutional are directly to the state supreme court, rather than to the intermediate court of appeals as they would usually be in those states. Notably, the distinct treatment of constitutional issues in many civil law systems is not inherently a part of the civil law system. Constitutional courts are mostly a post-World War II constitutional innovation in the countries where they are found. For example, the "law-screen" doctrine and the existence of a constitutional court in France, is much younger than core of the rest of the civil law system in France, which invented the civil law system in its modern form more than two hundred years ago. Neither France, at the time Louisiana adopted its civil law legal system through the time of the Louisiana Purchase, nor Spain at the time that Puerto Rico was ceded to the United States after the Spanish-American war, had constitutional courts. Footnote Regarding Treaties Also, it is worth remarking that in Europe and much of the rest of the world, the function of protecting individual rights against government authority in a way that is entrenched so that it is not easily overcome by domestic legislation of a current political regime is accomplished through international treaties, rather than only through entrenched rights in a constitution as they are in the United States. Although even then, in many European countries, ordinary courts apply only domestic law and the country in question has to adopt domestic law to conform to the treaties. This treaty mechanism is not very effective in the U.S., because in the U.S., unlike most countries, an ordinary domestic law can override an earlier adopted and ratified international treaty.

Nope. Say I sue you successfully, and the court delivers a judgement that awards $1000 in damages. It is not the responsibility of the small claims court to ensure that the judgement is fulfilled. In fact, the debtor (person who lost) can outright refuse to pay the creditor (or the person who won). They are not in violation of any law at this point. However, the creditor can ask the court for options on enforcing their judgement, and these can include, but are not limited to: Garnishing wages Providing a court order Seizure of assets (through court sheriff, don't use this yourself or you end up getting into criminal matters) and others to enforce the judgement. The debtor isn't liable for refusing, unless when they are in violation of a court order. Violating a court order is a criminal matter, and the debtor could possibly be found guilty of contempt of court. Oh, and the case wouldn't move on to a higher court. Cases go to a higher court when an appeal is made, generally when there has been an error in enforcing the law. You also need to be provided leave to make an appeal.

Short Answer At the level of generality presented in the question, it is impossible to know with any meaningful level of comfort, which state's laws regarding punitive damages caps will apply, even if there are prior precedents addressing a similar issue, since the determination is so dependent upon a rich set of relevant facts. Long Answer Does Federal Or State Law Apply? In a diversity case, under what is known as the Erie doctrine, after the U.S. Supreme Court case that established it, a federal district court sitting in diversity applies the substantive law of the state in which it is located (including its choice of law rules) and federal procedural law. A variety of subsequent cases have clarified (or at least made more specific) what counts as substantive law, and what counts as procedural law. A 2018 law review article (open access) uses a five page long flow chart to explain the rule. A simplified partial page flowchart regarding whether state or federal law applies can be found here. To cut a long analysis short, punitive damage limitations generally count as substantive law under this test. So, the question of which state's law to apply to punitive damages caps in a diversity case brought in a U.S. District Court in Texas is precisely the same as the question faces by a Texas state court regarding which state's law to apply. Choice Of Law Analysis At The State Level In general, a state court (or a federal court sitting in diversity) applies the law of the state in which it is located unless a party argues that under choice of law principles that another state's law should apply, and that party shows that the law of the state whose law is proposed is different from the law of the state where the case is being tried. Historically, there were rigid rules that provided that in particular kinds of cases, a particular state's law would apply. Some of those historical rules continue to have full force. For example, the substantive real property law of the state where real property is located almost always applies. But, in other cases, a more vague modern rule for choice of law applies. This is the rule that the law of the state with the most significant relationship to the issue to be decided should apply. Different issues in the same case may end up being governed by different laws as a result. Among the factors to be considered in applying a most significant relationship test are: The place where the event giving rise to the claim occurred. The interest of the state where the person who was harmed resides in controlling the amount of compensation that the person harmed received. The interest of the state where the person who caused the harm resides in encouraging or discouraging business activity that may hurt others. The interest of the state where the insurance company paying some or all of the claim is located in not driving up insurance premiums. The inquiry in this multi-factor balancing test is usually extremely fact intensive. The practical effect of the most significant relationship test has been to make the ultimate decision less predictable and to make it more likely that a judge will decide that the forum state's law will apply. Under the historical rule, about two-thirds of requests to apply a non-forum state's law were granted. Under the modern rule, about one-third of such requests are granted. A law review article from 1987 spells out the choice of law rules in Texas at the time which have probably become somewhat looser since that time that it was written. The article is James P. George, Choice of Law Outline for Texas Courts, 18 Tex. Tech L. Rev. 785 (1987). Available at: https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar/255 A short article looking at the case law for choice of law cases with regard to punitive damages can be found here. It opens by observing that: The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly acknowledged that while states are afforded discretion over the imposition of punitive damages, state law is still subject to "procedural and substantive constitutional limitations on these awards." State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Campbell, 538 U.S. 408, 416 (2003). Relying on the Due Process Clause, the Court has provided some basis for determining which state's law applies to the punitive damages question and what conduct is subject to punitive liability. In Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Shutts, for example, the Supreme Court held that "for a State's substantive law to be selected in a constitutionally permissible manner, that State must have a significant contact or significant aggregation of contacts, creating state interests, such that choice of its law is neither arbitrary nor fundamentally unfair." Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Shutts, 472 U.S. 797, 818 (1985) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). The Court has also made clear that "[e]lementary notions of fairness" require that a defendant must be given "fair notice" of what conduct is subject to punitive damages, as well as the severity of the penalty that may be imposed. BMW of N. Am. v. Gore, 517 U.S. 559, 574 (1996). It also observes in an analysis that should be taken with a grain of salt, because it comes from a law firm that defends companies that are usually defendants in product liability cases rather than plaintiffs and is not written by a neutral party: a growing number of courts have begun to recognize that an analysis of the Restatement factors points to the application of defendants' home jurisdictions' laws to the issue of punitive damages. See, e.g., Kirchman v. Novartis Pharm. Corp., No. 8:06- cv-1787-T-24-TBM, 2014 WL 2722483, at *4 (M.D. Fla. June 16, 2014) (applying the law of New Jersey to punitive damages claim because that state "is the place of injury-causing conduct," i.e., the state "where Novartis made its corporate decisions regarding the labeling, packaging and warning of the drugs, which Plaintiff alleges caused Mr. Kirchman's osteonecrosis of the jaw") (citation omitted); Williams v. Novartis Pharm. Corp., 15 F. Supp. 3d 761, 768 (S.D. Ohio 2014) ("When a plaintiff seeks punitive damages against a manufacturer in a products liability case based on a 'failure to warn' theory, the focus, for purposes of a choice-of-law analysis, needs to be on the place where the defendant's alleged corporate misconduct occurred."); Braun, 2014 WL 345246, at *5 (California law applied to punitive damages claims against infant sling manufacturer because defendant "designed its products in California" and therefore "all of the actions that would form the basis for punitive damages occurred there"); Dopson-Troutt v. Novartis Pharm. Corp., No. 8:06-CV-1708-T-24-EAJ, 2013 WL 3808205, at *4 (M.D. Fla. July 22, 2013) ("The Court agrees with the reasoning of the other courts who have found that" the Restatement principles "support applying New Jersey law to the punitive damages issue in this case" because "the basic policy underlying punitive damages is to punish and deter [the defendant], whose conduct occurred in New Jersey . . . .") (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). For example, in Irby, a Virginia plaintiff alleged that he developed osteonecrosis of the jaw after ingesting the drug Zometa, manufactured by Novartis. Irby, 2011 WL 5835414, at 2. The parties stipulated that Virginia law governed the plaintiff's compensatory claims for failure to warn, defective design, breach of implied warranty, negligence, and consumer fraud. They disagreed, however, on which state's law should govern plaintiff's punitive damages claim. Virginia law caps punitive damages at $350,000, while New Jersey law bars them completely in cases involving FDA-approved drugs. Plaintiff argued Virginia law should apply as the place of injury, while Novartis argued that the law of New Jersey should apply because its principal place of business is located in that state. To some extent, these choice of law principles apply even in cases where there are arguably procedural rules that apply, rather than merely blindly following a federal procedure and state substantive distinction. Wikipedia's entry on the Erie doctrine concludes in part by stating: Erie has gone in a newer and even more complicated direction than the previous controlling cases, and that instead of selecting either federal or state law for a case, the federal court may be required to somehow blend federal and state law, depending on the issue. This is quite frustrating for those who wish to have a black-letter rule that will point them to the answer. However, the possibility of blending in Erie does not open up an infinitude of possibilities. But even in the context here where it is clear that state law rather than federal law applies, the determination of which state's law applies is itself involved and is frustratingly indeterminate.

Defamation laws do not distinguish between charitable organizations and others: however, in the US there are special considerations for "public figures" (they are not afforded as much protection). The medium does not matter -- texting, blogging, letter-writing, whatever. The defamatory statement need not have been received by a wide audience – it suffices that the message was received by one person other than the person being defamed. A single defamatory act is all it takes: there is no requirement of there being an established and repeated practice of defaming. One way to defend against a charge of defamation is to show that the statement is true. An alternative is to show that the statement is incapable of being proven true or false (e.g. calling someone a "jerk" doesn't assert a factual proposition). A careful scrutiny of the actual statement, performed by an attorney specializing in such matters, is really the only way to know whether words like "may", "possibly" would make a statement an expression of opinion rather than a statement of fact. A person suing for defamation would have to have suffered a loss, but there is a category of false statements, per se defamation, considered to be so injurious that damage need not be proven. That included allegations of criminal activity and allegations of professional incompetence, either of which could be applicable in the context you are describing. The First Amendment provides much protection against such suits, which may not exist in other countries. Because of this, a law was recently passed in the US, 28 USC 111, which says that domestic courts will not enforce a foreign defamation judgment that is inconsistent with the First Amendment. [Addendum] This part is crucial: "The only people I've expressed my concerns to, aside from the organization itself, is my parents and my wife's parents. However, they have shared with a few friends...". If you alleged illegal behavior to your parents, that's a problem. If you only said e.g. "I have concerns", that's not a problem. It would also matter in what way you tried "to disclose to a U.S. based organization details of the foreign organization they are supporting that indicate it might not be on the up and up".

Can children appear in a porn movie if they're not exposed to any sexual act? Hope it doesn't sound too creepy. Just watched a R-Rated regular movie with children actors that, even having participated, would not be allowed to watch it in the cinema (for being too violent, scary, mature, etc.) That left me wondering if it would be legal (bizarre as it may be) for somebody to do a porn movie were children appear, not doing or witnessing any sexual-related activities (of course), i.e. an everyday scene where a mother takes her son to the school and when she returns home... let's say that the action of this kind of movies begins

The relevant US law is 18 USC Chapter 110. The law forbids minors depicted as engaging in "sexually explicit conduct", or forbids "child pornography", the latter section also defining "sexually explicit conduct". A minor appearing in a movie containing porn is not prohibited.

It is illegal in Scotland. There is currently no law specifically against it in the rest of the UK. If you find this is unbelievable, yes it is. There are attempts now to change the laws. PS. There are no photos taken "of the act". Taking the photo is the act. The pervs use a selfy stick or just get down on the floor to take photos, or take photos on stairs. PPS. News on Jan 16th 2019: "A new law will now be introduced in the next couple of months. It could mean that perpetrators might face up to two years in prison and are added to the sex offenders register."

Yes, maybe australia In Australia, child abuse material is classified as the sexualised depiction of persons under 16 (or in some cases 18). This applies under both State and Commonwealth laws. Common charges in NSW will be possessing, disseminating or producing child abuse material under s 91(H) of the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW). Further Commonwealth offences can be found in circumstances where a communications carrier has been used for the purposes of delivering child abuse material. Within this field, there are subtle variations in circumstances. The court would need to decide if the pictures were a “sexualised depiction”. Context matters. I don’t know of any cases on point but convictions have been secured for sexualised cartoons of children and pictures of fully-clothed children in sexual poses.

It is not decided whether such, in areas, filming can be prohibited. In a "public forum", First Amendment rights are maximally protected, and this includes filing (Glik v. Cunniffe, 655 F.3d 78 in particular §A(1) for a summary of the law on this question). In Perry Educ. Ass'n v. Perry Educators' Ass'n, 460 U.S. 37 the court refined public forum doctrine to distinguish quintessential, limited, and nonpublic fora. In a nonpublic forum, the government may "reserve the forum for its intended purposes": but, such a reservation must be viewpoint-neutral. Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104 states that "The crucial question is whether the manner of expression is basically incompatible with the normal activity of a particular place at a particular time". In a nonpublic forum, demonstrations can be forbidden, especially when demonstrations are incompatible with the purpose of the forum (example: military bases). The particular question you raise has not ended up in court. One may be tempted to reason that First Amendment rights can be arbitrarily curtailed in a non-public forum, but such a restriction would have to have appropriate justification – the restriction would be subject to strict scrutiny. Simply saying "We don't want people filming inside the holding area" is not a valid justification. But, the police are not required to announce their legal argument in advance. If you get busted and film, and they make you stop, you can sue for violation of your First Amendment rights. Your attorney would then need to make a good argument that this restriction is to be subject to strict scrutiny, and that it fails.

Defamatory and offensive are not the same “He is a child molester” is defamatory and illegal (unless he is, of course). “She is a two-faced f___ing b___h with the morals of an alley cat and the integrity of a politician” is offensive and legal. Neither is a crime.

If I did punch him , would that be okay? No, that would be Assault and Battery. If you did him serious injury you could face a charge of Grievous Bodily Harm. If you killed him, that would be murder. If you are in the UK, Canada or Australia and you were charged with murder you could claim provocation in an attempt to have the charge reduced to Voluntary Manslaughter. If you were in the US you could attempt to argue "extreme emotional or mental distress" if you are in a state that has adopted the Model Penal Code for any of the charges; if successful your sentence would be reduced. I saw people punch one another over this in movies. And I saw aliens invading the Earth in the movies - what happens in the movies if not necessarily true. Kissing my wife is adultery right? No, extramarital sex is adultery. Notwithstanding, adultery is not illegal in common-law countries. I'm pissed and don't know what to do? I sympathise with you but this is not a legal question. Whatever is going on between you, your wife and your neighbour is a social situation; not a legal one.

Yes australia This is a straight up and down case of “deceptive and misleading conduct”. There is plenty of case law to support that testimonials (which this is) must be genuine, not paid for as they are from an actor. Further, they cannot be cherry-picked. If 5 real people reacted and 2 reacted negatively, you cannot just show the 3 who reacted positively - you have to show them all or otherwise disclose that 3 out 5 people loved the product. When actors (or people who are otherwise getting paid) are used that fact must be disclosed if it is not clear from the context. In a typical ad where people are just shown using the product without giving a personal endorsement it’s sufficiently clear that they are actors. However, in the type of ad you describe if they were actors this would need to be stated. Television and radio personalities must disclose when they are being paid for an endorsement under enforceable codes. Influencers are required to do so under non-binding codes, however, it is likely that breach of these codes would also be a breach of the law.

Can you unambiguously, legally, and conclusively determine what is and is not a "porn site"? I'm sure many are easy... but what about that "Swimsuit modeling" site, or the "Artistic Nudes" site featuring classic French Renaissance paintings? There will always be a grey area. What makes a "site" in a legal sense? Consider all the blog sites filled with user generated content: If just a few pages out of tens-of-thousands are hardcore, indisputable porn, would you require the entire domain to be classified XXX, even if 99% of its content is completely innocent? Who would enforce this? Are you proposing an "Internet Police" force to review all new domain names and their content before they get approved? That is called "Prior Restraint on Free Speech", and is established law. Suppose a site does get approved, then immediately changes the content of their pages from Cooking Recipes to hard-core porn. Who is going to review and approve every update to every website, when sites are updated constantly?! Maybe you're proposing that any individual who finds porn on a .ORG site has the right to sue for damages? This would likely clog the courts with endless vigilante lawsuits about what content belongs on which domain. This is a flat out horrible, poorly thought out idea.

What could be the consequences of a "Joke wedding" in a foreign country? Context : Two of my friends, both French citizens, have a PACS. PACS is a form of civil union that can be "upgraded" to a marriage, but not "downgraded" from one. They are planning a three weeks trip across California. They are also planning to get married under American law "for fun" during a week-end in Las Vegas, but won't do the paperwork to have this marriage recognized in France after their return. My question : What could be the consequences of this wedding? For example, if they break up and end their PACS in France, would they still be officially married in the USA? And if after that they marry other partners, could this be a problem for them when applying for an American visa? Does France and the USA exchange information on wedding of foreign citizens on their soil? Could they even end up being officially married in France even without doing any paperwork themselves?

What could be the consequences of this wedding? They would be married For example, if they break up and end their PACS in France, would they still be officially married in the USA? Yes, and also in France. And if after that they marry other partners, could this be a problem for them when applying for an American visa? Yes, bigamy is illegal in both the USA and France. Does France and the USA exchange information on wedding of foreign citizens on their soil? Don't know, probably not. Could they even end up being officially married in France even without doing any paperwork themselves? Most definitely. France recognises US marriages so they would be married in France (and the U.K., and Australia, and Germany, and ...). This is true even if the French government doesn't know they are married.

No However, only the first wife is recognised as a wife under US law. Please note that it is not illegal to live in a polyamorous relationship in the US: only to marry in the US while still married to another person.

The short answer is that yes, a couple can marry for the purpose of gaining access to the marital privilege in court actions, even if they are pending when the marriage occurs. There is basically no such thing as a sham marriage in this context. (There may be a handful of outlier cases as is the case in any legal rule, but this is the overwhelmingly uniform rule of law today.) In practice, outside the context of an annulment proceeding in the civil courts where one of the parties to the marriage or fiduciaries such as legal guardians for one of the parties to the marriage seek to have it invalidated, a legally entered into marriage is valid for all purposes without question. Even many marriages that can be annulled for religious purposes are not eligible to be annulled under non-religious civil law. Third-parties generally do not have standing to declare that a marriage be annulled. Usually marriage is conclusively established by the existence of a marriage license and the absence of a death or divorce by either party. Even the existence of a common law marriage, or the existence of some factor that prevents a marriage from being recognized as valid (e.g. one of the parties is already married or is underage) is often fairly easily proved (and is usually completely unrelated to the case in which a martial privilege is to be asserted and undisputed). Immigration law is the only context is which the status of a marriage as a sham is actively policed. Also, keep in mind that the marital privilege for evidentiary purposes is actually two separate privileges. One is the privilege not to testify against a current spouse in a legal proceeding. The other is the privilege not to testify as to confidential communications made to a spouse while the couple was married. Both have exceptions (e.g. for crimes in which one of the spouses is the victim). A confidential communication to a boyfriend/girlfriend prior to marriage is not protected by the confidential communications marital privilege even after the couple married. Only the testimonial privilege would be available with regard to those communications, and the testimonial privilege often has more exceptions than the confidential communications privilege (usually the exceptions are enumerated by statute that varies from state to state). A previous answer related to spousal privilege with quotations from a state statute to provide an example can be found here. In Colorado, which is fairly typical, the confidential communications privilege applies to all crimes (except those which are ongoing or are between the spouses), while the testimonial privilege does not apply to serious felonies.

Volokh commented on this. There is no 2nd Amendment issue, nor does federal law. It may be illegal in some states, depending on whether age is included in public accommodation anti-discrimination laws. For instance, Conn. Gen. Stat. §§46a-64 says (a) It shall be a discriminatory practice in violation of this section: (1) To deny any person within the jurisdiction of this state full and equal accommodations in any place of public accommodation, resort or amusement because of race, creed, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, gender identity or expression, marital status, age, lawful source of income, intellectual disability, mental disability or physical disability, including, but not limited to, blindness or deafness of the applicant, subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law and applicable alike to all persons; §46a-63 defines "public accommodation" (1) “Place of public accommodation, resort or amusement” means any establishment which caters or offers its services or facilities or goods to the general public, including, but not limited to, any commercial property or building lot, on which it is intended that a commercial building will be constructed or offered for sale or rent Public accomodation laws are how states deal with discrimination in sales, such as selling wedding cakes Illinois 775 ILCS 5/1-103 likewise prohibits age discrimination in public accomodations, but defines "age" as "the chronological age of a person who is at least 40 years old". Connecticut used to define "age" as "any age between forty and sixty-five, inclusive", but that clause was deleted. Lousiana also prohibits age discrimination (La. Rev. Stat. §51:2247). Their statement about age likewise limits anti-discrimination protection to "individuals who are at least forty years of age". Maryland in MD State Govt Code § 20-304 also bans age discrimination, and does not redefine "age" or limit the scope of those ages that are protected. So while it is generally legal to refuse to sell goods to the young (and sometimes mandatory, e.g. alcohol, firearms, tobacco), there are a few states where such a policy would violate state anti-discrimination laws. There can also be city laws (Seattle has very broad anti-discrimination laws), but they exclude age from the Public Accommodation subset of discrimination.

It depends Law in international airspace over international waters is the law of the country the plane is registered in - just like a ship is considered land of the registered/owner's country while in international waters. This is, according to the Britannica, also called the quasi-territorial Jurisdiction. So if this were a Lufthansa Flight, technically everything there happens in Germany under the Tokyo Convention and German Law (StGB §4) and the case can be held in Germany. For United Airlines it means, that the act happened in the US and if it was an Air Japan flight, it would be Japan, no matter in which airspace it happens. However, other laws might also make the law of other countries apply and put the people into the jurisdiction by virtue of law applying globally: if the perpetrator or victim were US citizens, any felony that happens between the two on that flight can also be prosecuted in the US, as they claim jurisdiction in those cases. Similarly, the UK and Germany have similar laws, in the latter case for only a subset of crimes (StGB §5, 6-11a). This is the principle of personal jurisdiction. But technically, the quasi-territorial jurisdiction can override that. And that again is overridden once the plane lands and enters the territorial jurisdiction of the harboring country. All involved countries can elect to prosecute or not, and there is no double jeopardy problem as we have separate sovereigns. Who is most likely to prosecute? Depends on the case, but in the least, the country of registration has Jurisdiction and will usually get the first crack at the case. However, extradition treaties and other treaties between two countries can give preference to the country of the nationals. BTW: we had pretty much the same question for murder on a plane.

The details depend on the state, of course. The common law thing you are looking for is a writ of mandamus -- a court order to a public official to do something (or not do something) that they are required to do under the law. Writs of mandamus were traditionally only applicable to ministerial tasks (i.e. things that are basically paper-shuffling where there is little to no discretion); marriage licenses are typically considered ministerial. With discretionary actions, things are much more complicated because the government official is supposed to have significant ability to decide what should and shouldn't be allowed; mandamus doesn't apply unless there's a right to the action requested. In some cases, mandamus has been replaced with other forms of judicial review, but in Alabama it is definitely still mandamus that's involved (source: mandamus is what's previously been used to stop issuance of licenses). For federal review, which is more likely to get somewhere, the approach to use is the exact same thing that led to DeBoer (the case bundled into Obergefell that was about granting licenses), and Perry, and many of the other gay marriage cases: a lawsuit seeking an injunction or declaratory relief under 42 USC 1983, which allows actions in law and equity whenever anyone denies civil rights to a US citizen (or someone in the jurisdiction of the US) under color of law. The ultimate result of this kind of suit is a federal court order to issue a marriage license, or a declaration that it's illegal to not issue the license (and so anyone who doesn't will be subject to a court order). Violating this order, like any court order, is contempt of court.

DUI is a crime under Massachusetts law so Kurt would be prosecuted there by that state. Germany would offer consular assistance but this would not extend to preparing or paying for his defence. If convicted, and after serving his sentence, Germany and the USA would coordinate his deportation. The UK would offer consular assistance for the repatriation of Alice's body and for the participation of her family in the trial, again this would not extend to paying for it. They would not assist in any civil action Alice's family might take against Kurt in a Massachusetts court. While DUI is a crime in both Germany and the UK AFAIK they are not extraterritorial: that is the crime must be committed on their territory for them to prosecute it. Some crimes do have extraterritoriality but not DUI. Similarly, their courts would probably not hear a civil case because the correct venue is Massachusetts and they would probably entertain a motion to dismiss on that basis. Even if they did hear it, it would be heard under Massachusetts law.

Swiss customs has a form to submit questions like this and they gave me a very informative answer. As it turns out the receiver is also part of the customs process. If for some reason customs decides to open an investigation assuming that something regarding declaration/import was wrong the receiver will also be part of the investigation and it is possible that they determine that the receiver is at fault as well. In this case in addition to the import fee additional fines or fees might be imposed on the receiver. I do not know how they determine this, but from a law perspective it is clear. There is always the option to just report a wrong declaration upon receiving the package which means you have to pay the import fee, but no other fines, fees or investigations will include the receiver (assuming the goods involved can be imported legally). The legal part points towards (this part sadly does not exist in English): Zollschuldner Art. 70 Zollgesetz (specifically section 70 (2) c.). For the unlikely reason that the swiss administrative legal code becomes unavailable this is said article translated by me: Customs debtors have to pay customs fee, or if they become unavailable make guarantee for it (materially). Customs debors include: a) The person sending goods across the border (sender) b) The person responsible declaring the goods c) The person on whos behalf goods are ordered <-- Some interesting tidbits: Transport compaines are not liable for anything Your heirs inherit your customs penalties (i.e. you order something from another country, then your heirs have to pay customs fees if you happen to die) Buying a company also means buying their customs obligations.

Can I waive my statutory rights? I've noticed that Steam has recently added this bit of text to its review and confirm page: By clicking the button below to proceed you agree that Valve provides you immediate access to digital content as soon as you complete your purchase, without waiting the 14-day withdrawal period. Therefore, you expressly waive your right to withdraw from this purchase. To me that translates to "I waive my statutory rights that have been granted to me by the EU", which, to my knowledge cannot be done. So does this paragraph have any legal bearing within the EU (I know this practice is commonplace in the States)? Thanks in advance! Note: Steam has recently begun allowing refunds within 14 days for faulty products with a few caveats, whether or not this is a result of a legal challenge or not I don't know.

The European laws have specific sections regarding digital goods. The following two passages are relevant to you: From Returning unwanted goods: Warning! Please note that you may not use goods that you have received before deciding to withdraw from the purchase. The right to withdraw exists to allow you to examine the product in the same way as you would in a shop, not to give you 14 days free use. Be aware also that more specific rules apply to digital content (e.g. downloading or streaming music or video). From Shopping online: Digital content Specific information requirements apply when you buy digital content online, e.g. when downloading or streaming music or video. Before you make the purchase, you must also be informed how the content operates with relevant hardware/software (interoperability) and about its functionality, including whether any geographical restrictions apply to the use of the content and if private copies are allowed. You also enjoy the right of withdrawal within 14 days from concluding the contract for online digital content. However, once you start downloading or streaming the content you may no longer withdraw from the purchase, provided that the trader has complied with his obligations. Specifically, the trader must first obtain your explicit agreement to the immediate download or streaming, and you must explicitly acknowledge that you lose your right to withdraw once the performance has started. So yes, the law specifically allows you to waive that right when purchasing digital goods. So long as Steam has correctly advertised the product's system requirements and other key details, you lose your right to withdraw from the purchase the moment you start downloading it to your system.

There are two relevant bodies of EU law to consider here. The GDPR covers processing of personal data. Personal data is any data where the data subject can be identified directly or indirectly. The ePrivacy directive is also relevant, and covers how you may access and store information on the user's device. Directives are not directly applicable law. Instead every member state translates the directive into national law. In the UK, ePrivacy is implemented by PECR. Is the data you collect personal data in the sense of the GDPR? Yes: that hashed unique device ID or a system-provided advertising ID likely is personal data, and any linked data would then be personal data as well. This is going to be the case in particular if you store user accounts on your server and can connect these bug reports to a user. Consider also whether the game save could include personal data, and whether the video clip could be analyzed to identify the data subject. Does this mean collecting this information in bug reports is forbidden? No, the GDPR doesn't forbid or allow anything outright. Instead, you should go through the compliance process. In a nutshell: determine the purpose of this processing, e.g. “fixing bugs” find an Art 6 legal basis for this purpose, e.g. “Art 6(1)(f) legitimate interest” or “Art 6(1)(a) consent” if the legal basis is legitimate interest, you must balance that interest against the data subject's interests determine whether your compliance requirements include creating/updating your Records of Processing, or whether you have to write a Data Protection Impact Assessment implement the processing in a manner that respects GDPR principles such as Transparency and Data Minimization if the legal basis is legitimate interest you must implement an opt-out solution if the legal basis is consent, you must request consent first in a manner that satisfies the Art 7 conditions for consent – and allow consent to be revoked easily prepare to satisfy data subject rights: information requirements per Art 13, usually done in the privacy policy right to access, rectification, erasure, and data portability right to object (opt-out) and to restrict processing be aware of your general requirements a data controller to process this data securely, e.g. use HTTPS connections to transmit bug reports, take steps to protect your own accounts (e.g. 2FA), and ensure you have a suitable contract with any data processors that act on your behalf, e.g. cloud providers or contractors I would question whether your bug reports really need to include a device ID. That isn't forbidden, it just complicates compliance a bit. And what about ePrivacy? The ePrivacy directive is known for its cookie consent requirements. But these consent requirements apply when accessing any information on the user's device, or when applying equivalent fingerprinting techniques. Your game save is not an issue because it is necessary for the game. But that device ID and other system information is more difficult. So what to do? Compliance isn't trivial, but certainly possible. You will likely process the bug reports under your legitimate interest, but might still have to collect consent for accessing a system ID due to ePrivacy. Such a screen might look like this: Oh no, the game crashed! Do you want to send a bug report to the developers? Your bug report will be protected as per our privacy policy (link). Your bug report will contain the following information: … Yes, collect system information and send bug report No, do not send bug report You could make an argument that a bug report can be sent in any case, and that you just need ePrivacy consent to collect useful system information. For example: Oh no, the game crashed! When sending a bug report to developers, do you want to include extra system information (link to details) that helps fixing the problem? In any case, your bug report will be protected as per our privacy policy (link). Your bug report will contain the following information: … Yes, send bug report with extra system information No, send anonymous report

No, it's not legal. The General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) apply given that you are in the UK (regardless of where the Data Processor is based). The UK GDPR is slightly modified due to Brexit, but the same principles apply. The only plausible legal basis for this actions would be that you consent to it, and you're entitled to withdraw that consent at any time. Some may claim that Article 6.1(b) applies, i.e. that it's necessary to send marketing email in order to fulfil the contract, but GDPR is clear that bundling such consent into a contract for service simply to permit the data processor additional actions isn't allowed, as I'll demonstrate. UK GDPR requires that consent to use your personal information (in this case, your email address) for the stated purpose be freely given. Consent to use your information for direct marketing is not freely given if it's inseparable from the consent to use it for some other service, as per para 43: Consent is presumed not to be freely given if it does not allow separate consent to be given to different personal data processing operations despite it being appropriate in the individual case, or if the performance of a contract, including the provision of a service, is dependent on the consent despite such consent not being necessary for such performance. And Article 7.4 backs this up with When assessing whether consent is freely given, utmost account shall be taken of whether, inter alia, the performance of a contract, including the provision of a service, is conditional on consent to the processing of personal data that is not necessary for the performance of that contract. The intent of Article 6.1(b) is that only the processing required for the service you have bought is allowed (e.g. if you supply your address for delivery of stuff you've bought, the data processor can use that address to send you the stuff, but is not allowed to add a contract term that allows them to send you unwanted stuff). Examples of emails that Article 6.1(b) would allow (in my assessment) include things such as notification of upcoming downtime, or a reminder that subscriptions are due, but not unsolicited advertisements for other products. There's a grey area that's open to interpretation, where adverts are piggybacked onto actual service messages.

england-and-wales The government grants limited rights of return (thanks Jen), for which you are entitled to a cash or cash-like refund (e.g. reversal of a credit card charge as described below). The vendor has the option to go above and beyond that statutory minimum as a courtesy to the customer. In that non-compulsory zone, they have the liberty to offer store scrip rather than a cash refund. Of course, any business can try to cheat you, and then you have to stick up for your rights by insisting or reporting to relevant authorities. united-states If you buy with a credit card, the rules and contractual obligations of the credit card companies oblige the merchant to accept returns by doing a refund to the card. It's important to understand how this happens: the merchant isn't just picking an arbitrary amount of money and doing a new "sale in reverse"... they are identifying a specific past transaction that already happened, and modifying or reversing it. That is a system safeguard so they don't credit the wrong person or be tricked into a reversal on a transaction that never happened. That's why they want your receipt. On a cash transaction, it is sellers prerogative whether to issue cash or store credit. Issuing store scrip is a reasonable option to deter theft and fraud. For instance someone who wanted an item could get it for free, by buying the item, taking it home, returning the next day without the item, grab another identical item off the shelf and sneak over to the CS line and "return" it with yesterday's receipt. With cash sales, that would be completely untrackable, and the thief is gone. With credit card, they have your identity; with scrip they can "flag" the scrip in their system to either prevent its use and/or have a security officer detain you if you try to use it. For instance American home stores will cheerfully take re-saleable condition items back even without a receipt, but will issue a store voucher for the value rather than cash. That policy would be a disaster if they refunded cash. As it is, I find it rather convenient! So if you want the convenience of cash refunds, you can just use credit cards - gaining the feature at the expense of anonymity.

Is UPS allowed to take my money and business without intention to fulfill its side of the transaction? No. The company's belated change of mind constitutes breach of contract, and its subsequent refusal to give you a refund completes the prima facie elements of fraud and/or unjust enrichment. The company's acceptance of your package & money and its subsequent act of sending your package to NC strike the applicability of its clause on Refusal of Service (see the link provided in the other answer). The blanket term of "among other reasons" is hardly enforceable at that point. In particular, the existence of a lawsuit between the recipient and the company further weakens any merits of the company's belated change of mind. That is because, by virtue of that lawsuit, the company currently has to deliver to that same recipient other packages anyway. Thus, the company cannot allege that delivering your package "is unsafe or economically or operationally impracticable". Also, since you are the one who paid for the service, the company cannot withdraw on grounds of "the person or entity responsible for payment is not in good standing".

You clearly cannot provide data that you haven't stored – and not storing data is a good thing under the Art 5(1)(c) Data Minimization Principle. Despite the Art 20 data portability right being conditional on that the data subject has provided data and not on that data has been stored, I think responding to such a request with “sorry, as per our privacy policy we do not store this data” would be perfectly fine. It is also curious that you are using consent as the legal basis for the purpose of selecting the website language. How do you obtain consent from visitors? How can you prove that you got consent? In many ways, consent is the legal basis of last resort, and I'd think that legitimate interest would be a much more straightforward approach in your case.

A TOS is not intrinsically illegal, but an interpretation of a TOS may or may not be supported by a court, that remains to be seen. It probably does not constitute a "deceptive practice" under FTC standards. The TOS is your permission to use the software, and there can be no question that they have the right to impose conditions on customer use of the software. E.g. Amazon cannot freely use software that is only licensed for free educational use. They speak of "ownership" of IP so created and explicitly disclaim any claims about Current Law in Your Jurisdiction. At the crucial point in the agreement, they switch to talking about the license (BY-NC) that they grant when you are not a paid member. The exact details of this ownership are not part of the free tier TOS, but they do seem to add certain protections to "owned" content created under the Pro plan – they are under no legal obligation to make all content universally visible and usable.

No, a company cannot suspend your GDPR rights – contracts can't override the law. Your rights as a data subject apply as long as your personal data is being processed. However, there is no requirement in the GDPR that they fulfill your data subject rights through a self-service mechanism like a “download my data” button. They can require you to use another support channel. (But Google offers infamously bad support.) In some cases, the service may legitimately decide that they cannot give you access to the data, for example if they believe that you are not the actual data subject (e.g. if they think that you hacked the account). The right to access must not adversely affect other people (Art 15(4)). If they have doubts about your identity, they can require further information to verify you (Art 12(6)). If your requests are excessive or unfounded (if you are spamming them), they can also turn down the requests (Art 12(5)).

A company giving me a broad copyright permission, but also told me not to use one specific thing Let's say I run an organization called Shoesies-For-Kids. I know about this really cool art company online. They have some awesome pictures of shoes and I contact them with a "Hey there! I love your shoe pictures. Could I get permission to use pictures of your red shoes?" They email me back with "Well, sorry we aren't giving permission to anyone to use pictures of our red shoes anymore. However, we are giving permission to use our blue shoes. Would you like a copyright permissions document?" I respond back, "Yeah! That would be awesome can I get that permissions doc" "Sure" they email back "Here ya go!" And here is how the permissions doc reads. "Blah blah blah this doc gives permission blah blah blah, you may use pictures of our blue, black, purple, pink, red, orange, yellow, and white shoes." I really really like the red shoes picture. Even tho its obvious they don't want to give permission for their red shoes, the copyright document says we can use the red shoe picture. Maybe they just haven't updated their copyright doc in awhile? So whats the deal here? What is some legal text I could look at to understand how this scenario works legally?

In practice, you get sued not for doing things that are illegal or similar, but for doing things that upset someone with money to sue. In addition, it's very nice of them to let you use pictures of most of their shoes, so you should be nice and respect their wishes for red shoes as well. If you use photos of the red shoes, there's a risk that you are taken to court and even if you win, it will cost you a lot of money. And a lot of goodwill. You'll never be allowed to use photos of their sandals or shorts. So don't do it. The company should be advised to be more careful what they write when they give someone some permission.

Such an image is copyrighted, as part of the movie. You cannot legally use it without permission from the copyright holder, unless the use of the image falls under fair use (note that fair use is a strictly US legal concept. It does not apply anywhere else) or a similar exception to copyright, such as "fair dealing". There are multiple factors which must be considered in making a fair use judgement. No one factor ever totally controls the decision. It is a case-by-case decision. But several things about your proposed use suggest to me that it will not qualify as a fair use. The image is part of a creative work, not a work of non-fiction such as a news report or a textbook. That weighs against fair use. You seem to be using the whole image, although it is only part of the movie. That probably weighs against fair use to some extent. A use in "a social media post regarding a sales vacancy" sounds commercial to me. If so, that would weigh against fair use. The copyright owner might well wish to market images from the film. If so, and if many people used images from the film as you propose to use this one, that might harm the market. This weighs against fair use. You don't seem to be making any comment on the image, or using it in any significantly transformational way. That weighs against fair use. Use of the image does not seem vital or even important to the message you intend to communicate. That also weighs against fair use. In short, I think you would be wiser to use an image that you have or can get permission to use in this way. If you use this image, it is possible that the copyright holder would sue for copyright infringement, or issue a DMCA take-down notice, or both.

I'm pretty sure in France you have moral rights and copyrights. I am writing from New Zealand, but we have some similar intellectual property laws due to being member countries of the World Intellectual Property Organisation. We are also both member countries of the World Trade Organisation (WTO has the TRIPS agreement which relates to IP). So my answer may or may not be right – check what it says in France's copyright acts: you should be able to search for terms like first owner, and moral rights, films/videos, etc. The school isn't your employer, and so the basic rule is that you as the author are automatically the first owner. Since you're not really at school to create anything or research for the school, I don't think the court would enforce a blanket term that you had to agree to that the school owns intellectual property in what you create. You probably own the copyright. You also have moral rights in what you have created, which means even if the school does own the copyright in your work, you can request they attribute it to you if they show it in public (online). Not all works have moral rights. However, in NZ if you create a film/video you do have moral rights in it.

All your work is yours. They've made it very clear it wasn't a work for hire, so it's yours. They can't copyright any of their ideas. You can't copyright an idea. Only specific creative elements authored by them and present in your work could be covered by copyright. You didn't use their block diagrams. I don't see how references to other sites to look at would constitute a creative element they authored. That said, you probably want to talk to a lawyer and get a written legal opinion that you can rely on.

Yes. The introduction to the license says "You may adapt — ... build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially". (My emphasis). Note that there is an attribution requirement so you need to find a way to attribute each image to its individual author. For the fine details, you certainly need to read the actual license (rather than the introduction) and you probably need to consult your own, paid-for, IP lawyer - but if you are just scoping the project out at the moment, you should be fine. For contrast, here is a Creative Commons licence that does prohibit commercial use.

The US does not provide copyright protection for font design. As long as you dont distribute font generating programs, that would themselves be copyrighted, you are not infringing. Your derived information is okay because it is derived from a non-copyrightable work and is therefore not a derivative work. https://law.stackexchange.com/a/25673/1340

There is no IP in ideas! There is copyright in writing it down - they can't use your exact words without permission. However, sending it to them in the form of a suggestion would give them a pretty much unassailable argument that you have given them an implicit licence. You can patent an invention (not an idea), claim IP in a trade mark (also, not an idea), register a design (again, not an idea) and hold copyright in an artistic work (once more, not an idea). They are required to keep confidences but offering them a suggestion probably doesn't count as supplying confidential information. I can see no risk in acting on customer suggestions. Hence, the idea to raise prices can be acted on or not at the discretion of the company.

If you used some creative work of mine without my permission (I'm the copyright holder, and you have no license giving you permission) then I can sue you to make you stop using my work, to get payment for damages, and to get payment for statutory damages. If you used my work because someone else told you wrongly that you had a license, that's very unfortunate for you, but is no reason why I wouldn't or shouldn't sue you. Obviously in this situation that third party did something badly wrong. I can sue both of you together to make sure that I get payment from whoever has deeper pockets. You can also sue that third party if you think that their lying, or being mistaken, about a non-existing license caused you damages, or if there is a contract or something that makes them responsible.

Is it legal to email my competitor's customers? I want to poach customers from my competitor. Is it legal to email my competitor's customers, advertising my service as an alternative? Details I can obtain a list of my competitor's customers, through a 3rd party product review site. This site allows those customers to review the competitor. For each of those customers, I can obtain their publicly listed contact email address from their business website. I would then email each of them, with a promotion email. Prompting them to consider me as an alternative. Is this legal? Also, is it legal to refer to my competitor in the email in any way?

Generally, you are permitted to contact people for whatever reason you would like. However, I would caution that you familiarise yourself with the various spam laws they have been enacted in your jurisdiction and also in those of your prospective recipients. Some of these laws merely impose conditions on the manner in which you can send unsolicited email, others prohibit it in certain circumstances. I don't intend to traverse each jurisdiction, but Wikipedia has an apparently comprehensive list. There's no reason why you can't refer to your employer, but you should note the relevant advertising and libel law in your jurisdiction and ensure you don't run afoul of these. Finally, consider whether you are breaching any terms of use of the site from which you are obtaining this data. Although you've mentioned it's publicly available, and the enforceability of browsewrap agreements is questionable, it may be legal hassle you don't want to incur.

I do not have the phone number, email, or anything else associated with the account. Well, neither do I - so it must be my account. Unfortunately, the fact that you appear in most or all of the pictures on that account does not prove that you own it. It could be the photographer's account. Do I have ANY options here Can you reactivate the email account associated with the Twitter account? Or the phone number? Either would allow you to reset the password and access the account. You can go to court (in California) and seek an injunction ordering Twitter to delete the photos or give you access. Of course, you have the same issues proving ownership here as you did with Twitter but the court may have different priorities (justice) than Twitter does (corporate protection). I had an idea. If you (or your husband) own the copyright in the photos (i.e. one of you was the photographer) you could issue a DCMA take-down notice because the poster (who, according to Twitter, isn’t you) does not have permission (even if they did at the time: permission can be revoked). Twitter would be unable to contact the account holder and would be required to remove the images when they got no response.of course, if the photographer was someone else, they could do it. Or you could break the law and say it was you, although I would never recommend this even with a near zero chance of being caught.

This appears to be very clear to me: "NPR does not allow other websites to post our content..." I cannot think of a more clear way to say "Do not reproduce our content on your site." Since you asked about licensing the right to reproduce their content, and they flatly ignored your request, I think it is safe to assume that they are not interested in licensing that right to you, even for a fee. This is also consistent with their "NPR does not allow [any] other websites to post..." language. It is always the copyright holder's right to refuse to offer any particular person (or all persons generally) a license, no matter what payment they might offer. (With the exception of statutory licenses, which in the U.S. exist only for recording covers of musical works.) They have also ignored your request to recompense them for infringement already performed. If in the future they decide to take legal action against you for your past infringement (hugely unlikely that such a hassle would be worthwhile for NPR) or seek any out of court settlement (again, quite unlikely they will care enough), I'm sure they will let you know. As they've said in their email, you are welcome to link to NPR's content. You are, of course, not welcome to spread misinformation or lies about NPR by claiming something like, "Look at this wonderful article that NPR wrote purely for us, at our personal request," or "NPR thinks that In Home Teaching Agency XXX is a great company, so we built a curriculum around their content," when NPR has never said any such thing. Any legal issue around linking would probably be a trademark offense, by wrongfully suggesting that NPR endorses you, or by misrepresenting yourself as an agent of NPR. If you don't do either of things, and just say, "Here's an article on [subject X] published by NPR," you're probably fine. If you want to be very thorough, you could include a disclaimer on your site like, "In Home Teaching Agency XXX is not a licencee or partner of NPR. Links to NPR articles are included for educational purposes only," or similar. This seems pretty excessive to me, since a reasonable person won't assume that linking to an article from a major news source suggests a partnership, but I suppose it couldn't hurt to include such a disclaimer.

Update: I've filed a complaint with the CA Attorney General. They automatically forwarded the complaint to Comcast and sent me a notice in the mail. If you have filed a complaint against a business, we will forward your complaint to that business and request that it contact you promptly to resolve the issues you raised. Please note that we cannot represent you, advocate for you with the business, or force the business to satisfy individual requests for relief. Please contact the business directly to discuss your complaint. While we cannot provide specific legal advice, please see the information below, which may help address your concern. For more information about the CCPA, please see https://oag.ca.gov/privacy/ccpa and https://cppa.ca.gov/. [...] If a business has violated the CCPA, you may notify the Office of the Attorney General by filing a consumer complaint. While we cannot file an action on behalf of an individual consumer over an individual violation, consumer complaints are an important source of information for the office. We will review consumer complaints to identify patterns of misconduct and to determine what law enforcement actions to take. You can sue a business under the CCPA only if your unencrypted and un-redacted personal information was stolen in a data breach as a result of the business's failure to maintain reasonable security procedures and practices to protect it. You must generally give the business written notice of its violations and 30 days to fix the violations before you can sue. For more information about when you can sue for a CCPA violation, visit https://oag.ca.gov/privacy/ccpa If you want to consult an attorney, you can obtain a referral to a certified lawyer referral service through the State Bar at (866) 442-2529 (toll-free in California) or (415) 538-2250 (from outside California), or online at https://www.calbar.ca.gov. If you cannot afford to pay an attorney, contact your local legal aid office to see if you qualify for free or reduced-rate legal assistance. For a referral to local legal aid offices, visit https://lawhelpca.org/ and click on the Search for Legal Help tab. Comcast responded immediately to the forwarded complaint and appears to have deactivated my login, but nearly a month later have still not confirmed whether any personal information has been deleted. I'd strongly recommend anyone in a similar situation to file a complaint as well. There's no guarantee the Attorney General or California Privacy Protection Agency will act on it, but it can increase the civil penalty to the company by $5,000 per complaint (see section 1798.155) and makes it more likely they will comply. Don't waste your time with any unnecessary calls from the business or obfuscating information yourself as a commenter here mentioned. Just submit your CCPA request in writing, complete the identity verification, wait the 45 days as allowed by the law (or 90 if an extension is requested, see section 1798.130), and file a complaint if it's not completed. Update 2: I received a forwarded letter from Comcast to the Attorney General in response to my complaint. They lied and backdated their alleged completion date of the deletion request to fall within the 45 day deadline, despite emails I sent past their claimed date repeating the request as I was still able to login. Before filing a complaint, make sure to take screenshots showing you logged into the account and email it to the business in order to document it.

Is UPS allowed to take my money and business without intention to fulfill its side of the transaction? No. The company's belated change of mind constitutes breach of contract, and its subsequent refusal to give you a refund completes the prima facie elements of fraud and/or unjust enrichment. The company's acceptance of your package & money and its subsequent act of sending your package to NC strike the applicability of its clause on Refusal of Service (see the link provided in the other answer). The blanket term of "among other reasons" is hardly enforceable at that point. In particular, the existence of a lawsuit between the recipient and the company further weakens any merits of the company's belated change of mind. That is because, by virtue of that lawsuit, the company currently has to deliver to that same recipient other packages anyway. Thus, the company cannot allege that delivering your package "is unsafe or economically or operationally impracticable". Also, since you are the one who paid for the service, the company cannot withdraw on grounds of "the person or entity responsible for payment is not in good standing".

If you operate from outside Germany but within the EU, it is generally sufficient to satisfy your own country's regulations. This is a foundational principle of the EU single market, though it's not quite realized yet and has exemptions for consumer protection purposes. However, the German TMG law which includes the Impressumspflicht explicitly enshrines this principle. So from the German Impressumspflicht perspective, you're good to go. However, you will not be able to operate anonymously, because of your country's laws. GDPR requires you to clearly state your identity and contact details in your privacy notice. If you engage in internet-based commerce, the EU eCommerce Directive will have caused your EU member state to pass legislation that requires you to disclose: your name the geographic address where you are established contact details incl an email address if applicable, registration numbers from trade registers or similar if applicable, your VAT ID Note that you must have a VAT ID for cross-border B2B sales within the EU. You state that you are not selling anything via your website, and are instead collecting payments via another website. What the consequences of this are would depend on the laws and caselaw in your jurisdiction, but you will have to make these disclosures on at least one of the two websites. About Germany going after bloggers who show ads: income from ads is taxable income, and operating a business requires registration. However, the German Impressumspflicht is rarely enforced by the state. Instead, other market participants (competitors) trawl the internet for potential violations and then send a cease-and-desist letter. They can do this because skirting legal obligations distorts the level playing field, which harms those competitors. There is a thriving cease-and-desist industry built around this, but it only affects businesses that operate within Germany.

While not categorically illegal, there is a risk that using a trademark in an email name is something that is being done with a purpose to defraud people into thinking that you are affiliated with that company (and indeed, such emails are frequently used for that purpose as are misleading domain names). So, while it isn't outright forbidden, it is generally unwise.

Yes, you can. An excellent example is this very website - at the bottom of this page you will find a series of links in the footer, one of which is "Terms of Service". I think you will agree that most people using the Law SE are making no money from it or paying no money to use it and yet the terms of service sets out in black and white what a user of this site can do, and what the repercussions can be if they breach the ToS, so it serves a purpose as an excellent example for your question.

Are diving suits outlawed in Cannes, France? The mayor of Cannes, France has recently outlawed the burqini from public beaches. I'm an underwater diver. When I heard this news, I had no clue what a burqini looked like. I was quite stunned when I looked at the description[1][2]: The full-length lycra suit with hijab head-covering is not too figure hugging to embarrass, but is tight enough to allow its wearer to swim freely. The suit covers the whole body except the face, the hands and the feet, whilst being light enough to enable swimming. It looks rather like a full-length wetsuit with built-in hood, but somewhat looser and made of swimsuit material instead of neoprene. Basically, it looks like a wetsuit. Divers use wetsuits all the time. Does this mean wetsuits are now outlawed as well?

Short answer : No, diving suits are ok. Long answer : Only ostensibly religious clothes are forbidden, both on the beach and in the water (this also forbids nuns and priests to go for a swim in their "professionnal" gear). The arrêté says "Une tenue de plage manifestant de manière ostentatoire une appartenance religieuse, alors que la France et les lieux de culte religieux sont actuellement la cible d’attaques terroristes, est de nature à créer des risques de troubles à l’ordre public (attroupements, échauffourées, etc.) qu’il est nécessaire de prévenir." "L’accès aux plages et à la baignade est interdit à compter de la signature du présent arrêté jusqu’au 31 août 2016 à toute personne n’ayant pas une tenue correcte, respectueuse des bonnes mœurs et de la laïcité, respectant les règles d’hygiène et de sécurité des baignades adaptées au domaine public maritime." "Le port de vêtements pendant la baignade ayant une connotation contraire à ces principes est également interdit. […] Toute infraction fera l’objet d’un procès-verbal et sera punie de l’amende de première catégorie, soit 38 euros." Which roughtly tranlates to : "Beachwear ostentatiously showing a religious affiliation, while France and places of religious worship are currently the target of terrorist attacks, is likely to create risks of disturbance to public order (crowds, scuffles, etc.) which have to be prevented." "Access to beaches and swimming is prohibited from the signing of this Order until August 31, 2016 to any person not dressed in a proper way, respectful of morality and secularism, respecting the rules of health and safety of bathing suited to the maritime public domain." "Wearing clothing with an opposite connotation to these principles while swimming is also prohibited. [...] Any offense will result in a ticket and shall be punished by a fine of the first category, 38 euros." Source : Le Monde (in French) For those who don't know, this is a burkini : A google search shows many other variations of this type of beachwear (link). As you can see, there's little risk that a wetsuit would be mistaken for one.

The relevant conventions tried to discourage the traditional mercenary business model, but they also try to avoid loopholes in their rules. Under command by and authorized by Russia? Yes. Wearing clothing/insignia recognizable at a distance? I don't know, but a big Z would be enough. Carrying arms openly? I presume so. There is no requirement that armed forces use only their own nationals (see the French Foreign Legion). While Russia tries to deny being "at war," under international law it is, and residents of the unoccupied part of Russia may rally around the flag. We don't know what will happen after the war. There is the precedent of the SS, which was declared a criminal organization at Nuremberg (that is, membership was considered evidence of complicity in their crimes).

https://bchumanrights.ca/mask-poster/ Technically speaking is wearing masks a law, a health order or the store policy as a result of the health order? Technically speaking it's a Ministerial Order made under the power delegated to the Minister by the Emergency Program Act R.S.B.C. 1996, c. 111, s. 10. Can a customer be denied service or entry for not wearing a mask even if they claim they have a medical exception? No, they cannot. If they claim they have an exemption, then as far as you are concerned, they have an exemption. Refusing service would be illegal discrimination on the basis of disability. Must they prove it with some sort of certificate? No. Some people have claimed that they do not need to show proof. Those people are right. If the customer is acting in a dishonest manner, for example if I see them wearing a mask before entering the store, does that make a difference? No. Does the quality of mask or the material it is made of make a difference? Yes. They must wear a face covering. "face covering" means either of the following that covers the nose and mouth of a person: (a) a medical or non-medical mask; (b) a tightly woven fabric; Some customers pull their shirt over their face and my coworkers tell them that is alright. Depends on the shirt: if it is made of "a tightly woven fabric" then it is alright.

Mongolia apparently has a list of banned words (list is NSFW) that websites can't use. And according to this State Department report: Additionally, the regulation requires Web sites with heavy traffic to use filtering software that makes the user Internet Protocol addresses of those commenting or sharing content publicly visible. The report also says: The law places the burden of proof on the defendant in libel and slander cases, and both defamation and insult are criminal charges. NGOs reported that these laws were used more frequently than in previous years to control the press. Canada is probably a better choice, even if it isn't perfect.

Say I build myself a faraday cage/wave screen around my house, potentially resulting in poor nework coverage for my neighbours. Questions about land property and constructing permits apart, can I be sued for that? By the network operator? by the neighbours? In most countries, the use of the radio spectrum is regulated (who may send what on which frequency, at which power, etc.). As part of these regulations it is usually forbidden to interfere with the reception of radio waves. So if what you do causes your neighbours to have reception problems, then yes, that will most likely be illegal. In France, the government agency responsible for these problems is ARCEP (Autorité de Régulation des Communications Électroniques et des Postes). If someone notices reception problems, they can complain to ARCEP, as explained for example on the page Le traitement des plaintes en brouillage ("Handling of complaints about jamming"). While you will probably not go to prision for jamming reception, you could have to pay a significant fine. This article on cell phone jamming mentions a penalty of "up to six months in prison or a 30,000 € fine" for "selling or installing" a cell phone jammer. In addition to that, anyone harmed by the reception problems could sue you in civil court and try to collect financial damages (how much that would be will be up to a judge to decide). That said, note that a faraday cage around your house should not hinder reception outside your house. A faraday cage only influences reception inside the cage, not outside. However, that is off-topic here :-).

In the EU, that's the general rule going forward, but there are two big exceptions I'm aware of. The general rule from Article 1(1) of the Copyright Term Directive: The rights of an author of a literary or artistic work within the meaning of Article 2 of the Berne Convention shall run for the life of the author and for 70 years after his death, irrespective of the date when the work is lawfully made available to the public. Note that this is in fact an extension on the Berne Convention, which requires minimum 50 years after death. Big exception #1: Moral rights. Article 9 specifically states the directive does not apply to moral rights. These vary by country, but in the EU, moral rights have the tendency of lasting forever, and most often includes the right to attribution and a right against action which to the author is "prejudicial to his honor or reputation" (see Berne Convention Article 6bis). Therefore, as a rule, you cannot do "whatever you want" with an image (though sale is generally OK – that's an economic right, not a moral right). Big exception #2: Pre-existing longer term. Article 10(1) leaves intact pre-existing longer term limits which Member States had: Where a term of protection which is longer than the corresponding term provided for by this Directive was already running in a Member State on 1 July 1995, this Directive shall not have the effect of shortening that term of protection in that Member State. This of course means, you can't actually 100% rely on this "70 years after death" rule in the EU until 1 July 20661. However, most EU countries did have 70 years anyways. That said there are some interesting exceptions. For example, France has mort pour la France which extends copyright an additional 30 years for those who died on active military service. This means for French citizens who died before 1 July 1995 on active military service, this directive does not apply, and they still have up to 100 years of post-mortem copyright protection. As an aside, Wikipedia has a fairly detailed list on country copyright lengths. Not 2065, because per Article 8, the rule is actually the January 1st after 70 years after death. Then you have to wait till July 1 to be sure the rule 100% applies, because for some reason, they made the Article 10(1) exception start in the middle of the year.

From their website: Metro Vancouver Kink is an incorporated, non-profit society. That is, they are a corporation and corporations are legal people, capable of suing and being sued just like natural people are. The lawsuit alleges defamation which a corporate entity can do by making untrue statements that damage someone’s reputation. Based on the linked article, I can’t see that this is “retaliation”; the statements made are, if untrue, almost certainly defamatory and the defamed person is legally entitled to be “made whole” as far as possible. Incorporation is a method of shielding the members of the corporation from the corporations liabilities, legal or otherwise. From the article, it appears the allegedly defamed person is also suing the directors of the corporation - directors are usually legally shielded unless they have breached their duties as directors. One final point, not-for-profit entities still make profits or losses (called surpluses and deficits) and holds assets and liabilities just like a for profit business. Indeed an entity must at least break even over the long term if it wants to survive and make surpluses if it wants to grow. The difference is that a non-profit cannot return those surpluses to its members the way a company can; it has to use them for the purposes for which it was established or for defending lawsuits or paying out damages.

In general in the US, anyone may photograph anyone else if they are all in a public place, although in some states such a photo may not be used commercially without permission, which must often be paid for and may be refused. It is unusual for police to photograph people on the street, but they might want to document who was present at a particular place and time. They can do so, but I am not at all sure that they can prevent a person from covering his or her face, or turning his or her back, or charge a person who does so with obstruction. I don't think so. Under some circumstances in the US police may ask a person for identification, and may charge a person who refuses to provide it. This varied from one state to another, and usually depends on the specific circumstances. (If a person is driving an automobile, police may demand to see a driver's license, for example.) Unless a police officer puts a person under arrest, the officer has no general right to control that person's actions, beyond instructing the person not to interfere with ongoing police work. I do not think an obstruction charge would hold up for covering one's face or turning away in the absence of an arrest.

Why do prominent public figures resign, instead of being prosecuted, when they appear to have committed a crime? A few examples: Iceland's prime minister resigned when his relationship to the Panama Papers was discovered. The police superintendent in Chicago, Illinois, USA was fired when a video containing a police shooting was uncovered more than a year after the shooting took place. A regional administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency resigned after dangerous levels of lead were found in the area that the administrator oversaw. These acts prompted suspicions of money laundering and cover-ups, and gross negligence. Why are these public figures typically fired, or "voluntarily resign," instead of being prosecuted for crimes that they could plausibly be accused of? Is it a case of the law not being applied to the powerful and well-connected, or are there other legal reasons?

I will address only the legal issues. Prosecutors for very good public policy reasons are not required to prosecute every crime they have suspicions about. When exercising this discretion they consider: Is the act, in fact, criminal - many of the things you list, while reprehensible, unethical, and possibly immoral are not actually criminal. Do they have the resources (time, staff, money) to collect the evidence and run this case as opposed to the thousands of other crimes out there. There are always more crimes than can be prosecuted and these have to be prioritised in some way. Do they have enough evidence to gain a conviction beyond reasonable doubt. People can be fired or resign on suspicion, they can't be convicted on it.

Bribery always involves a public official or person with a legal duty (such as a witness in a legal proceeding). It is illegal for such a person to accept a bribe. See 18 USC 201. We speak metaphorically about "bribing" when we aren't actually talking about the same thing as the legal concept. Seen as a contractual matter outside the legal concept of bribery, a contract requiring a person to cover up a violation of the law would be unenforceable. However, it would be the crime of extortion to threaten to expose the criminal, so to rule that out, we would have to assume that the criminal knew that Jones could rat him out, and he offers Jones money to keep quiet. If the agreement were to "not testify", then that would be bribery. In other words, we have an almost perfectly innocent person, who acted entirely legally (did not extort, is not a public official, did not accept money in connection with testifying in court), and accepted money given for an unenforceable purpose which was breached. Their only fault was accepting payment to not turn a criminal in (and even then, they did turn him in). I can't find relevant US case law that definitely rules one way or the other. I believe though that the court would not order the money returned to the criminal – the court would do nothing to validate such a contract.

The IRS Criminal Investigation division is typically going to be the arresting agency, assuming that (1) the offense is treated as a criminal matter; (2) a warrant is actually issued; and (3) anyone actually sets out specifically to serve the warrant. It is usually the case, though, that the violation is handled as a civil matter. When it is treated as a criminal violation, the defendant and the Service often reach an agreement that eliminates the need for an arrest. If there is a warrant, though, any police agency could theoretically make the arrest if they happened across the defendant. But if it's a time-sensitive investigation -- if the defendant is expected to flee or destroy evidence, for example -- it's a safer bet that you'll see an actual warrant execution. In that case, you would have CI taking the lead, perhaps with assistance from other agencies.

The evidence will almost certainly be inadmissible And, of course, you will be disbarred and never work as a lawyer again, you might also go to jail for attempting to pervert the course of justice. Whether the person is convicted or not will depend on the strength of the other evidence the state has. In the notorious case of Lawyer X, Nicola Gobbo was acting as a barrister for a number of Melbourne underworld figures while simultaneously acting as a police informer. A number of those convicted have successfully appealed their convictions on the basis that they didn’t get a fair trial. In their judgement on AB (a pseudonym) v. CD (a pseudonym); EF (a pseudonym) v. CD (a pseudonym) [2018] HCA 58 the High Court said: But where, as here, the agency of police informer has been so abused as to corrupt the criminal justice system, there arises a greater public interest in disclosure to which the public interest in informer anonymity must yield. EF's actions in purporting to act as counsel for the Convicted Persons while covertly informing against them were fundamental and appalling breaches of EF's obligations as counsel to her clients and of EF's duties to the court. Likewise, Victoria Police were guilty of reprehensible conduct in knowingly encouraging EF to do as she did and were involved in sanctioning atrocious breaches of the sworn duty of every police officer to discharge all duties imposed on them faithfully and according to law without favour or affection, malice or ill-will. As a result, the prosecution of each Convicted Person was corrupted in a manner which debased fundamental premises of the criminal justice system.

united-states But what is that legal reason? Why would an organization not be able to state their position with respect to the issue, such as "We believe we acted correctly, but this will be decided in court"? Is there a law saying that commenting a court case is illegal? Who does this apply to? Or is this just some guideline or established advice to avoid problems (which ones)? Legal Ethics Considerations There are circumstances when commenting publicly on litigation violates the ethical rules for lawyers related to trial publicity See Rule of Professional Conduct 3.6 (the numbering system for professional conduct rules for lawyers is uniform nationally in the U.S. although the substance of the rules can differ in detail from state to state - Colorado's rule is fairly typical). Mostly this rule calls for avoiding statements that could prejudice a jury unless the other side has already done so and those statements need to be rebutted. This rule states (in its Colorado version): (a) A lawyer who is participating or has participated in the investigation or litigation of a matter shall not make an extrajudicial statement that the lawyer knows or reasonably should know will be disseminated by means of public communication and will have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing an adjudicative proceeding in the matter. (b) Notwithstanding paragraph (a) and Rule 3.8(f), a lawyer may state: (1) the claim, offense or defense involved and, except when prohibited by law, the identity of the persons involved; (2) information contained in a public record; (3) that an investigation of a matter is in progress; (4) the scheduling or result of any step in litigation; (5) a request for assistance in obtaining evidence and information necessary thereto; (6) a warning of danger concerning the behavior of a person involved, when there is reason to believe that there exists the likelihood of substantial harm to an individual or to the public interest; and (7) in a criminal case, in addition to subparagraphs (1) through (6): (i) the identity, residence, occupation and family status of the accused; (ii) if the accused has not been apprehended, information necessary to aid in apprehension of that person;(iii) the fact, time and place of arrest; and (iv) the identity of investigating and arresting officers or agencies and the length of the investigation. (c) Notwithstanding paragraph (a) and Rule 3.8(f), a lawyer may make a statement that a reasonable lawyer would believe is required to protect a client from the substantial undue prejudicial effect of recent publicity not initiated by the lawyer or the lawyer's client. A statement made pursuant to this paragraph shall be limited to such information as is necessary to mitigate the recent adverse publicity. (d) No lawyer associated in a firm or government agency with a lawyer subject to paragraph (a) shall make a statement prohibited by paragraph (a). Statements such as "We believe we acted correctly, but this will be decided in court" are allowed and are not terribly uncommon. But, making a comment about something that can be easily inferred from the publicly available documents filed in court provides little or no positive advantage for a litigant. Also, one doesn't have to say much to create at least a colorable Rule of Professional Conduct 3.6 issue that a mediator can raise in settlement talks, or that a judge can be forced to analyze. Even if the claim of unethical trial publicity ultimately doesn't hold water, it still muddies the waters and distracts lawyers and litigants from dealing with the substance of the dispute. The Risk That A Statement Will Be Used Against You Usually, the main concern is similar to the concern about talking to police: Anything you say can and will be used against you at trial. For example, this week former President Trump's public statement about his knowledge of classified documents, which are the subject of an ongoing federal criminal investigation of him, seriously harmed his position legally. (His statement was made quite a while ago in a semi-private forum, but at a time when the possibility of a criminal investigation still should have been on his radar screen.) In the civil rape-defamation case against him (as noted, for example, in this Law.SE answer), Trump's decision to continue to speak publicly about matters that were the subject of active litigation against him in an earlier case resulted in an extended statute of limitations and an opportunity to refile the case without having to worry about Presidential immunity from liability for statements he made while in office. It isn't just former President Trump that does things like this, but his conduct provides good textbook examples of what lawyers worry about when their clients talk about cases that are being litigated. Social media statements about pending cases by litigants routinely provide powerful evidence against them in trials. Some clients (particularly politicians and many senior executives of big and medium sized businesses, but also more ordinary people with big egos) are "forces of nature" who can't resist running their mouths, usually to their detriment, when given the least leave to do so. It is easier to teach them to say "no comment" across the board about pending litigation, than to transmit the depth of understanding necessary to comment without saying something potentially harmful. Lawyers spend many hours and sometimes days preparing their clients for depositions for a reason. Avoiding Annoyance To Opposing Counsel, Parties, And Judges Making a comment about pending litigation has the potential to aggravate opposing counsel and can emotionally influence non-lawyer opposing parties with whom a negotiated settlement will be reached 90%+ of the time (only about 1-2% of civil cases go to trial, but some are resolved by default judgments or on motion practice as opposed to by settlement). It can also irritate a judge who frequently prefers to be out of the public spotlight when necessary, even when the statements made aren't prohibited, and judges in the U.S. have lots of discretionary authority.

Sometimes In general, intentionally false speech gets less protection than other speech, and in some cases it is unprotected. The classic example of speech that is unprotected is "Falsely shouting FIRE in a crowded theater". Note that this is both intentionally false and highly likely to be seriously harmful to multiple uninvolved people. On the other hand, the classic case of New York Times vs Sullivan said that, at least when the subjects were public officials (later broadened to public figures) it was not enough to prove simple falsehood in a defamation case, one must prove "actual malice" (an unfortunate term) which in this context means statements that are either knowingly false or are made with reckless disregard for the truth. The court in that case said, in effect, that if a newspaper had to be sure that its every statement could be proved true in every detail, it would be unwilling to vigorously report on matters of significant public concern (this is a paraphrase, I'll add a quote later). Opinions are considered legally not to be either false or true. "President Jone is the worst leader the US has ever had" Is a statement of opinion, and so is not defamation. Moreover, in political contexts, attempts to punish false statements of fact that are not defamatory have been held unconstitutional. One example was the "Stolen Valor" act, which punished falsely claiming to have been awarded a medal by the US armed forces. This was held to be against the First Amendment. In general, regulation of speech (which here includes writing and other forms of communication) must be fairly narrowly drawn and must have good reasons behind them to survive a court challenge. How much so depends on the nature of the law, and particularly whether it is "content-neutral" or not. Details and cites to come when i have a little more time.

I can’t think of any laws against pretending to commit a crime, per se. For example, undercover police officers often pretend to buy or sell illicit goods, to see who will take them up on the offer. However, pretending to commit some crimes could be a crime. if you intentionally pretend to be violent or unstable, and this “puts another person in reasonable apprehension of imminent harmful or offensive contact,” that could be common assault.

Partial answer (other parts of an answer would be jurisdiction specific): Would this constitute a slander lawsuit against the group of employees and outside agency? The employee falsely alleged to be mentally ill would be the plaintiff who would be the only person who would have standing to bring suit. The person allegedly making a false statement to someone other than the employee alleged to be mentally ill (an action which is called "publication" of a false statement) would be the defendant(s). Listening to an allegedly false statement about someone is not slander, nor is believing it to be true. In the U.S., in most cases, knowledge of the truth or reckless disregard for the truth (or at least negligence in getting the facts wrong in private persons cases not involving a public interest) is necessary to establish liability. Someone who doesn't know that a statement is false and has some basis to believe it is true, can't be guilty of slander. In many non-U.S. jurisdictions, slander liability is possible without knowledge that the statement made is false (and without reckless disregard for the truth or falsity of the statement). Also, it matter who the "outside agency" is in this case. Governmental agencies are typically immune from liability for slander for statements made in the course of their official duties. Without a fuller understanding of who is saying something and why, it is hard to evaluate the claim appropriately.

At which moment does the fraud happens during a fraudulent transaction? Does the fraud requires the fraudulent transaction to be paid or it already constitutes fraud by the time the fraudulent service or good is offered? Or is there any other moment when the fraud happens?

"Fraud" is roughly lying to get something that isn't yours - for example, my money. It turns from attempted fraud to fraud at the point where I would be defrauded if we both take no further action. That would often be the point where I hand over the money, for example if you offer goods for sale that don't exist and that you don't intend to deliver. If you fill out a form and forge my signature to get money, and send it off to someone who will give you the money, it would be fraud at the point where I lose my money if we both take no further action. That might be the second where you drop the letter in the mailbox.

Given that this is a UK based company, the most applicable Act would be the Unsolicited Goods and Services Act 1971 A person who, not having reasonable cause to believe there is a right to payment, in the course of any trade or business makes a demand for payment, or asserts a present or prospective right to payment, for what he knows are unsolicited goods sent (after the commencement of this Act) to another person with a view to his acquiring them [for the purposes of his trade or business], shall be guilty of an offence and on summary conviction shall be liable to a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale. This law specifically refers to [unsolicited] charges for entries in directories. You also mentioned that they're misrepresenting that a company is already a customer and sending out invoices on that basis. That would be a breach of the Fraud Act 2006 A person is in breach of this section if he dishonestly makes a false representation As to their enforceability, that answer is no. If this came before an actual judge, the judge would throw it out in a heartbeat. No agreement was made to provide a service in return for a payment and these companies rely on sending threatening letters via (seeming) third-parties precisely because they wish to avoid that level of scrutiny.

You haven't suffered a legally cognizable harm because you got your money back, before you even had a chance to complain, so you have no basis for a lawsuit. For what it is worth, pretty much every adult in the United States was affected by the Equifax breach. Also, usually Equifax wouldn't have had access to full bank account numbers in the first place, so that is an unlikely source of the problem. You could open a new account and close the old one (as suggested by @mkennedy in the comments) because then if anyone had access to your bank account number and was abusing it, they could no longer do so. The fact that it only happened once rather than involving many transactions, which is what you commonly see when there is a true identity theft, however, suggests a more benign possibility. There is a pretty good chance that this errant transaction which was reversed was simply a clerical error involving an inaccurate typing in of an account number that got your number instead of the intended one and was reversed when the money didn't leave the intended account (in contrast, identity theft incidents are almost never reversed without a complaint from the account holder). In other words, this may have simply been the banking equivalent of dialing the wrong number by mistake. If this happens again, you should definitely shut down the account, but so far, it seems more likely that this was a one off clerical error. Humans are just not built to input scores of fifteen digit numbers on a daily basis in a 100% accurate fashion. As long as this job is in the hands of humans rather than computers or robots, the humans are going to make mistakes.

It would be a violation of 18 USC 1001, which is the law against making false statements to the federal government. Paul Mozer, who was a Salomon Brothers trader, received a four month sentence for doing something along those lines in 1994. Bidding on something implies an intent to pay for the thing, which in this case is a falsehood: in so doing, one "falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact" (that you don't intend to pay for the thing).

Fraud is simultaneously a civil wrong (a.k.a. a "tort") and a criminal violation. The civil wrong can be settled out of court. Relief from a criminal violation can be obtained only from the prosecutor and it is not proper to include an agreement not to press criminal charges in a settlement of a civil case.

Because there is no duty to be honest Generally, there is no duty of honesty except in specific circumstances. These include: when under penalty of perjury when negotiating a contract when immediate and direct harm would result from dishonesty (e.g. telling someone it was safe to cross the road when it wasn’t) under most consumer protection laws, when engaged in trade or commerce (which politics isn’t) Definitions differ but fraud requires both dishonesty and deception to acquire property or money or to cause loss. A vote is not property or money. While donations involve money, they are gifts and are given without expectation of reciprocity.

Fraud involves gain. It does not have to be financial gain. By the way, he's probably right about free education etc. to some extent - as the father he will be (partially) responsible for child support.

So, in short, the bank did what you asked them to do (close your account). What do you think they did that might be unlawful?

What makes an organization a criminal organization? What exactly makes an organization worthy of the title “criminal organization”? For instance, say, at some particular bank, it is discovered that several high-ranking officials were involved in an embezzlement scheme. Over the course of three years, these individuals pocketed money intended for company use. Does this make the bank a criminal organization? If not, then what would? Also this scenario is happening in America.

"Criminal organization" is an informal term with no legal significance. It is, however, often used to refer to something specifically addressed by [18 USC 96], the RICO statutes. The definitions section refers to "racketeering activity", "pattern of racketeering activity", and "enterprise". The first term which starts by enumerating murder, kidnapping, gambling, arson, robbery, bribery, extortion, dealing in obscene matter, or dealing in a controlled substance or listed chemical, and moving on to pretty much every crime there is. "Pattern of racketeering activity" is committing two or more crimes. An "enterprise" includes any individual, partnership, corporation, association, or other legal entity, and any union or group of individuals associated in fact although not a legal entity 18 USC 1962(c), for example, says It shall be unlawful for any person employed by or associated with any enterprise engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate or foreign commerce, to conduct or participate, directly or indirectly, in the conduct of such enterprise’s affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity or collection of unlawful debt. The italicized part refers obliquely to the Commerce Clause, and similar expressions are commonly used to give the federal government the authority to outlaw or restrict certain activities, if they have something to do with business. The bold parts draw in what are commonly considered to be "a criminal organization", that is, an "enterprise", which has a "pattern of racketeering behavior". Theoretically, the above scenario might fall within the ambit of RICO. There is a manual for RICO prosecution, which gives massive amounts of detail. I think the main issue in deciding whether to pursue a given organization is whether the organization seems to be by nature corrupt, as opposed to having some high-ranking corrupt people. There may be other reasons for not prosecuting under RICO.

The crime of theft generally requires two elements - taking control of property, and the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. If Bob had no intent to leave without paying, he may lack the intent often required for theft. In the scenario described, it's possible Bob has not committed theft, but his actions may indeed constitute theft depending on the jurisdiction. As pointed out in the comments, some jurisdictions codify the concealment of merchandise as prima facie presumption of an intention to steal, or may even codify the act of concealment itself as a crime. There are some shoplifting laws statues that specifically call out "willful concealment", which does not require leaving the premises of a store to have committed a crime - merely concealing the item may be a crime in itself, although perhaps not the crime of "theft". Whether a court would find Bob guilty of theft will depend on a number of factors, depending if there is leeway in inferring intent, and how that intent is inferred. If Bob's actions are found to be sufficiently inconsistent with the behavior of someone who truly intended to pay, the court may find him guilty. If a reasonable person would infer a lack of intent to pay from Bob's actions, he may be found guilty.

According to the United States Treasury Department: Money laundering is the process of making illegally-gained proceeds (i.e. "dirty money") appear legal (i.e. "clean"). Typically, it involves three steps: placement, layering and integration. First, the illegitimate funds are furtively introduced into the legitimate financial system. Then, the money is moved around to create confusion, sometimes by wiring or transferring through numerous accounts. Finally, it is integrated into the financial system through additional transactions until the "dirty money" appears "clean." I have no idea if the $10m are proceeds of crime so we apply the duck test - "If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and swims like a duck; its probably a duck" A person has gifted another person $10m - there is nothing illegal about giving someone a gift, however, this is a pretty substantial gift. I am calling it a gift because there is no enforceable contract that requires repayment. There is an expectation that the receiver will invest this money for a period of time, hey, if I had $10m I'd probably invest it too. And then return it to the giver; with or without the earnings (you do not say). Again there is nothing wrong with reciprocating a gift; reciprocity is a cornerstone of most societies, however, this is a pretty detailed understanding of what reciprocity means. Quack, quack, quack - its money laundering. Many jurisdictions in the world have "unexplained wealth" laws which basically require a person to explain their unexplained wealth or have it confiscated. If it isn't money laundering it is certainly at risk of this.

It looks to me as if "money laundering" is a misunderstanding; though any organization has a duty to prevent this, charities have no special responsibilties. However, charity law does in general terms prevent a charity from giving money to a cause that does not further the charity's aims. The Charity Commission's guidance says "Charities can only spend their money on projects or activities that support the aims stated in their governing document" (and although it goes on to outline exceptions, you still need to obtain the Commission's agreement to return a gift from a source you find objectionable, for example). The rationale is that people gave money to the University to further the cause of education; the researchers have no right to divert that money to Shelter (or another charity like the Roman Catholic Church) without the giver's consent. My experienced but non-expert view is that these payments would be a breach of the law, though they would probably be treated as a de minimis exception; you can't blame the University's legal team for insisting they should not be made.

Nope. 18 U.S. Code § 1028 - Fraud and related activity in connection with identification documents, authentication features, and information (a) Whoever, in a circumstance described in subsection (c) of this section— (1) knowingly and without lawful authority produces an identification document, authentication feature, or a false identification document; [...] (c) The circumstance referred to in subsection (a) of this section is that— (1) the identification document, authentication feature, or false identification document is or appears to be issued by or under the authority of the United States or a sponsoring entity of an event designated as a special event of national significance or the document-making implement is designed or suited for making such an identification document, authentication feature, or false identification document; So you're 1) producing a false identification document that 2) appears to be issued by the United States. Whether you'd actually be prosecuted for this is something that I'm not qualified to answer.

If what that quote says is actually true, no that is obviously not a crime. Sending law enforcement to stop a crime is not a crime, no matter who benefits. In fact turning a blind eye and letting someone benefit would have been the crime. But this is not a legal matter. People are upset because the person saying this has a track record of saying things that are actually not true and that is why many people suspect a crime. Because if any part of this sentence turns out to be not true (and based on this persons history, that chance is very high), then yes, a crime may have been committed. If any predecessor had said "I sent the FBI to stop child kidnapping and it stopped immediately", nobody would question that that is obviously not a crime. They would applaud him for it. Because with any predecessor, people would have believed their words to be true, at least in the very broad sense.

They still have the power They generally don’t because: Most activities of a criminal nature no matter how novel can be shoehorned as a new instance of an existing crime. Parliament is much more pro-active in its legislative agenda. The judicial system moves much more slowly.

No, each state is a "sovereign" and whenever a statute describes a crime it is always some act committed by a "person" and these two categories are mutually exclusive. See, for example, US Supreme Court in U.S. v. United Mine Workers of America, 330 U.S. 258, 67 SCt 677 (1947): "In common usage, the term `person' does not include the sovereign and statutes employing it will ordinarily not be construed to do so." Repeated by US Supreme Court in Wilson v. Omaha Indian Tribe 442 US 653, 667 (1979): "In common usage, the term 'person' does not include the sovereign, and statutes employing the word are ordinarily construed to exclude it."

If no licence is distributed with an application/source code, what license applies by default if any? If no license is distributed with an application/source code, what license applies by default if any from a legal standpoint? Edit: If bob makes source code. And bob has never placed any license in any code, or released applications. Are people legally in the right to dis-assemble/reverse engineer it? Furthermore If they obtain the source code, do they legally now own it for lack of license or does bob still obtain copyrights over said code/applications. In both situations assuming the code/application was obtained both legally, and illegally, please and thank you. PS: bob has never uploaded any source using GIT or anything else, they only exist on bobs computer, and places bob has released them by hand.

Using this answer on Open Source Stack Exchange, If a repository has no license, then all rights are reserved and it is not Open Source or Free. You cannot modify or redistribute this code without explicit permission from the copyright holder. If a project doesn't have a licence, then normal copyright rules apply - this means that the author reserves all rights. The way a project is obtained, nor (except in exceptional cases), does not alter the ownership of copyright of a project. Bob will always hold copyright, unless he releases a legal document, such as a licence, that grants others various rights to the project.

Being or not being open source makes fairly little difference in trademark law. If a commercial firm (Yoyodyne, say) had used the name "Portable Network Graphics" and the abbreviation "PNG" in trade, and taken such further steps as would be needed to protect it in the relevant countries, that firm would have a protectable trademark. Note that in some countries, a trademark must be registered to have any protection at all (much of the EU follows this rule). In others, use in commerce can offer some protection even without registration (the US follows this rule). Had this happened (in an alternate reality) Yoyodyne could have sent a cease and desist letter when open source developers started using the mark. If the devs did not cease, Yoyodyne might have obtained an injunction, or damages for trademark infringement, or both. They could also have issued a takedown notie to the site hosting the project. But had Yoyodyne failed to defend the mark effectively and allowed it to become generic, Yoyodyne might have lost all rights to it. Also, had Yoyodyne ceased to use it in trade for a significant period, they might have lost rights. This is a place where the different laws in different countries might lead to different results. Note that "Portable Network Graphics" is rather descriptive, and not particularly distinctive. Descriptive marks, like "Tasty Pizza" generally get weaker protection, while more distinctive marks, such as "LuAnn's Tastee Pizza" are more strongly protected, in general. Again this depends on the country, and the specific facts. In general the first to use, or to register a mark, gets the rights. When one entity is the first to use, but a different one is first to register, things can get confusing, and results will be different in different countries. Note that a Cease and Desist letter is not a legal requirement. It is a threat of possible future legal action, and often an offer to avoid such action if the recipient does as the sender requests. The recipient can comply with the letter, wait for court action, or try to make some sort of compromise deal. Open source projects, as other answers suggest, often choose to comply.

Section 1 of the GPLv3 states: The “Corresponding Source” for a work in object code form means all the source code needed to generate, install, and (for an executable work) run the object code and to modify the work, including scripts to control those activities. The Corresponding Source need not include anything that users can regenerate automatically from other parts of the Corresponding Source. So Makefiles are clearly included if they exists. The point of the GPL is to let the user be free to modify the code. A lot of projects are very hard to modify without the scripts used to fetch dependencies & build the executable so not providing means to build the code would go against the license spirit.

So-called AI software does not enjoy a special legal status (at present: one never knows what new law might be added). The question of whether any software can be distributed "safely" or "responsibly" is also not a legal issue. Nor is "true sentience" a relevant consideration, and nothing is guaranteed. When you distribute software of any kind, there is an implied warranty that the product is "fit", and if software kills you, you may be able to sue the creator for negligence. A software creator may then want to disclaim liability, by saying "WARNING: THIS PROGRAM MAY KILL YOU. OCP IS NOT LIABLE FOR ANY INJURIES ARISING FROM USE OF THIS PRODUCT". This may or may not actually remove liability. In the UK "liability for negligence occasioning death or personal injury cannot be excluded", so such a disclaimer will not prevent a suit against the manufacturer. In the US, the issue is determined at the level of the state – here is a summary of the law in the states. Probably the primary question would be whether such a disclaimer is an unconscionable term, and the second question is whether the act constituted gross negligence (not simply "negligence"). Mississippi exceptionally does not allow disclaimers, but even then, it does allow disclaiming liability when it comes to computer hardware and software. A software disclaimer is not inherently unconscionable, though perhaps some specific disclaimer would be found to be. Courts typically disfavor disclaimers in the case of gross negligence, and again determining what constitutes "gross negligence" is determined on a state by state basis. If the act shows "reckless indifference to the rights of others" and "failure to use even slight care or conduct that is so careless as to show com­plete disregard for the rights and safety of others", then the act might be grossly negligent.

Yes. A license is a legal form of permission to do something (usually, to use a particular property, whether real or digital or intellectual) and the conditions applied to that use. Different licenses for the same property are extremely common, for example, a free license for hobby or non-profit work and a paid license for commercial usage. Other conditions can include the requirement to make the derivative work also available in some manner or to disallow restrictive conditions should the derivative work be licensed itself, even up to requiring the exact same license be applied to all works. Wording the license exactly so that it achieves the goals you intend is the work of a qualified and registered lawyer, and obtaining their services is definitely recommended for this task.

As Greendrake says, you can legally create your "open source" license. There are two problems with this: Since you are not an experienced contract lawyer, there is a significant risk that your license doesn't do what you intend it to do. As a consequence, people who you want to use your software might not do so, because your license prevents it or makes it too risky. Or people may use your software in ways that you didn't want to allow, because the text of your license doesn't prevent it. Your license terms may be incompatible with other open source licenses. For example, I might want to use GPL licensed software A, and your software B with your license in my application. Being careful, I give both licenses to my lawyer, and the lawyer says, "sorry, you cannot possibly follow the terms of both licenses, because GPL and Ky's license require that you do two contradictory things. You can use software A and follow GPL's terms, or you can use software B and follow Ky's license terms, but you can't use both". All in all I would recommend that you use a widely used open source license.

I'm assuming that you are not seeking to change the license, and so it will remain GPLv3. As long as you've built on the original software, that license still applies. You also need to keep the previous copyright notices, including the names of the original people. Assuming that, everything you're doing is legal, which is what's on topic here. There is some etiquette around forks (which is what you're doing), which would be on topic at the Open Source Stack Exchange. I'm puzzled by your desire to have a different license text. You can't change the license from GPLv3, so that has to stay the same. (If the original has GPLv3 "or, at your option, any later version", you can drop the any other version text if you like.)

Is it illegal to ask a company for money in exchange for information on a bug in their software/website? That in itself is legal. Indeed, the company would incur unjust enrichment if it coerced you to disclose your discovery for free. Only if you threatened the company to divulge to others your discovery unless the company pays you, it would be illegal and trigger charges such as extortion (likewise, legislations outlaw the unjustified delivery of programs or instructions for hacking a software/network/etc., although this goes beyond your actual question). Can the company take legal action against me? That seems doubtful, futile, and it could backfire (please note I have not done any research on legal precedents about this). Although the terms and conditions of the website or the End User License Agreement (EULA) of software might prohibit you to reverse engineer (RE)/decompile/etc. the application, anti-RE clauses are unenforceable and the remedies therefor are indeterminate because the sole act of conducting reverse engineering does not subject the company (or third parties) to any losses. The company's decision to take legal action for your discovery could backfire from two standpoints. First, it calls attention to the fact that the software at issue is defective and unsafe. And second, the bug is likely to be detected by someone else anyway, thereby potentially compromising customers' systems.

Can a contract to kill help someone avoid murder charges? My friend just poses this question to me. In this hypothetical situation, two people, X and Y sign a contract in which they both agree that X is allowed to kill Y. Then later, X does kill Y. Here is the question: Can X be convicted of murder, if both parties legally agree that it was okay?

X can be convicted of murder in all jurisdiction in the United States (and probably the other common law jurisdictions). The issue here is two-fold. Contracts that involve illegal actions are not enforceable. In fact, the contract killing example you gave is a classic illegal agreement/contract. See the Wikipedia articles on illegal agreements and contract killings. Most criminal prosecutions involving bodily injury or death proceed regardless of the victim's wishes. This is because the prosecution represents the State's interests and can prosecute a case where the victims want it dismissed. Consider and example where the "battered spouse" doesn't want to testify against his/her abuser. The prosecution can still bring changes where the victim is not cooperative. It just makes proving their case more difficult. Check out this article from the DOJ that discusses how victims do not have a right to veto a plea agreement or other prosecutorial decisions. http://www.lclark.edu/live/files/6439-input-into-plea-agreement One could make an argument that the affirmative defense of consent could apply; however, most states have consent statutes like Colorado's that would not apply to murder. See C.R.S. § 18-1-505(2), which states: When conduct is charged is charged to constitute an offense because it causes or threatens bodily injury, consent to that conduct or to the infliction of that injury is a defense only if the bodily injury consented to or threatened by the conduct consented to is not serious, or the conduct and the injury are reasonably foreseeable hazards of joint participation in a lawful athletic contest or competitive sport, or the consent establishes a justification under sections 18-1-701 to 18-1-707. This statutes basically says consent doesn't apply where someone received serious bodily injury (murder would meet this standard), unless they are in a lawful athletic sport, such as boxing.

Let's say the trustee runs into a situation where the beneficiary demands some action, and the trustee thinks this action is a really, really bad idea. Then the trustee can either say "no". Or the trustee can say "yes" and be liable (so if the action is a really bad idea then the trustee won't do this). The trustee can NOT say "yes if you sign this paper that I'm not liable for the result of this action", because the job of the trustee is to protect the beneficiary and he wouldn't be doing that.

No. Under Texas Penal Code Title 2 Subchapter A, one of three three conditions must be true to use the defense-of-others defense, that the person against whom force is used unlawfully and with force entered the person's residence, vehicle of business (not applicable), or attempted to forcibly remove the person from same (idem), or attempted aggravated kidnapping, murder, sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault, robbery, or aggravated robbery. Abortion is not statutorily murder in Texas, even if it is illegal.

Contracts are generally assignable, meaning that one company can assign their rights, duties and obligations under the contract. Assignment may be specifically barred by the contract, or it may have certain terms (prior written consent, etc.) attached, but if not, a contract is likely freely assignable. Though a contract is not necessarily "automatically transferred" the reason Company C buys Company A is for its ability to earn Company C over time, which includes the contract between A & B. So unless the original contract has a "no assignments clause" or if an assignment is otherwise impossible or illegal, it is likely that A can freely assign the contract to C.

If two parties have a contract, where one party is required to do X in exchange for the other party doing Y, then the terms specified in that contract would determine what happens. You would have to see exactly what it says, especially if the other party has the option to not give you money. A contract might say "A shall at his option give B $5,000 by date X; if A elects not to make payment, notice must be given 60 days before X". Failing to give timely notice is thus breech of contract. However if the clause only says "A shall at his option give B $5,000 by date X", then there is no requirement for advance notice. And this assumes that there is a contract whereby both parties have some obligation to the other. A gift, on the other hand, carries no obligations on the giving party. There may be some social code to the effect that they should have told you by now, but failing to give advance notice is at most rude and certainly not legally actionable.

Article 199 of the Penal Code, as it appears from changes up to 2017, says: 人を殺した者は、死刑又は無期若しくは五年以上の懲役に処する。A person who kills another person is punished by the death penalty or imprisonment for life or for a definite term of not less than 5 years. This is for homicide as opposed to other related crimes, and there are also effects on sentencing for someone who is guilty of multiple offences, for example. The term can be halved if there are sufficient extenuating circumstances, so 2.5 years seems to be the minimum. In any case, 10-15 years is within the range.

Is sales person required by law to give a copy of signed contract at the time you sign up for service? No. If I would ask for copy of all documents from that company are they required by law to send her these copies? No. Is there a law that mandates process on how contracts should be signed in California? There are many, however, they relate to specific classes of contract. In general, it is not a requirement that a contract be signed or even written; verbal contracts are totally legitimate. Given that every single transaction where money changes hands in return for goods and/or services is or is part of a contract it is not feasible that they all be signed. Have you bought a cup of coffee today? Did you sign a contract when you did? Here's the thing Your friend has learned several valuable business lessons: the first is some people in business will rip you off. If you are a consumer then you have (some) legal protection, however, if you are in business then the courts and the legislature expect you to look after yourself. Your friend has signed a contract. Pretty much, any court will consider that what they signed would be the entire contract unless there was compelling evidence to the contrary. Her word that the sales rep said there would be no break charges would not on its own be compelling evidence. Your friend has an obvious incentive to lie. Here is the second lesson: don't sign anything unless and until you have read and understood it; hire a lawyer if you need to in order to understand it. Now, either under the contract the company is legitimately allowed to charge these fees or it isn't. Without having a copy of the contract you have no way to tell. Thus the third lesson: always keep your own copy of everything you sign. What your friend can do is: nothing. Don't pay the bill, write to them saying that she disputes that she owes them any money at all. If you want to be provocative, suggest which court would be most convenient if they want to prove the debt. Odds are this will go no further. If they do proceed with a summons then they will need to state their case. At that point she can request through the court a copy of the contract they are relying on. If their claims are legit she can simply roll over.

A prosecutor cannot make a change to a plea agreement after it is signed. That's why it has to be signed. If there is an error in it then it needs to be re-written and re-signed. No, your friend cannot get their conviction vacated over this. They can have it reversed and put back into pre-trial for a new determination (plea, trial, etc.). They need to speak to an attorney to understand if this is worthwhile or not. There really are very very few instances where a mistake in the legal system means you can get away with a crime.

Data scraping with an App and copyright violations (India) During my college days, I developed an Android App for my university. I used the university logo and data scraped from their website to show results of respective students. It's a government university. Today I received a call from the university that they are going to register a police case against me. Did I do any thing wrong? Will I be prosecuted for this? There was no financial benefit for me from this App.

Yes, you did something wrong; you used both the university's trade mark and copyright without their permission. I don't know the law in India, however, if it is similar to Australia it is unlikely that the police will be interested in doing anything about it. While it is technically a crime, criminal prosecution is usually reserved for egregious breaches on a for profit basis. I suggest you apologise and agree to stop distributing your app.

Let's examine some laws that may apply to your case Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) There are criminal penalties for willful infringement for personal financial gain. If you are only sending it to one family member through a private communication (eg not posting it publicly) and not selling it and one copy of the music video has a retail value of $1,000 or less then there will be no criminal penalties. But you may be liable for civil penalties. Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) Courts have ruled that ToS violations do not constitute unauthorized access (or exceeding access) so you aren't in violation of the CFAA Civil Liability By downloading a video off of YouTube you are in violation of their ToS. There isn't enough prior case law for me to tell you the outcome here. You may be committing some sort of civil wrong by the act of downloading. In addition, you are distributing a copyrighted work without permission which would open you to more civil penalties. The real question is how likely is it for this to be enforced? Not likely.

Go to court and find out There is no doubt that humming a tune and recording it (or performing it in public) is a derivative work - a right reserved to the copyright owner. Whether it is fair use depends on the specifics of the case. From the tweet, we simply don’t have enough information, however, at a guess, it is probably not fair use. Fair use in law is Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 17 U.S.C. § 106 and 17 U.S.C. § 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include: the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; the nature of the copyrighted work; the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors. Most people miss “for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research,” - if you aren’t doing one of those things then you start behind the 8-ball when yo move to the 4 factor test. Note that the “criticism, comment, news reporting,” etc. must be about the copyrighted work - I can’t use your copyrighted work to, for example, parody a politician unless you are that politician. Many people have completely the wrong idea about what copyright infringement and fair use actually are, in part because the use of music on YouTube is allowed, not because it’s fair use but, because YouTube was smart enough to negotiate and pay for a permissive licence with music producers. For a full explanation, see this video.

It would be copyright infringement. You had the copyright holders permission to make one copy of the song by downloading it. At that time, if you gave me a copy of that song, it could be argued that very, very little damage was caused because I just had downloaded that song myself with practically the same effect. Today, that argument is not valid anymore. So this is definitely copyright infringement. That's your question answered. I doubt that anyone would take action if you gave a copy to someone and it was found out. Making it available to the world for free download is another matter. That could easily get you into trouble; in the USA there could be a fine up to $150,000 without any proof of actual damages needed.

Is it illegal to ask a company for money in exchange for information on a bug in their software/website? That in itself is legal. Indeed, the company would incur unjust enrichment if it coerced you to disclose your discovery for free. Only if you threatened the company to divulge to others your discovery unless the company pays you, it would be illegal and trigger charges such as extortion (likewise, legislations outlaw the unjustified delivery of programs or instructions for hacking a software/network/etc., although this goes beyond your actual question). Can the company take legal action against me? That seems doubtful, futile, and it could backfire (please note I have not done any research on legal precedents about this). Although the terms and conditions of the website or the End User License Agreement (EULA) of software might prohibit you to reverse engineer (RE)/decompile/etc. the application, anti-RE clauses are unenforceable and the remedies therefor are indeterminate because the sole act of conducting reverse engineering does not subject the company (or third parties) to any losses. The company's decision to take legal action for your discovery could backfire from two standpoints. First, it calls attention to the fact that the software at issue is defective and unsafe. And second, the bug is likely to be detected by someone else anyway, thereby potentially compromising customers' systems.

No. Causing someone "pain and suffering" is not against the law; it is merely one kind of damages that can be awarded when someone has done something that is against the law. You may, for instance, endure pain and suffering from a car accident or shooting, in which case you could collect damages for your pain and suffering after proving that the other party committed the torts of negligence or battery, which are illegal. But if you were enduring pain and suffering from the last episode of Lost, you could not collect damages for your pain and suffering because it is not against the law to write a crappy finale. So in your case, cannot sue for pain and suffering based simply on the existence of a secret audio recording. North Carolina allows secret audio recordings, and it does not make exceptions for audio recordings that hurt someone's feelings. But to go beyond your explicit question, there still remains the possibility that you could pursue a legal action. If the other party used that recording in a way that violated the law, that might give rise to a tort that would support an award of damages for pain and suffering. If they publicly distributed a recording of themselves having sex with someone, that might constitute the tort of public disclosure of private facts. If they edited the recording to make it sound like someone had said something that they had not and then gave it to someone else, that might be grounds for a libel action.

The first step is to file a formal complaint against the instructor. When your university-internal avenues have been exhausted, you would then need to hire an attorney to sue the university. There is virtually no chance that you will succeed with a lawsuit. If the university had failed to follow its own procedures, or had egregiously violated your rights, you might win such a suit, but the chances of that having happened are virtually zero. The essential problem is that there is no specific contractual right for you to receive an particular outcome in a class (based on my knowledge of rules & regs in various universities). For example, you might reasonably want to have written comments on assignments given within a week: but there is no rule guaranteeing that you will ever get written comments. (You need to look at the university rules to see what is an actual rule, as opposed to a "goal" for an academic unit). Since there is no such rule, the chairman has limited authority to penalize the instructor (he might for example decide to not assign that class to Prof. X in the future). The chair would not have the authority to raise your grade under the circumstances. As far as the courts are concerned, the university's judgment and resolution of the matter are final, unless they simply failed to respect your rights (exhibited racial prejudice, refused to follow their own procedures). In certain contexts, professorial negligence could be legally actionable, but that would only be, for example, if an EE professor physically harmed a student by negligently confusing milliamps and mega-amps. His (non)action is not negligent in the legal sense.

Given a large database of email addresses that you can't prove have given consent to receive email, the only legal thing to do with it, is to (securely) delete it. (I am going to switch your question about a larger company to a bank: in the UK, big pharma is forbidden from advertising to individuals.) In principle the rules are the same for a huge bank and everything down to a self-employed plumber. In practice the plumber will be told "don't do that again" rather than fined. This case was treated under the Data Protection Act, which has a maximum fine of £500,000 – so a big bank would probably have been fined more, but not necessarily much more. Under GDPR, fines are related to turnover, so the fine would be a lot bigger for a large bank. The incident is a year old now. Details here.

Which part of the US constitution protects the life and safety of US citizens? I could not find any interpretation of the US constitution that US citizens have the right of life and safety. So what is the constitutional base for laws of crimes against the person (murder, battery, rape...)? Does the provision of the 5th amendment "be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law" applies also against criminals or it is intended only against government?

You have a couple major misconceptions about US law. First, crimes against the person are generally punished at the state level. States are not restricted to any sort of enumerated powers, and can pass any law they want to promote the general welfare unless there's a reason they can't. This is called the "general police power," and it lets them make everything from contract law to laws against murder. The federal government has to justify what gives it the authority to pass a law, and cities and counties have to justify their authority with state law or a state constitution, but a state government never has to preemptively justify why they have the authority to pass a law. States are especially not limited to powers listed in the federal constitution. The US Constitution sets up the federal government. State governments are set up by state constitutions, and derive their authority directly from the consent of the people of the state exercising their right to democratic self-determination. The only powers the US Constitution gives to states are minor technical powers involving state-federal relations (e.g. deciding how their presidential electors are appointed). But as I said, they aren't generally limited to any sort of enumerated powers by their state constitution either. Even the federal government isn't limited to "protecting rights listed in amendments." That's very little of what it does, in fact. Congress has powers listed (for the most part) in Article I and Article IV. It can pass laws banning murder in DC because Article I lets it exercise exclusive jurisdiction (meaning general police power) over DC and over federal enclaves. Article IV lets it exercise general police power over US territories, and pass laws regarding other federal property (I think it has a general police power there too, at least according to current law). The Necessary and Proper clause gives Congress the power to protect its own operations by, for instance, criminalizing the murder of a federal judge. Etc. Where there isn't a clear thing that lets the feds regulate something, they can probably get away with cramming "in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce" in the law, secure in the knowledge that practically everything affects interstate commerce. I'm not sure where you got the idea that laws are passed exclusively to enforce rights protected by the Constitution. They are not. They are not passed primarily for that purpose. Such laws do exist (e.g. deprivation of rights under color of law, which was passed pursuant to the 14th Amendment), but they're protecting you from government infringement of that right.

(The original title of your question suggested you might think that federal circuit precedent binds state courts: it generally does not, even on matters of federal law.) But regardless, Congress would not be able to legislatively lower the constitutional floor. If a certain police act is prohibited by the Constitution, Congress cannot legislatively allow that act, whether in a single state or uniformly across all states. That means that if the Fifth Circuit has decided that the use of some new investigatory tool is a search under the Fourth Amendment, no law that Congress passes could affect that holding. When congress creates laws that result in different effects for different people (e.g. people in Texas vs. people in Florida, as in your hypothetical), the distinction must be rationally related to a legitimate government purpose. Many of the enumerated powers allow for local distinction, some prohibit it. Some examples where Congress has distinguished between states include: localized agricultural programs, time zones, voting rights protections, and various others listed in ohwilleke's review. Some distinctions between states could also intrude on principles of federalism and state sovereignty (e.g. the Supreme Court has said that the Voting Right Act does this). Maybe I am unimaginative, but I cannot think of a legitimate federal government purpose that would call for the powers that police have against the people to vary from state to state. Any such variation would have to come from the states themselves: from their state constitutions, or legislative choices to provide heightened protections. Discord between circuits is problematic (see a list of examples of existing splits), and this is why the Supreme Court of the United States will often hear an appeal where there is a circuit split on a question of constitutional rights.

I know of no specific provision of the Constitution that would forbid it. I know of no court case in which it has been found unconstitutional. There's no "irony" clause in the Constitution. Taxation without representation may have been a grievance, but there's no inherent reason why the framers would have had to forbid it. US citizens do still have the "freedom to expatriate" (and avoid taxation) if they renounce their citizenship. There are already other examples of "taxation without representation" in US law (e.g. District of Columbia), which also have not been found unconstitutional in court, as far as I know. In many cases, expatriates can still vote for federal offices, including Congress (e.g. in a state where they used to live, or where a parent used to live). See https://www.fvap.gov/citizen-voter/registration-ballots. The Sixteenth Amendment gives Congress the power to "lay and collect taxes" with few limitations. There is certainly no explicit exception for expatriates. As far as I can tell, it would be constitutional if Congress were to impose an income tax on everybody in the world, regardless of residency or citizenship; it would just be hard to enforce.

It is possible that there is such a booklet in some jurisdiction, and that local police are required to carry that booklet and show it to persons on demand. This link (apparently) publicly provides the police manual for the city of Seattle, except it is 5 years and a major lawsuit out of date. No provision seems to exist that requires showing authority to detain, when requested. There is no general requirement for all police and all laws, in the US, and the full set of state, county and city codes would be impractical to lug around. If required by law to carry and display some such document, then by law a person can demand to see a police officer's authority to detain. Even without such a law, you have a First Amendment right to challenge the detention, but that does not also enable you to resist arrest. A detention is not invalidated by the fact that the detainee is unsatisfied that the detention is legal.

In the United States, at least, it's quite clear that merely arguing that the assassination of a leader would be a good policy decision is protected by the First Amendment. The United States Supreme Court addressed this question in Rankin v. McPherson, 483 U.S. 378 (1987). McPherson was a clerical employee in a sheriff's office when someone attempted to assassinate President Reagan. During a conversation about Reagan's attempts to cut food stamps and Medicaid, she told a co-worker, "If they go for him again, I hope they get him." The sheriff fired her for the remark, and she sued, alleging First Amendment retaliation. The trial court held that her remarks were not constitutionally protected, but the Supreme Court disagreed: The statement was made in the course of a conversation addressing the policies of the President's administration. It came on the heels of a news bulletin regarding what is certainly a matter of heightened public attention: an attempt on the life of the President. While a statement that amounted to a threat to kill the President would not be protected by the First Amendment, the District Court concluded, and we agree, that McPherson's statement did not amount to a threat punishable under 18 U.S.C. § 871(a) or 18 U.S.C. § 2385, or, indeed, that could properly be criminalized at all. ... The inappropriate or controversial character of a statement is irrelevant to the question whether it deals with a matter of public concern. ... Debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials. Note also that this case arose in the context of public-employee discipline, where First Amendment rights can be quite seriously curtailed. If the First Amendment protects the statements in that setting, imposing criminal penalties for the same speech is generally going to be out of the question.

The granting of citizenship is expressly recognized in multiple places in the US Constitution. It would be incoherent if the prohibition on titles of nobility meant that the US could not confer citizenship on people. It would also be totally out of sync with any public understanding of "titles of nobility" at the time of the framing or today. The US has conferred citizenship by parentage to children born abroad since 1790, which is further indication that the nobility clause was not understood to preclude citizenship by parentage. The concern behind the nobility clauses was the creation of "super-citizens." As Joseph Story wrote in his Commentaries on the Constitution at Vol. 3, p. 215: [the nobility clause] seems scarcely to require even a passing notice. As a perfect equality is the basis of all our institutions, state and national, the prohibition against the creation of any titles of nobility seems proper, if not indespensible, to keep perpetually alive a just sense of this important truth. Distinctions between citizens, in regard to rank, would soon lay the foundation of odious claims and privileges, and silently subvert the spirit of independence and personal dignity, which are so often proclaimed to be the best security of a republican government. He cited Federalist No. 84, in which Alexander Hamilton wrote: Nothing need be said to illustrate the importance of the prohibition of titles of nobility. This may truly be denominated the corner-stone of republican government; for so long as they are excluded, there can never be serious danger that the government will be any other than that of the people. The worry was that titles of nobility would undermine the republican system of government. I also question your premise that citizenship is "clearly hereditary in the U.S." As you say, the 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to those merely born in the US and subject to its jurisdiction. For the vast majority of U.S. citizens, citizenship is based on their place of birth being in the U.S. Knowing that somebody is a citizen tells you nothing about their heritage.

District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), majority opinion, written by Justice Antonin Scalia: Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited ... Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. (emphasis mine)

Why does the one country that promotes constitutional democracies above all others not have a judicial branch specifically for those matters? I know SCOTUS will hear these matters . . . I have had it mention that SCOTUS hears less than a hundred cases a year. Something which sounds incredibly low. A constitutional court profoundly limits the extent to which relief for violations of the constitution are judicially reviewable relative to the U.S. status quo. All courts from traffic court on up hear these matters and adjudicate constitutional issue in the status quo. It is also helpful to recognize that the U.S. Constitution regulates government conduct, not necessarily only though the device of determining that legislation is or is not constitutional. If a police officer stops you without having reasonable suspicion to do so, he has violated the U.S. Constitution, without regard to what the statutes of the state in question say. If evidence is seized without probable cause and this evidence is introduced in court over your objection in a criminal case, the government has violated the constitution and you are entitled (unless it was harmless error) to have your conviction vacated. If a tax collector seizes your property for unpaid taxes without first affording you due process to dispute their right to do so, the government has violated one of your constitutional rights. The Constitution imposes affirmative duties and obligations on the government, it does not merely invalidate laws enacted as unconstitutional. Most instances of constitutional adjudication involve government conduct and not the validity of government enacted statutes.

How can I determine whether I can use a name commercially? Where can I search for whether I can or cannot use the name "Connect 4" or "Connect four" for my game?

In the United States you can search trademarks at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) website. http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks-application-process/search-trademark-database

A bankrupt company's assets are transferred to its creditors. This includes intangible assets such as trademarks, copyrights, and other intellectual property. Whoever ends up with the rights to the game can continue to market and distribute it, or use legal means to prevent others from doing so.

As you have agreed, by contract, not to reverse engineer the product, technically it would be a "breach of contract" to do so, assuming such terms are enforceable where you live (or wherever the EULA selects as the choice of forum).

The most important fact to bear in mind is that there's no way to predict whether a given individual will decide to file a suit against you, though we might say on what basis he might, if he so chooses. There are two basic grounds for a suit, one pertaining to trademarks and the other pertaining to use of names – misappropriation and violating the right of publicity. A word can be a trademark, but the scope of protection is somewhat narrow because the protection is in terms of use within a given business. So calling your computer company "Apple" is out, but calling you roofing service the same is okay (assuming that somebody didn't previously register "Apple Roofing"). The main consideration is the likelihood of confusion. Supposing your business were selling landline telephones and I don't think Apple computer company sells such phones, you might still be in trouble if you called your company "Apple Phone", since they certainly do sell phones. There are thousands of trademarks that include "Puff", including Cocopuffs and various pizza and cheese puffs. Since "Puff" is such a generic word, there is a higher bar to proving infringement (there are thousands of trademarks including "Puff"). "Puff Daddy" is, however, a registered trademark covering perfume, jewelry, clothing and certain online services, so there is a non-negligible chance of confusion. In the case of names (or apparent names), an additional concern is whether this is commercial exploitation without consent of a person's name (which causes harm to the subject). The underpinning of this tort is that such a use falsely implies an endorsement of the product. Again, with a fairly generic word like Puff, there isn't a clear implication that Sean Combs has endorsed a product that is called "Puff Communications", but "Puff Daddy Communications" would almost certainly cross that line. The main issues, then, are the extent to which the name is generic vs. unique, and whether it is likely that a person would interpret the product or service as being the same as another, or would constitute an endorsement.

It is not clear to me how you "use" a mythological entity, and I take no position as to the divine consequences of any unauthorized uses, but you are entitled to incorporate then in your own intellectual creations for two reasons. First, any imaginable copyright on original texts (e.g. the Bhagavad Gita) has long since expired. Not all texts are of such certifiably ancient provenance, so there may be contemporary texts created by a practitioner of Ásatrúarfélagið which is protected. Second, names (Amitāyus, Zaraθuštra, Ngai) are not protected by copyright, so you can use names.

It's best to use formal names in legal documents. For example, Ringo Starr's musical compositions are credited to Richard Starkey. If you have a business that wishes to do business under a name other than its legal name, you can investigate d/b/a ("doing business as") designation. For the purpose of a single contract or other document, you can usually include language that designates a name for the business such as "this agreement is between Full Name Incorporation, Inc, hereinafter known as Trademark®, and...." You shouldn't do any of this in real life, however, without first discussing it with your lawyer. If you believe that there is business value in calling your company "Foo" when its actual name is "Bar Corp," then surely that value warrants some expense to find a lawyer who will defend the validity of the company's contracts in court, should that become necessary.

There are several things going on with Akinator and their use of trademarked names and characters. If you look at akinator.com Legal Notices it says: 2 – Copyright – Reproduction rights All the content of this site falls under French and international legislation on copyright and intellectual property. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part of this website, in any form or by any means is strictly prohibited without prior authorisation of the publications director. All products and trademarks mentioned are property of their respective owners. (emphasis mine) The fact that they mention that all trademarks belong to their respective owners is good, but it's a formality. What it appears the site really relies on for use of trademarked characters is what's called Nominative Use, which is a type of "trademark fair use." The product or service cannot be readily identified without using the trademark (e.g. trademark is descriptive of a person, place, or product attribute). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_use Akinator has to use the names and trademarks to identify those names and trademarks. Akinator could possibly be sued to establish their type of fair use is not valid in their case, but it's probably not worth it for the companies to pursue. And, most companies would rather people use and see their trademarks in a marketing and money-making fair use sense rather than sue to stop their use. See In the US, when is fair use a defense to copyright infringement? for a full description of Fair Use. Now, when you get to the "answer" part of the game, you will see a "copyright" link. Part of that resulting page says Displayed pictures are accessible from the web. It is Elokence's policy to respond to notices of alleged copyright infringement that comply with applicable international intellectual property law and make the necessary changes. In respect of Elokence's Intellectual Property Policy, Elokence operates a complaints procedure accessible via the form below. So the company has given itself a further bit of protection by only using images on the web they can link to (at least in the web browser game; I don't know about the App), so that means the image is already "out there", uploaded by someone else, and Akinator can claim they didn't upload it. And, further, there is a contact form for trademark holders to send DMCA takedown notices for their work. It's a belt and suspenders approach to the use of trademarks in their game.

Names of people, institutions, and events are not protected by copyright. Things that have occurred at events like math tournaments are facts, and may be recounted, in your own words, with no fear of infringing any copyright. Facts are never protected by copyright, although a particular description of facts could be, and so could a particular selection and arrangement of facts. Specific math techniques and their names are not protected either, and may be described without infringing copyright. The items you mention in the question are: video game / movie references and names No copyright issue here. common integration bee problems No copyright issue here. names of a university / math competition organizers No copyright issue here. integration techniques and formulas No copyright issue here, unless you copy an extensive description of a technique without rewriting it in your mown words.. using someone's Overleaf Latex package to format the book This depends on the license for the package, but there is not likely to be an issue. In short I think you are worrying over issues that are in fact non-issues.

Can I stick a "don't trespass" warning on my house? My house doesn't have a fence. I witnessed multiple occasions of random people walking on my backyard, and taking water from the outer tap. Therefore I want to print a warning and stick it on my house. Is it legal? Can I put a warning on my house? Here is the warining STOP ! ! You are trespassing a private property in violation of TRESPASS ACT 1980. The camera footage of your trespass violation will be reported to the police unless you leave the premises immediately My concern is that I actually don't have a camera, and I don't plan to report anything to the police. But wouldn't that be lying? Can I say there is a camera. I mean If I don't mention the camera then people might not take that seriously. I don't want to hurt anybody. I just want to stop strangers from using my water tap, and walking on my backyard. Can I print and stick that message on the walls of my house?

There is no law against lying in these circumstances. In fact, for a very modest sum, security companies sell dummy CCTV cameras to make this lie more convincing. However, trespass only happens if people have been warned so this works for literate people who speak English and see the sign. That leaves a very large group of people who would not be trespassing even with the sign. A further problem with a sign on the house is that people have no idea how far away they have to get in order to stop trespassing. In addition, legitimate visitors (uninvited or not) are not trespassers. It seems that people are coming onto your property because they are thirsty. A better way to deal with this is go to your local hardware store and replace the tap with a vandal proof tap that has a removable head. Keep that inside and put a sign next to the tap saying "Refrigerated Water $2 - knock on front door".

This recently came up in a local PA homeowner association. Legally they own the roads in their development, but they have erected stop signs to make it clear who has the right of way and asked the township police to enforce them. A resident challenged the right of the police to enforce traffic laws on private property, but lost his appeal (albeit at the municipal level). The judge explained that the residents and any visitors had a reasonable expectation that the traffic signs would be obeyed, and that therefore violating them was just as dangerous as violating them on public roads, and that the same law and penalties would therefore be applied.

Of course not. If the owner/tenant needed to be home I could rent a house in my name, and then never occupy it (my associates live there) the cops could never enter. Wilson v. Arkansas, 514 U.S. 927 (1995) - Cops executing a warrant need to knock. If no one answers they must wait a reasonable time for an occupant to let them in. It's the knock and announce rule. By implication it might lend authority to what is an obvious answer.

Clean your tub. Scratch that off the list. Typo - forget about it, there is nothing here, clerical errors are curable if not outright reasonable. In CA your landlord can enter under certain circumstances. All but emergency require notice, agreement, or your presence. But what is your remedy? A civil suit for damages or call the cops and try to get the landlord charged with criminal trespass under CAL. PEN. CODE § 602.

The applicable law is here. Any animal that crosses its owner's property line in the slightest must be restrained. Chicago law also requires fences to be physical fences, not electronic ones. So you can report the situation to the police. This may or may not result in a fine for the owner: that's at the discretion of the city. From a legal perspective, reporting violations to the police and to animal control is almost all you can do. There is, unfortunately, no guarantee that the police will investigate; but if that is not satisfactory, there are political solutions involving your alderman. Theoretically, you could sue the owner, but that would be expensive and probably less effective compared to reporting the violation.

Theft is of course illegal in all US states, and pretty much every other jurisdiction. In the US that is a matter of state law, not federal. It could be reported to the local police, but it might be hard to prove. Both landlord/tenant law and privacy law are largely matters of state law in the US, not federal law. Such laws vary a good deal in different states. In many states a landlord is allowed to enter the rented premises, usually on "reasonable" notice, or without notice if there is an emergency. If the landlord actually lives in another part of the house, and simply rents a room to the tenant, the landlord may be able to enter the room more freely than if it was a separate apartment or house. In many cases where there is a written lease or rental agreement, it will specify under what conditions the landlord or landlord's agent may enter, and how much notice is required. What does the lease in the current case say about that?

This depends on the nature of the "ban" ---i.e., who issued it, what legal power they have, and what it actually requires you to refrain from doing. You say it is "their ban" so I am going to assume that this is just a decision that the store has made not to allow you entry. If it is indeed the store itself that has "banned" you, this would not prevent you from calling them to apologise for whatever you did. Calling a business on the phone cannot generally be considered a trespass --- at most, if you were to repeatedly call and harass a business over and over again, it might give rise to a nuisance suit. Unless you have extremely strange laws in your jurisdiction, it is almost certainly not against the law for you to call a business that has banned you, a fortiori if this phone call is made for the purposes of apologising for whatever you did that led to the ban. Although it does not appear to be the situation in this case, if this ban was an actual restraining order of some kind issued by a Court, then it might indeed prevent you from contacting the business (in which case breaching it would lead to an action for contempt of court, not trespass). If a Court were to issue you with an injunction or restraining order of some kind to ban you from a business, then that instrument would specify what you are prevented from doing. You would then need to be very careful to comply with that order. In short: there is a great deal of difference between a "ban" made by a store as the owner of property, and a ban issued by a court through an injunction or restraining order.

This all depends upon where you are. I am a landlord and I am answering based upon the laws of the U.S. and the states that I operate in. First things first. You are not the property owner. While this does not limit the answer, it is a factor. You do not have the right to the property even if you have a key and the permission of the tenant. You are not the property owner, do not represent the property owner nor the tenant, and by contract do not have legal rights to the apartment. It does put you in a different situation. As a landlord, it is against the law for me to provide access to a tenants apartment to anyone without authorization. This, of course, precludes emergencies such as welfare checks. In the case of the police, a warrant is required or a form that the police fill out that allows the police to gain access. This would be used in cases such as when a spouse requires the recovery of personal property during a domestic dispute. A judges order is not always possible in these cases. These are often limited cases and the form absolves the landlord of liability even in cases where the police act incorrectly. So without a warrant or a form that certifies any lawful request, anyone including the landlord can be arrested for a crime. For your situation, a quick call to the landlord would have been appropriate. Without a warrant or certification, the police still had options including waiting for the person in question to either leave or return to the apartment or even request a warrant by phone. Often, the warrant, once signed by the judge, can be read over the phone. Any landlord should always have a paper copy provided within minutes since some cruisers will have a printer and can print the warrant. Your refusal appears to be legal. However, in the future, you can ask for a copy of the warrant that you provide the landlord. I do not wish to paint a negative image of the police who do the hard work that most people will never take on, they are after all heros, however, some do not know the law perfectly well especially tenant landlord law. As well, some will try and get away with skirting the law trying to get an important job done. It does happen. I hired a lawyer just last week for an illegal request unrelated to the question here. Addressing the OPs comment: Hello, I believe I misstated the situation a bit in that the locked door in question was for the apartment building and not a tenet's apartment itself. I have edited my question. Does this change anything? Technically, this does not change much of anything, however, the request by the police can be seen as a reasonable one. They just may want to talk to the individual which is reasonable. In this case, I might have let them in if the access I was giving them was to a common space such as a hallway. In this case, the outer door locks are only to keep Intruders from entering the building and not meant to restrict access for valid purposes. Are you in trouble? I would say no. If anyone asks, you can give reasonable arguments for your situation. However, the next time, consider what I have written here. The police have a tough enough time doing their jobs. If you can help and stay within the proper boundaries of what the law allows, that would be best.

Am I allowed to lowercase an ALL CAPS section in a license? Am I allowed to lowercase an ALL CAPS section in a license? Example: The MIT License (MIT) Copyright (c) 2015 Andrej Karpathy Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.* I want to lowercase the last paragraph when I redistribute it: The MIT License (MIT) Copyright (c) 2015 Andrej Karpathy Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. The software is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to the warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and noninfringement. In no event shall the authors or copyright holders be liable for any claim, damages or other liability, whether in an action of contract, tort or otherwise, arising from, out of or in connection with the software or the use or other dealings in the software.*

You need to do something, if you don't like all-caps. This is a response to the requirement to be "conspicuous", as required under UCC 2-316, viz. to exclude or modify the implied warranty of merchantability or any part of it the language must mention merchantability and in case of a writing must be conspicuous, and to exclude or modify any implied warranty of fitness the exclusion must be by a writing and conspicuous. YOU ARE NOT REQUIRED TO SHOUT since under UCC 1-201 "conspicuous" means so written, displayed, or presented that a reasonable person against which it is to operate ought to have noticed it. Whether a term is "conspicuous" or not is a decision for the court. Conspicuous terms include the following: (A) a heading in capitals equal to or greater in size than the surrounding text, or in contrasting type, font, or color to the surrounding text of the same or lesser size; and (B) language in the body of a record or display in larger type than the surrounding text, or in contrasting type, font, or color to the surrounding text of the same size, or set off from surrounding text of the same size by symbols or other marks that call attention to the language There is a relevant case, American General Finance, Inc. v. Bassett, 285 F.3d 882, which deals with a "clear and conspicious" requirement in another context, which "sees no reason to depart" from the UCC understanding.

There is language, but not a mechanism, covering this. Section 3(a)(3) of version 4 licenses says If requested by the Licensor, You must remove any of the information required by Section 3(a)(1)(A) to the extent reasonably practicable. If you become aware of a person using your material and attributing you, and you want the attribution removed, you would accordingly notify them (somehow), and they are required to remove the offending material. The removable informations includes: i. identification of the creator(s) of the Licensed Material and any others designated to receive attribution, in any reasonable manner requested by the Licensor (including by pseudonym if designated); ii. a copyright notice; iii. a notice that refers to this Public License; iv. a notice that refers to the disclaimer of warranties; v. a URI or hyperlink to the Licensed Material to the extent reasonably practicable;

You can't patent an algorithm, but I'll assume you are talking about the case where you have patented a machine or process that uses an algorithm, but that adds significantly more, and that the software being distributed implements much of this process. Courts might find an implied licence or promissory estoppel when distributing software under an open source licence that doesn't explicitly exclude patent licencing as part of its terms. It would be prudent to state your patent rights and explicitly exclude a patent licence if you intend to enforce your patent rights. As an example, this software implicates a patent , so they allow "permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its documentation for educational, research, and non-commercial" purposes. Users that want to use the software commercially need to contact the authors who also happen to be the patent owners, and I assume would negotiate a patent licence at that point.

Yes, you can. To be precise, I claim that one can take BSD-licensed code and distribute it under the combined terms of both the BSD and the GPL licences. We know that, if I receive someone else's code under a BSD licence, I may redistribute it to you under those same terms. This is common practice, and not (I hope) in any way contentious. We also know that I may not redistribute it to you without the conditions that the BSD licence imposes; that is, I may not place less onerous conditions on you than BSD requires (that is, requiring the inclusion of the original copyright notice, the disclaimer, this list of conditions, and a prohibition on claiming the original author's endorsement on any modified version). So the question becomes whether I can distribute that code whilst adding more onerous terms than the BSD licence itself imposes. It is clear that I can. As the question notes, Microsoft is known to have taken code which it received under a BSD licence and used it in proprietary products. These come with very onerous conditions on the the use, modification, and redistribution of the derived code (usually, they permit one instance of it to be run, and no modifications nor redistributions of any kind). For clarity: if I were to seek from Microsoft permission to modify and/or redistribute the derived code, and they were to grant it, they would not be able to free me from the BSD requirements as they applied to the derived code; I would still need to comply with those. But they are perfectly capable of applying new, onerous requirements of their own. The GPL imposes conditions on redistribution that are more onerous than BSD's, but less onerous than those of most proprietary licences. I am therefore perfectly entitled to receive code under a BSD licence, and - with or without making modifications of my own - redistribute it, adding in the GPL's requirements, if I choose to. If I haven't modified the code, those added requirements are probably pointless; if you don't wish to be bound by them, you will go and get the code from the original author, who presumably will happily distribute it to you under the BSD licence. But if I have modified the code, and you wish to use those modifications, then you will need to abide by the requirements of both the BSD and the GPL licences, since both will apply to this new, combined work (the original code + my changes).

The lack of a copyright notice is irrelevant, what matters is whether permission is granted. The material cannot be copied, except if the copyright holder grants you permission to copy. However, you might be able to create something legal and satisfactory on your own, because the underlying ideas are not protected. By way of analogy, you cannot copy the Turbo Pascal Numeric Methods library without permission, but you can study the logic of a module and write your own FFT routine. The status of something as "declaring code" is entirely irrelevant to the court's decision in Google v. Oracle. What is relevant to the court's finding of fair use is that the content constituted 0.4 percent of the entire API, and the fact that the copied lines of code are inextricably bound to other lines of code that are accessed by programmers, allowing programmers to bring their skills to a new environment. The court found that he amount of copying was tethered to a valid, and transformative, purpose.

Counter notices are described in 17 USC 512(g)(3). It starts with the requirement for "A physical or electronic signature of the subscriber" (and a statement under penalty of perjury...). Supposing that you can't get anywhere with finding the contributor even via a subpoena, then you're stopped there: you can't swear on behalf of someone else. Paragraph (f) also says that if a person files a false infringement claim, they become liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys' fees, incurred by the alleged infringer, by any copyright owner or copyright owner's authorized licensee, or by a service provider, who is injured by such misrepresentation, as the result of the service provider relying upon such misrepresentation in removing or disabling access to the material or activity claimed to be infringing, or in replacing the removed material or ceasing to disable access to it but it's not immediately obvious that you would suffer damage by taking the material down (not immediately obvious doesn't mean obviously not true). A case could be made, but it's risky. In Online Policy Group v. Diebold, Diebold was hit with substantial damages basically for having made up a theory that certain email discussion was infringing when it was clearly fair use. If a person actually lies about being the copyright owner, that would probably be viewed even more dimly by the courts. Your 4th argument gives you no traction: if an infringer posts infringing material and transfers copyright on the web page, but they don't hold copyright, then that transfer mean nothing. As for the other arguments, your attorney will have to suggest an advisable course of action. S/he might advise that your evidence is so strong that you should just ignore the takedown; or that you should take the content down and then sue for damages; or take the content down and lobby your congressman for a change in the law. [Addendum] I will reiterate my recommendation to get a lawyer. I believe that under the law, the risk to you would be the situation where the person prevails in an infringement suit against you. Outside of the "mere conduit" safe harbor, you have to participate in the notice and takedown scheme in order to "stay safe" (also you have to do so quickly). You have identified a potentially huge flaw in the system. Theoretically, criminal charges of perjury and paragraph (f) damages would be enough to deter ordinary wrong-doers, provided that you can really prove that someone else is the copyright holder. But the cost of litigation is not zero and the chances of winning are not 100%. The law does assume that all parties tell the truth, indeed the law requires a "penalty of perjury" statement. Since counter-notice is also part of the legal dance, I would conclude that you do have to write yourself a counter-notice. Then if there is a suit, you have satisfied the requirements of the law.

Recall the basic principle of copyright law, as detailed in 17 USC 106: The copyright holder has the exclusive right to make copies; prepare derivative works; or distribute copies by sale, rental, lease, or lending. Other people can legally do these things only if they are given permission by the copyright holder, typically via a license. (Remember, the literal meaning of the word license is permission.) Often, the copyright holder will require a prospective licensee to accept various terms and conditions before the license will be granted. If there is "no EULA", or if there is one but the purchaser has not agreed to its terms, then the purchaser has not been granted any such license, hence does not have permission to do any of the things listed above. If they do so anyway, it is illegal copyright infringement and they will be liable for damages. To use a firewall analogy, copyright law is "default deny". So let's take your questions one by one: Do they own the software? US law has no concept of literally owning software. The closest thing is owning the copyright, which the purchaser certainly does not. It still belongs to the vendor that wrote the software (or whoever they may have later transferred it to). Can they legally alter the code of the program they purchased? No, that would be preparing a derivative work. The copyright holder has not granted them a license to do that. (There are some exceptions for purposes such as reverse engineering and interoperability, see 17 USC 1201(f)). Can they legally redistribute it No; again, that is the exclusive right of the copyright holder, and the purchaser has not received their permission. or transfer ownership? Maybe, if the first sale doctrine applies. Its application to software is complicated. The user has a better case for being able to sell the software if it exists as some tangible object which is transferred (physical media, pre-installed on hardware, etc). Can they legally modify the code of the program for others who have also purchased the same package? No, that would be preparing a derivative work. Can they take that software and install it on a secondary machine? No, that would be making a copy.

Copyright in the US is usually a civil matter. Meaning that the copyright owner can sue (typically for money damages or injunctive relief) an infringer. The criminal laws that we have are aimed at the reproducer and/or distributor. In other words, chances are that you won't get in any criminal trouble for accessing academic articles of dubious origin. But never say never. RIP Aaron Schwartz.

Why hasn't Hastert's blackmailer been charged with a crime? Under U.S. federal law, blackmail is a crime. We know that former US Congress member Dennis Hastert was being blackmailed by someone, and we also know he commited the crime he was being blackmailed for. That person is actually suing Hastert for full payment of the blackmail money. How can this be legal? While what happened to the victim is horrible, blackmail itself is horrible, and shouldn't be tolerated in a free society. Why hasn't this been investigated?

It has been investigated, it simply has not been prosecuted. The investigation started when someone reported suspicious activity in Hastert's accounts. The investigation proceeded from a belief that he was being blackmailed. After listening to a wire of a conversation between Hastert and the alleged blackmailer, the officers investigating decided it was not a simple case of him being blackmailed--they or the prosecutors' office used their discretion to go after Hastert for illegally structuring his payments to avoid anti-money-laundering reporting laws, and to my knowledge have not yet pursued any blackmail charge. Police and Prosecutors have very wide discretion regarding what charges they bring. In addition, it is very common to have a civil lawsuit brought that implicates criminal laws, but not have the criminal violations be charged. For example, if you steal a purse you go to jail, but if you steal a building you are rarely charged with a criminal offense. It is rarely to a civil litigant's advantage to bring up criminal matters and there are ethical rules limiting the interaction between the two.

It is illegal to threaten to report a person for violating the law (it is illegal to threaten a person). There are laws in California that limit official cooperation with ICE investigations, therefore the police will not arrest a person for being an illegal immigrant. This is basically a limit on use of state and local resources, and the state has the power to control its purse strings. The state has no power to mandate that individuals not report a suspected or imagined violation of federal law to federal authorities, and there is no California law purporting to have that power.

A person isn't required to state their evidence that the claim is true when they make the claim, and as a public figure, a defamation suit filed by Trump would be judged under the stronger "actual malice" claim, meaning that the statement was made with knowledge that the claim is false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false. You would have to look at the specific statement. It is generally not defamatory to hurl insults like "rapist!", "pedophile!", "criminal!" etc. against a public figure especially a political figure, since such word don't generally amount to an actual accusation of wrong-doing. On the other hand, a detailed but false claim purporting to relate factual events could cross the threshold. Hyperbole is not actionable.

There are literally hundreds of such laws. Most of them (perhaps all, if we exclude firearms-related crimes in Title 26) are contained in Title 18 of the US Code, part I. The problem is that your definition of "public insurrection" is too broad, since it would include lying to federal agents (a crime), insofar as the reason for 18 USC 1001 is to prevent impeding federal investigations by giving them false information. Assaulting a federal agent impedes government and is a crime. There is pretty much a federal version of any state-level crime of violence. There is the riot act, and a specific law against insurrection and rebellion. Chapter 115 is probably the most relevant: this is where the various "overthrowing the government" laws are.

If what that quote says is actually true, no that is obviously not a crime. Sending law enforcement to stop a crime is not a crime, no matter who benefits. In fact turning a blind eye and letting someone benefit would have been the crime. But this is not a legal matter. People are upset because the person saying this has a track record of saying things that are actually not true and that is why many people suspect a crime. Because if any part of this sentence turns out to be not true (and based on this persons history, that chance is very high), then yes, a crime may have been committed. If any predecessor had said "I sent the FBI to stop child kidnapping and it stopped immediately", nobody would question that that is obviously not a crime. They would applaud him for it. Because with any predecessor, people would have believed their words to be true, at least in the very broad sense.

This would be a violation of 18 USC 1361, which prohibits destruction of federal property. See also the DoJ legal notes on this crime. The act does have to be willful, so dropping a cup accidentally is not a crime. If for example the act is mustaching Obama's portrait, the damage would probably rise to the quarter-million dollar fine and 10 years in prison level. It would of course be at the discretion of the (new) DoJ whether to press charges.

This is a good question, although it discusses crimes. This answer generalizes the question by giving a response for civil violations. In the united-states, where federal civil-procedure is followed and provided the tape isn't solely for impeachment purposes (i.e. it also documents other elements), there are certain disclosures required at the beginning of discovery governed by Rule 26(a)(1)(A)(ii). If a party withholds one of these disclosures, under Rule 37(c)(1), the court is able to take a number of actions, including throwing the evidence out. This could, of course, result in the withholder's conviction. Yet, if the court does not go to that extreme, it may impose the sanctions in Rule 37(b). So the withholder's attorney might try to make a case that the evidence is, indeed, solely for impeachment purposes.

Probably not There's a difference between knowing DeJoy is guilty, and proving he is guilty. The first is a matter of your personal views on epistemology; the second is a matter of law. The statute says an official cannot use "his official authority for the purpose of interfering with..." In other words, in order to charge DeJoy, the government needs evidence that he is making these changes for the purpose of interfering with the election. According to news reports, DeJoy claims his purpose is legitimate: To balance the USPS budgets. He claims the PO is losing so much money that drastic cuts are required unless Congress increases funding. Given that the USPS is running a deficit, it will very hard to prove that DeJoy's explanation is just a smokescreen, that his real purpose is to screw up the election. So, unless there is a smoking gun, it seems likely he would not be charged, let alone found guilty. Note: Edited for clarity in light of comments

Company knowingly debit fees it is not due from bank account and does not return it: is this fraud or theft? This morning, I was reading this article on the Consumerist about a man who cancelled his business service with Comcast. In summary, he had an early termination fee of $1,775 debited from his bank account, which shouldn't have happened because it was past the term of his two-year contract. Comcast do not dispute those facts, and have repeatedly told him that a check was on its way but, two years later, the man has still not been unable to get a refund. At one point, he was told by a company representative that refunds are not issued in these circumstances, and that he should instead dispute the charge with his bank. I am interested in the potential criminal liability in a situation like this (not necessarily this one) where a company knowingly takes money it is not due from someone's bank account and clearly has no intention of returning it. Specifically: Could the victim report this as fraud, theft or some other related crime? Would the answer to the previous question differ based on whether the victim was eventually able to recover the money through litigation or by disputing the charge with their bank? Would the company itself or the specific employees involved be liable? Would a binding arbitration clause in the contract have any effect on criminal liability (I believe not)? I would be especially (but not exclusively) interested in answers covering either the United States or Canada (especially Québec).

Could the victim report this as fraud, theft or some other related crime? They could, but it's unclear whether they would be successful. A criminal conviction would require intent on the part of the company or an employee, and that will probably be difficult to prove. In a big system like this, individuals can usually claim misunderstandings and errors of omission, which makes such a proof difficult. They could try to establish criminal corporate liability, but again this is difficult to prove. So while possible, it's probably not worth it. Would the answer to the previous question differ based on whether the victim was eventually able to recover the money through litigation or by disputing the charge with their bank? Probably not. For a criminal conviction, it's necessary to prove that the company or an employee deliberately took money they knew was not theirs. Whether they later gave it back is not relevant for determining guilt (though it may reduce the sentence). Would the company itself or the specific employees involved be liable? In principle, both could be held liable. Again, this depends on what can be proved in court. Would a binding arbitration clause in the contract have any effect on criminal liability No, arbitration clauses cannot protect from criminal liability, only from civil liability (within limits). Off-topic: The fastest way to resolve such situations is usually to write one stern letter explaining why you are owed the money. If that does not work, sue them - if the situation is clear-cut, you will most likely win, or the company will settle. Many jurisdictions have simplified court proceedings for clear cases like this, for example the Mahnverfahren in Germany.

If I may paraphrase the scenario: The customer has a contract with the insurer The customer is contemplating undergoing a certain procedure and is unsure if it is covered under the contract The customer calls the insurer to ask this specific question The insurer says "yes" The customer undergoes the procedure The insurer refuses to pay on the ground that it is not covered under the contract. Let's put aside issues of evidence and what can be proved and assume these facts are not in dispute. There is no question that the contract has been renegotiated; it hasn't. This avoids the necessity of considering if the insurer's employee has the authority to do this or it the customer can rely that they do even if they don't. There are two possibilities: The procedure is covered and the insurer must pay under contract The procedure isn't covered and the insurer must pay under the tort of negligent misstatement. The insurer is vicariously liable for the actions of its employee. The insurer owes a duty of care to a customer who asks such a question to answer it correctly. It is foreseeable that the customer would act on the insurer's advice and incur costs that they may have avoided if the correct advice had been given. Nothing is ever certain in the law but this is as close as you can get.

Being as general as possible - refund policies are governed by bank and scheme policies, and so aren't necessarily the domain of law. There may be jurisdiction-specific regulations that limit your liability as a consumer, but there's not usually a legal requirement. This is almost certainly wholly governed by your credit card terms of use.¹ You can report this to your local authorities, but without proof of a crime, it's unlikely to be actionable. The website isn't necessarily to blame, either - if your computer or your connection to the website was somehow compromised, then your details may have been obtained in that way, and the website could have had nothing to do with it. Again, this is almost certainly wholly governed by their scheme agreement.¹ 1. Some off-topic information here, which may or may not be accurate, and which you should not seek clarification for here (check Money SE instead, and first check whether it is on-topic there) - generally, bank policies will refund you for fraudulent transactions below a certain quantity or value. In this case, the bank tends to take a loss and chargeback rights are not exercised. In other cases, the bank will require the merchant to prove that the authorised cardholder did in fact authorise the transaction. The level of proof is governed by the way in which the transaction was conducted and verified at the time of purchase - whether the CVV2 code was verified, whether address verification was completed, whether 3D verification was completed. If the merchant is unable to prove, according to the scheme guidelines, the transaction will be charged back to their account.

Update: I've filed a complaint with the CA Attorney General. They automatically forwarded the complaint to Comcast and sent me a notice in the mail. If you have filed a complaint against a business, we will forward your complaint to that business and request that it contact you promptly to resolve the issues you raised. Please note that we cannot represent you, advocate for you with the business, or force the business to satisfy individual requests for relief. Please contact the business directly to discuss your complaint. While we cannot provide specific legal advice, please see the information below, which may help address your concern. For more information about the CCPA, please see https://oag.ca.gov/privacy/ccpa and https://cppa.ca.gov/. [...] If a business has violated the CCPA, you may notify the Office of the Attorney General by filing a consumer complaint. While we cannot file an action on behalf of an individual consumer over an individual violation, consumer complaints are an important source of information for the office. We will review consumer complaints to identify patterns of misconduct and to determine what law enforcement actions to take. You can sue a business under the CCPA only if your unencrypted and un-redacted personal information was stolen in a data breach as a result of the business's failure to maintain reasonable security procedures and practices to protect it. You must generally give the business written notice of its violations and 30 days to fix the violations before you can sue. For more information about when you can sue for a CCPA violation, visit https://oag.ca.gov/privacy/ccpa If you want to consult an attorney, you can obtain a referral to a certified lawyer referral service through the State Bar at (866) 442-2529 (toll-free in California) or (415) 538-2250 (from outside California), or online at https://www.calbar.ca.gov. If you cannot afford to pay an attorney, contact your local legal aid office to see if you qualify for free or reduced-rate legal assistance. For a referral to local legal aid offices, visit https://lawhelpca.org/ and click on the Search for Legal Help tab. Comcast responded immediately to the forwarded complaint and appears to have deactivated my login, but nearly a month later have still not confirmed whether any personal information has been deleted. I'd strongly recommend anyone in a similar situation to file a complaint as well. There's no guarantee the Attorney General or California Privacy Protection Agency will act on it, but it can increase the civil penalty to the company by $5,000 per complaint (see section 1798.155) and makes it more likely they will comply. Don't waste your time with any unnecessary calls from the business or obfuscating information yourself as a commenter here mentioned. Just submit your CCPA request in writing, complete the identity verification, wait the 45 days as allowed by the law (or 90 if an extension is requested, see section 1798.130), and file a complaint if it's not completed. Update 2: I received a forwarded letter from Comcast to the Attorney General in response to my complaint. They lied and backdated their alleged completion date of the deletion request to fall within the 45 day deadline, despite emails I sent past their claimed date repeating the request as I was still able to login. Before filing a complaint, make sure to take screenshots showing you logged into the account and email it to the business in order to document it.

Burglary, theft and fraud(s) The burglary and theft are trivial and unlikely to be prosecuted - it’s the breaking in (burglary) and taking (theft) of the possessions including the physical card itself. Using someone else’s credit card without permission is fraud - in this case it appears there were several frauds. All are crimes against the Queen. While crimes may have victims, they are perpetrated against the state, which, in the UK is the Sovereign. The gym was a victim of burglary, the cardholder was a victim of theft, the cardholder and the bank are victims of frauds. Any of these aggrieved people may seek damages from the perpetrator(s) (who appear to be unknown at this time) for whatever their losses are. Their most likely causes of action are the torts of conversion (the civil equivalent of theft) and fraud (the civil equivalent of, well, fraud). The allocation of the loss between the bank and the cardholder is a matter of the contract between them and financial regulations.

If they actually mean $0, then that is not "taking advantage". If they do not mean $0, it is most likely that they will tell you "Sorry, we made a mistake, we're not gonna send you that Rolex for $0 plus shipping". If this came with free shipping, then you would not actually have a contract, because there s no consideration on your part (no payola). Fortunately, there is shipping, so there is a contract. You could then attempt to force them to send you the goods, which they might do rather than irritate you, but not if it is a Rolex. One of the defenses against enforcing a contract is "mistake", and a $0 Rolex would be a great example of that. Things get a bit more tricky if you relied on their free Rolex. You would look up the doctrine of promissory estoppel, to see if the seller could be estopped from making the mistake argument. Let's say that you also bought a Rolex Display Case from someone else at a cost of $100 plus shipping. By relying on their promise to sent you a Rolex, you have suffered a loss. The most likely outcome is that they'd have to reimburse your Display Case expense. (Finding) mistake airfares is an industry: a common response for the airline is to say "Oops, sorry", though sometimes they honor the mistake fare. Rumor has it that rather than get trashed on Twitter, the airlines honor mistake fares. You may find disclaimer language pertaining to verification of prices and availability, which also gets them off the hook. At any rate, you certainly won't be sued or prosecuted for assuming that they mean it and buying the thing; you might be disappointed.

You didn't consent to being ripped off. You did however fail to grasp the terms under which you were permitted to park on their property, and you failed to pursue an alternative (such as looking for change; using a credit card). It is possible that you should have known that this was a no-change-given machine, since one can often see that there is no mechanism on these machines whereby you can actually get change. However, if you have clear proof that you owed $6 and you paid $10, then 4 of those dollars are properly yours, and there is a reasonable chance that you could prevail in a suit against them. There is even a greater chance that they would refund the difference, just as a sensible business practice. "Exact change" is legal and can even be the law, especially in government-run transportation systems.

The party that made the overpayment would have the right to sue you for "unjust enrichment" or "breach of contract" (since the terms of service no doubt provide or strongly imply that you are entitled to only one payment per sale), if you didn't voluntarily return the overpayment following a demand to do so, even though you received it through no fault of your own. Most of the core cases involve clerical errors in the bank account number used for a bank deposit. In general, there is a right to recover an accidental transfer of property to another, even in the absence of a clearly applicable contractual arrangement. As another example, if you were accidentally given a valuable coat at a coat check by accident and didn't notice it until later, the true owner would have a right to have it returned. The FTC regulation applies (as demonstrated by the link cited in the question) to intentional unsolicited deliveries of merchandise (which would always be tangible personal property by definition) to you through the mail. It does not apply to transfers of money, or to the accidental mis-delivery of property to the wrong person or the wrong address. The law in question is as follows: 39 U.S. Code § 3009 - Mailing of unordered merchandise (a) Except for (1) free samples clearly and conspicuously marked as such, and (2) merchandise mailed by a charitable organization soliciting contributions, the mailing of un­ordered merchandise or of communications prohibited by subsection (c) of this section constitutes an unfair method of competition and an unfair trade practice in violation of section 45(a)(1) of title 15. (b) Any merchandise mailed in violation of subsection (a) of this section, or within the exceptions contained therein, may be treated as a gift by the recipient, who shall have the right to retain, use, discard, or dispose of it in any manner he sees fit without any obligation whatsoever to the sender. All such merchandise shall have attached to it a clear and conspicuous statement informing the recipient that he may treat the merchandise as a gift to him and has the right to retain, use, discard, or dispose of it in any manner he sees fit without any obligation whatsoever to the sender. (c) No mailer of any merchandise mailed in violation of subsection (a) of this section, or within the exceptions contained therein, shall mail to any recipient of such merchandise a bill for such merchandise or any dunning communications. (d) For the purposes of this section, “un­ordered merchandise” means merchandise mailed without the prior expressed request or consent of the recipient.

Using handicapped plackards from one state when vehicle is registered in another I walk past a vehicle every day parked in a handicapped spot that doesn't look usable by anyone I would consider handicapped (a very lifted jeep). I don't want to sound like the arbiter of what is handicapped, but I also consider it very rude and inconsiderate to use handicapped parking when you are not disabled. I looked at the handicapped placard (on the dash of the jeep, not hanging from the mirror) and it is from Iowa and dosn't expire, but the jeep has Colorado tags. My question is, is that Iowa placard valid? Couldn't some unscrupulous person sell their dead grandparents "permanent" placard to someone out of state that allows them to park in the best spots all the time.

This seems to be the relevant code: https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/code/2016/321L.pdf (8 pages). The permit is supposed to be returned to DMV if the person to whom it was issued dies or moves out of state (321L.3(1)(a) and (b)), but I see no requirement that the vehicle in which it is displayed must be tagged in Iowa. It is also plausible that the jeep owner is driving a handicapped person around, since a placard may be used by a passenger. On the other hand, the Colorado tags themselves may be illegal since people are supposed to register within 30 days of moving to Iowa (http://www.iowadot.gov/mvd/vehicleregistration/register.htm). Iowa is a rather long commute from Colorado.

It is legal, unless it is a violation of the rental agreement. Generally, a property owner can have a vehicle towed from their property, although there may be a requirement in the state to post a towing notice. If the lease agreement says that cars must always be street-legal, that is the end of the discussion. If the agreement says that cars without tags or plates can be stored in a person's spot, towing it would be a violation of the agreement. If the agreement doesn't say anything, then the property owner's rights would be the default deciding factor. Since your roommate seeks to override the park owner's ordinary control over the surrounding spaces, there needs to be an explicit provision for that in the lease.

In addition to the general considerations of (1) who is allowed to use non-deadly physical force to maintain order in a shop (which I think that one could do if "deputized" by the property owner or to protect the property of another as well), and (2) the use of non-deadly physical force to make a citizen's arrest (which many of these scenarios would justify as the disorder would be a crime if committed by an adult), (3) I suspect that there is also some point at which a bystander may intervene to prevent harms associated with an unsupervised minor being at large and in need of supervision. Generally speaking, intervention with the minimum reasonable non-deadly physical force to prevent property damage, or an assault, or a threat, is going to be permissible. As to the third reason: for a mentally normal ten-year-old that might be a stretch; for a four-year-old or a clearly impaired older child it might not. One could approach the child, say, "where's your mom or dad", "do you have a babysitter or sibling around?", "what is your name?", or "are you lost?" and detain the child until a satisfactory answer is provided or a suitable authority arrives, to prevent the problem of a child being lost, abducted or hurt by the child's own actions. It would be quite hard for a parent, guardian or babysitter to complain about this kind of conduct when the child was unsupervised and is released as soon as you confirm that this really is a responsible adult or older minor who is responsible for the child. It would be important in doing so to not secret away or isolate the child, to try to determine the location of the child's caretaker, to refrain from doing anything that would harm the child, and to seek assistance from an authority within a reasonable time. Typically, if no caretaker appeared, a cop would come and the cop would oversee the situation until a social worker could come. For example, Colorado has the following statute that would apply once a cop arrived (omitting lengthy provisions that apply to newborn children): § 19-3-401. Taking children into custody (1) A child may be taken into temporary custody by a law enforcement officer without order of the court: (a) When the child is abandoned, lost, or seriously endangered in such child's surroundings or seriously endangers others and immediate removal appears to be necessary for such child's protection or the protection of others; (b) When there are reasonable grounds to believe that such child has run away or escaped from such child's parents, guardian, or legal custodian and the child's parents, guardian, or legal custodian has not made a report to a law enforcement agency that the child has run away from home; . . . (1.3) A child shall be taken into temporary custody by a law enforcement officer without order of the court when there are reasonable grounds to believe the child has run away from the child's parents, guardian, or legal custodian and the child's parents, guardian, or legal custodian has made a report to a law enforcement agency that the child has run away from home. (1.5) An emergency exists and a child is seriously endangered as described in paragraph (a) of subsection (1) of this section whenever the safety or well-being of a child is immediately at issue and there is no other reasonable way to protect the child without removing the child from the child's home. If such an emergency exists, a child shall be removed from such child's home and placed in protective custody regardless of whether reasonable efforts to preserve the family have been made. (2) The taking of a child into temporary custody under this section shall not be deemed an arrest, nor shall it constitute a police record. A child is considered neglected or dependent under circumstances including the following (provisions related to drug or alcohol abuse by parents omitted): § 19-3-102. Neglected or dependent child (1) A child is neglected or dependent if: (a) A parent, guardian, or legal custodian has abandoned the child or has subjected him or her to mistreatment or abuse or a parent, guardian, or legal custodian has suffered or allowed another to mistreat or abuse the child without taking lawful means to stop such mistreatment or abuse and prevent it from recurring; (b) The child lacks proper parental care through the actions or omissions of the parent, guardian, or legal custodian; (c) The child's environment is injurious to his or her welfare; (d) A parent, guardian, or legal custodian fails or refuses to provide the child with proper or necessary subsistence, education, medical care, or any other care necessary for his or her health, guidance, or well-being; (e) The child is homeless, without proper care, or not domiciled with his or her parent, guardian, or legal custodian through no fault of such parent, guardian, or legal custodian; (f) The child has run away from home or is otherwise beyond the control of his or her parent, guardian, or legal custodian; I don't have easily at hand legal authority authorizing a third-party who is not a law enforcement officer to take custody of a dependent or neglected child until a law enforcement officer arrives, but I strongly suspect from the context that this is allowed either under common law, or a statute that I have not located, or some legal fiction (e.g., that the citizen is implicitly deputized by the law enforcement officer after the fact), or simply as a matter of custom and ordinary practice not codified in any authoritative legal source.

Because you indicate that you're from New Mexico, I'm assuming that you're asking about the rules governing curbside mailboxes used by the United States Postal Service. If that's the case, there are constraints on the design of signal flags, but they are far more focused on function and ergonomics than on aesthetics, and they can be found at USPS STD 7C, which says: The flag must be mounted on the right side when facing the mailbox from the front. The flag must not require a lift of more than 2 pounds of force to retract. Additionally, when actuated (signaling outgoing mail), the flag must remain in position until retracted by the carrier. The color of the flag must be in accordance with the requirements described in 3.9. The operating mechanism of the flag must not require lubrication and must continue to operate properly and positively (without binding or excessive free play) after being subjected to the test described in Section 4. Optionally, the flag may incorporate a self-lowering feature that causes it to automatically retract when the carrier service door is opened provided no additional effort is required of the carrier. The self-lowering feature cannot present protrusions or attachments and must not interfere with delivery operations in any manner or present hazardous features as specified in 3.1. The regulations provide "preferred" designs -- generally the rectangle you're likely used to -- but say that other designs may be permitted if they meet the other requirements. As I read it, this means USPS doesn't care if you use a circle or a square or a triangle or a swallowtail, as long as at isn't too heavy to lift, too flimsy to stand up on its own, etc.

The published statues pertaining to Vermont vehicle registrations reference operation by a person "on any highway." This specific statute applies to a motor vehicle or trailer. A person shall not operate a motor vehicle nor draw a trailer or semi-trailer on any highway unless such vehicle is registered as provided in this chapter. There are no references I could find regarding private property within the statutes. It's common to consider that any vehicle operated exclusively on private property can be done so without registration and therefore without the inspection.

It may be legal, depending on surrounding circumstances. Under MCL 257.904b(1) When a person is convicted of an offense punishable under section 904(1)(b) or (c) or a local ordinance substantially corresponding to section 904(1)(b) or (c) for operating a motor vehicle while his or her license to operate a motor vehicle is suspended, revoked, or denied, the court shall order the motor vehicle, if it is owned in whole or in part or leased by that person, impounded for not less than a period the court orders but not more than 120 days from the date of judgment Under the assumption that there was a violation of the law, a conviction and license suspension (for the relevant crime), then the vehicle shall be impounded. It would not be legal for the police to spontaneously decide to impound the vehicle without a court order (which the court must issue). The statute does require that the vehicle be owned or leased at least in part by the person who violated the law. You might then argue that this does not allow impoundment for a vehicle borrowed with permission, and if the judge rejects that argument you could try to argue it up to the Michigan Supreme Court.

Very few terms have a single "legal" definition or meaning that applies to all laws, and can be looked up as if in a dictionary. Rather, when a specific meaning is needed in connection with a particular law, that law will include a definition. But that definition will often not apply to the use of the same term in other laws or other contexts. Here I suspect that the OP has found the definition section of a US Federal law regulating commercial transport in interstate commerce. Obviously in such a law, those terms would be defined in the context of commercial transport. That does not mean that the same meanings will be applied in other laws. Driver's licenses and other traffic and motor vehicle regulations are largely matters of state law in the US. Definitions from a federal law, or indeed any law but that state's Motor Vehicle Code (or whatever a given state calls such a body of law) will simply not be relevant. The argument sketched in the question simply does not follow.

You have to start with the pertinent ADA regulations, 28 CFR Part 36, and esp. subpart B which gets to the prohibition. Under §36.201(a), No individual shall be discriminated against on the basis of disability in the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations of any place of public accommodation by any private entity who owns, leases (or leases to), or operates a place of public accommodation. After that under activities, it is stated that A public accommodation shall not subject an individual or class of individuals on the basis of a disability or disabilities of such individual or class, directly, or through contractual, licensing, or other arrangements, to a denial of the opportunity of the individual or class to participate in or benefit from the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations of a place of public accommodation. and also A public accommodation shall not afford an individual or class of individuals, on the basis of a disability or disabilities of such individual or class, directly, or through contractual, licensing, or other arrangements, with the opportunity to participate in or benefit from a good, service, facility, privilege, advantage, or accommodation that is not equal to that afforded to other individuals. moreover "separate but equal" is not allowed. The sign does not articulate any denial of opportunity, so that should be the end of the discussion. OTOH I suspect that a sign saying "Please do not enter this store if you are white" would be held to be discriminatory, as an indirect denial of permission to enter based on race. §36.208 introduces two important exceptions. First, This part does not require a public accommodation to permit an individual to participate in or benefit from the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages and accommodations of that public accommodation when that individual poses a direct threat to the health or safety of others. That means that (irrespective of the fact that covid is not a legal disability) it is legal to exclude direct threats to the health of others. And furthermore, In determining whether an individual poses a direct threat to the health or safety of others, a public accommodation must make an individualized assessment, based on reasonable judgment that relies on current medical knowledge or on the best available objective evidence, to ascertain: The nature, duration, and severity of the risk; the probability that the potential injury will actually occur; and whether reasonable modifications of policies, practices, or procedures or the provision of auxiliary aids or services will mitigate the risk. Based on reasonable medical judgment and innumerable official government proclamations, it is reasonable to believe that a person with covid symptoms pose a threat to public health. The law doesn't require you to be omniscient and actually know that customer A has covid and customer B has asthma. §36.301 then says more about possible screening requirements. It is generally expected that everybody knows the law and will follow the law: ignorance of the law is no excuse, nor is it a cause for a discrimination claim. It would not be legal to exclude a person from a public accommodation when they pose no threat to public health. The customer with asthma is expected to know this law, and is expected to not infer incorrectly that the sign implies that he is being illegally excluded. The customer with covid is also expected to know this law, and is expected to know that it refers to him – as is allowed under the law. Potentially illegal discrimination enters the picture once actual exclusion happens, getting you back to "individualized assessment, based on reasonable judgment". A rule that "anybody who coughs gets thrown out" is most likely to not pass muster as a reasonable health-based criterion. Including a temperature scan is likely to put the practice within the realm of the reasonable.

When can a country ask for a criminal suspect in another country to be extradited? Most of the times in news I hear about someone doing some sort of crime and fleeing the nation and roaming freely in other nation. And the other country can't do any thing about it. What kind of BS is that? I mean recently in this news this guy Vijay Mallya left India on 2 March after taking millions in loans and not paying it back fled the country. Can't Indian government ask Interpol or any other authorities to take action over him and bring him to justice?

Extradition treaties/agreements The general principle of international law is that all countries are sovereign and have jurisdiction over all people within their borders; in this regard they are not required to render any persons within their borders to another country, not even to be prosecuted for a crime. However, if the country the person is in has an extradition treaty or agreement with the country seeking to extradite them (in your case India) then the government may, in some circumstances, apprehend and render the person. Bars to extradition Commonly, the crime for which the person is to be extradited may be a bar to extradition, either because it is not illegal in the country that would surrender the person, or because it is of certain natures (usually political crimes), or because of the penalty the crime attracts (death penalty, for instance). As for this particular case, if I've read the news article correctly and that Mallya now resides in the UK, then there are extradition treaties between the UK and India and the subject could be extradited.

Any country can certainly decide who it should grant citizenship status to. There is no international rule that I know of requiring that the recipient be currently a resident of the country granting citizenship. Any country may issue passports to its citizens.

I don't know about that particular case, but you are basically right: In Switzerland, if you want to apply for citizenship, you apply for it in the municipality first. Everybody having the citizenship of the municipality has the swiss citizenship as well. In theory, the canton and the state also have something to say, but that's irrelevant for most applications. This has historic reasons, but going into the details is beyond the scope of this question. Fact is, that every municipality has its own rules, about when and how applications are handled. This has been unified a bit in recent years, but some things still differ. That is for instance, how many years you need to have lived there or who decides your application. There were municipalities (actually most) where the final decision was made using a public vote. This practice was declared illegal by the federal court some years ago, because becoming a citizen is a formal governmental act, and as such a reason needs to be given for turning an application down. This is inherently impossible with a vote. Since that law decision, most municipalities have shifted the responsibility to a committee for citizenship applications. The public can still bring in arguments, but they need to be justified (ie. if somebody knows about the applicant being a wanted criminal somewhere). Consequently, you can now call for a court to check whether the given reasoning is correct and just, if you are turned down.

In the US it is not a crime to be in the country illegally. As a general rule, it is not a crime for a removable alien to remain in the United States. Arizona v US So it's illegal, you get a state induced consequence (deportation) but it doesn't make you a criminal e.g. you don't go to jail for it. I have no idea if that's what's going on over there but it's a plausible explanation.

It depends partly on where you are. If you're in the foreign country and they have a law compelling you to answer any questions asked by their government or some company, they you have to answer the question. Whether lying has any legal repercussions depends on the laws of the country, so you'd have to narrow it down a bit. If you're in the US, the only context where you can be compelled to answer a question is when ordered to do so in court (giving testimony), and you have 5th Amendment immunity from being forced to testify against yourself. If you are granted immunity from prosecution, then they can compel you to testify (answer the question). If a foreign entity asks you whether you are a US citizen, you can decline to answer. You can also make up any answer you want, and generally not run afoul of US law (though you could run into problems in that country). There are state and federal laws about making false statements in official investigations, which would not be applicable to what you describe. There is no general law that says you must always tell the truth. However, making a false statement could be part of the crime of fraud, so it would depend on the context of your statement, i.e. are you misrepresenting your citizenship in order to get something of value. In light of the topical update, again there may be country-specific penalties in country for lying about citizenship, and tax evasion is against the law here, which is true whether or not you lie. FATCA specifies a duty to disclose (sect. 6038d), which is not tied to truthful reporting of citizenship (in other words, there is no point in lying to the bank because non-reporting is still a crime). But: this law probably brings the lie with the scope of 18 USC 1001 ("Martha's Law"), which makes it a crime to conceal a material fact "in any matter within the jurisdiction of ...the United States". This means and has been held to mean not just that you can't lie to federal officers, you can't lie to anyone who reports your information to the federal government. FATCA also says "we don't care if it's a crime to report being an American in that country", so inconveniences certainly are not a defense.

Claiming to be independent is probably not a crime: the family that say they have set up the Principality of Sealand have never been prosecuted (though that may have something to do with the difficulty of arresting them). It does not, however, excuse a British subject from the ordinary duties of paying taxes and the like; anyone in a more accessible (and more clearly British) part of the country would be subject to the normal forms of law enforcement, including imprisonment for contempt of court if they refused to obey court orders. Despite the more eccentric theories of the 'sovereign citizen' movement (who do exist in the UK), the fact that somebody living in Britain is subject to British laws is not open to negotiation. Resisting this law enforcement by force would not be a good idea: as well as the fact that the Government has access to bigger and better armed forces than you do, it would probably render you guilty of treason. The Treason Act 1351 (as amended and translated) makes it illegal to "levy war against our lord the King in his realm, or be adherent to the King's enemies in his realm, giving to them aid and comfort in the realm, or elsewhere"; the good news is that the death penalty for treason was abolished in 1998 (some time after that for murder).

Possibly. I wonder if you mean "convicted" rather than "arrested"? There is no way that he will be "arrested" because you don't accompany him ("arrested" is when he taken by the police before a trial). On the other hand, if he plans to call you as a witness for the defence, then your absence may mean he is convicted at his trial when otherwise he would be found innocent. The final possibility is that you might act as a character witness after conviction, and your absence may mean he is sent to jail rather than fined. It may be possible for you to write a witness statement describing what happened, and to have this notarized. On the other hand, the prosecution may well want to cross examine you. I am pretty sure you can write a character witness statement (saying, if true, that it's a first offence and that you have forgiven him, etc) and get it notarized. That might persuade a court to be lenient. I think you (as a couple) need to talk to his lawyer.

Yes, but ... You can bring a suit in an Australian court of competent jurisdiction. You would then need to find and serve the defendant in compliance with both Australian law and the law of the jurisdiction they are in. They can then raise a jurisdictional challenge that the Australian court is not the appropriate forum - they might be right depending on where the substance of the contract happened, whether the contract has a nomination of venue clause and if the contract is subject to an arbitration agreement. If the Australian court decides it does have jurisdiction it would have to decide which law applies - this is likely to be a mix of law because some laws in both jurisdictions are likely not excludable by contract. If you win, you would then have to get the judgement enforced somewhere the defendant has assets. Not paying a judgement is not a crime so the defendant will be of no interest to law enforcement - getting money from them is your problem. tl;dr Cross-national litigation is way more expensive in time and money and way less certain in outcome beyond the inherent uncertainty in any lawsuit. This is not something you can expect to succeed at without lawyers in both countries so you will be spending tens of thousands for an uncertain outcome. If you are chasing millions this may be worth it but if you are - don’t do million dollar deals by email in the future.

Significance of "up to 364 days" In a comment to another question, the following law text was quoted: "Every person convicted of a gross misdemeanor defined in Title 9A RCW shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail for a maximum term fixed by the court of up to three hundred sixty-four days, or by a fine in an amount fixed by the court of not more than five thousand dollars, or by both such imprisonment and fine." Is there, in the USA, some significant difference between 364 days in jail and say 367 days, other than the three days? Or is there a different reason for this strange number?

There is a note attached to the relevant section of the Revised Code of Washington. It used to be "not more than one year", but in 2011, Substitute Senate Bill 5168 changed this and many similar instances to "up to 364 days". They explained their purpose in the first section of the bill: The legislature finds that a maximum sentence by a court in the state of Washington for a gross misdemeanor can, under federal law, result in the automatic deportation of a person who has lawfully immigrated to the United States, is a victim of domestic violence or a political refugee, even when all or part of the sentence to total confinement is suspended. The legislature further finds that this is a disproportionate outcome, when compared to a person who has been convicted of certain felonies which, under the state's determinate sentencing law, must be sentenced to less than one year and, hence, either have no impact on that person's residency status or will provide that person an opportunity to be heard in immigration proceedings where the court will determine whether deportation is appropriate. Therefore, it is the intent of the legislature to cure this inequity by reducing the maximum sentence for a gross misdemeanor by one day. In federal law, 8 USC 1227 (2) (A) (I) provides that: Any alien who— (I) is convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude committed within five years (or 10 years in the case of an alien provided lawful permanent resident status under section 1255(j) of this title) after the date of admission, and (II) is convicted of a crime for which a sentence of one year or longer may be imposed, is deportable. The Washington State legislature didn't think that deportation was an appropriate punishment for an alien who committed a gross misdemeanor. Therefore, they reduced the maximum sentence by one day so as not to trigger deportation under 8 USC 1227 (2) (A) (I).

The official clause in question is here: Pecandu Narkotika yang telah cukup umur sebagaimana dimaksud dalam Pasal 55 ayat (2) yang sedang menjalani rehabilitasi medis 2 (dua) kali masa perawatan dokter di rumah sakit dan/atau lembaga rehabilitasi medis yang ditunjuk oleh pemerintah tidak dituntut pidana which unofficially says Narcotics addicts who are old enough as referred to in Article 55 paragraph (2) who are undergoing medical rehabilitation with at least two treatments by doctors in hospitals and / or medical rehabilitation institutions designated by the government shall not be not criminally prosecuted where the italicized part involves some interpolation – a professional legal translator could have a better English rendition. The point is that you have to actually be getting treatment, and it has to be at a facility that is approved (ditunjuk) by the government. Such addicts are not criminally "dituntut", which could cover being charged, indicted, prosecuted or sued, a minor ambiguity resolved by the fact that the prosecutor is the "penuntut umum" (same root word). Under the law, it is not sufficient to just register (report yourself), you have to actually be receiving treatment. The part about "was not sentenced" is just a mistake.

Technically, yes: Whoever willfully or maliciously injures, tears down or destroys any letter box or other receptacle intended or used for the receipt or delivery of mail on any mail route, or breaks open the same or willfully or maliciously injures, defaces or destroys any mail deposited therein, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both. That said, just because it's technically a felony punishable by up to 3 years in federal prison, doesn't mean you'll actually be punished that way. The Department of Justice's Criminal Resource Manual has a section on misdemeanor offenses that apply to postal crime: Among the misdemeanor dispositions available are: 18 U.S.C. § 1701 (obstruction of mails generally); 18 U.S.C. § 1703(b) (opening,destroying, or detaining mail without authority); 18 U.S.C. § 1707 (theft of property used by postal service); and 18 U.S.C. § 1711 (misappropriation of postal funds). When the charge might best lie under 18 U.S.C. § 1705 (destruction of letter boxes or mail) or 18 U.S.C. § 1706 (injury to mail bags) and in other appropriate circumstances, an applicable misdemeanor may be found in 18 U.S.C. § 641 (theft of government property); or 18 U.S.C. § 1361 (destruction of government property). That suggests (at least to me) that federal prosecutors are supposed to at least consider misdemeanor instead of felony charges for minor cases of mailbox destruction. Under normal circumstances, destruction of federal property only becomes a felony if the damage (or attempted damage) is more than $1,000. This is a pretty good example of how US laws are written with prosecutorial discretion in mind. In other systems, the law about destruction of mail or mailboxes would lay out when it's a serious crime and when it's minor. In the US, it's always considered a serious crime because the assumption is that prosecutors won't charge it in minor cases (in fact, official guidance to prosecutors lays out ways they can charge it without charging the felony). It's also possible to be prosecuted at the state level for this, and if you're actually a juvenile that's much more likely than federal prosecution. The feds don't really like handling juvenile cases; they normally leave those up to the states unless there's some good reason not to. Even if you're an adult, the feds may well leave the issue up to the state for prosecution. At the state level, the threshold for felony vs. misdemeanor vandalism would depend on the state. Whether you're prosecuted at the state or federal levels, there's a decent chance you wind up with at least a misdemeanor on your record. Vandalism is illegal, after all.

In the UK, s28(4) Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 states that Where a person is convicted (whether on the same occasion or not) of two or more offences committed on the same occasion and involving obligatory endorsement, the total number of penalty points to be attributed to them is the number or highest number that would be attributed on a conviction of one of them (so that if the convictions are on different occasions the number of penalty points to be attributed to the offences on the later occasion or occasions shall be restricted accordingly). In other words, if you commit two or more offences 'on the same occasion', a court will only award penalty points attributable to the offence attracting the most points. 'On the same occasion' is interpreted by the court. I'm not aware of any case law on this point, so a court will be able to apply its discretion. Note that this only applies to the penalty point aspect of the sentence: the convictions will all stand, and any fines awarded as a result are not subject to the same rule. Of course the police may use their own discretion and charge a subset of the offences actually detected. A short glossary endorsement means that the offender's licence will be 'endorsed' with a number of penalty points. penalty points are recorded on the driver's record at DVSA and expire after a number of years, depending on why they were awarded. A minor speeding offence will normally attract three points which last four years. Receiving twelve points within three years normally results in an automatic twelve-month ban; newly licensed drivers can have their licence revoked on reaching six points.

When it is a mistake of memory, and not intentional (as this question is asking), there are no clear standards, and it is largely up to prosecutorial discretion. This means that whatever factors affect prosecutorial discretion (such as the prosecutor knowing who they have to work with on other days) can become significant in the determination. A prosecutor who announced this decision also specifically noted that it's up to the prosecutor to decide each case separately, with no guidance on fact patterns that could influence the decision either way. The Washington Post Magazine covered this question somewhat in depth several years ago, arriving at that conclusion. This was a surprise to me, but the article seems like a good resource on this - the question turns out to be more interesting and less resolved than it first appeared to be.

This is manslaughter of the vehicular variety Manslaughter is the unlawful killing of a human being without malice. It is of three kinds:... (c) Vehicular— (1) ... driving a vehicle in the commission of a lawful act which might produce death, in an unlawful manner, and with gross negligence. This is what they call a wobbler, and could be charged as a felony or a misdemeanor. In the latter case, the maximum penalty is a year in county jail and in the former it is six years in state prison. If the cause was ordinary negligence, it is just a misdemeanor. The details of gross negligence are set forth in the jury instruction CALCRIM 592 A person acts with gross negligence when: He or she acts in a reckless way that creates a high risk of death or great bodily injury; AND A reasonable person would have known that acting in that way would create such a risk. In other words, a person acts with gross negligence when the way he or she acts is so different from how an ordinarily careful person would act in the same situation that his or her act amounts to disregard for human life or indifference to the consequences of that act. The "absent-mindedness" defense seems a bit far fetched, but still not everybody who drives inattentively is prosecuted for a felony, or even a misdemeanor. However, it is really hard to imagine not being acutely aware of the fact that people drive on the right side of the road here. Without a more-detailed story, I don't see a basis for deciding what level of negligence a prosecutor is likely to argue for, and what the prosecutor's agenda is: somewhere between no prosecution, and (most likely) misdemeanor manslaughter.

The distinction is a question of culpability, not just the harm caused. The law, at least in the criminal law context, is not fundamentally consequentialist in its philosophy. The end consequence of an act for which someone is at fault in some way isn't the only thing that matters in criminal law. Instead, there is basically a two dimensional grid. On one axis is the seriousness of the harm caused on the "eye for an eye" theory of proportionality between punishment and the harm caused. Thus, homicide is more serious than causing serious bodily injury or raping someone, which is more serious than causing bodily injury that is not serious or sexual in nature. Grand theft is more serious than shoplifting. It doesn't make economic sense to spend $70,000 a year to incarcerate someone for many years to prevent people from stealing $15 items, unless very extreme aspects of the person's criminal history suggest that this seemingly minor incident demonstrates a high risk of future offenses that are far more serious because it proves that a hardened criminal hasn't reformed himself or herself. On the other axis is basically a measure of how evil and malicious someone would have to be to do such a thing which is called culpability. At once extreme, first degree murder, for example, is calculated, premeditated harm to another. At the other extremes are completely non-culpable conduct (either due to lack of any fault-worthy conduct or because someone is mentally incapable in the eyes of society of engaging in culpable conduct like a baby or someone with dementia or someone having hallucinations relevant to the conduct that kills someone, ordinarily negligent conduct that kills someone, and criminally negligent conduct that kills someone. In between the extremes is conduct that is reckless or is impulsive or carried out in the heat of passion or by someone with diminished capacity. Only moderately culpable conduct is punishable only by a civil lawsuit for compensatory damages, and non-culpable conduct isn't even punishable in a civil lawsuit in the absence of special circumstances in which strict liability is imposed in lieu of proof of culpability. Less culpable conduct commands less serious sentences, and more culpable conduct commands more serious sentences. Why single out culpability? Basically, this is a crude way a predicting, based upon someone's past actions, the risk that the pose in the future. (Our evaluation of culpability is further refined and adjusted by factors related to the individual defendant and not the particular offense involved, like a criminal defendant's status as a juvenile or adult, and the individuals history of prior criminal convictions.) Conduct that constitutes first degree murder corresponds more or less to psychopathy, an incurable psychiatric condition in which someone lacks all empathy and takes selfish delight in harming others out of boredom or for personal gain. Psychopathy is a technical term that is modern abnormal psychology's closest synonym to saying that someone is unredeemable and evil, and conduct for which the death penalty is available, mostly in conduct that is most highly diagnostic of psychopathy, since the usual goal of incarceration, to return someone to the community once they are no longer an appreciably elevated threat to it, can never be achieved in the case of someone who is unredeemable and evil, because their condition is an incurable part of who they are as a person and their lack of empathy makes them incapable of emotionally distinguishing between right and wrong or feeling guilt. This intuition bears out. The more culpable an offense is, the more likely it is that the offender scores high on standardized measures of the extent to which someone displays signs of psychopathy that are exemplified in serial killers and the worst con men. Intermediate levels of liability correspond more or less to impulsivity that can turn violent (which is associated with a variety of incurable psychiatric conditions and also with the developmental states of adolescence and young adulthood and with instances of excessive intoxicant consumption, especially in men), in which someone knows what they are doing is wrong but lacks sufficient self-control to prevent themselves from acting until it is too late and they have calmed down, at least until they "age out" or or take steps to treat the symptoms of the conditions or addictions or intoxicated excesses. Their lack of self-control makes them a potential risk to others even though they empathize and feel guilt, but not like the risk associated with a psychopath who just doesn't care at all if they are doing something that violates intuitive moral codes of conduct. Negligence, i.e. inattentiveness and carelessness pose even less of a threat to the community and while it could be due to something like attention deficit disorder, could also be due to extenuating circumstances like sleep deprivation or being overwhelmed with too much at once to keep track of everything at once. Negligence harm generally isn't even momentarily malicious due to loss of control and the person who harms someone negligently will often immediately regret the harm that they caused and will try to refrain from doing so again and will try to make things right. Such a person is far less of a future threat to society, but still more of a threat than someone who doesn't harm others in the first place in any manner in which they are at fault. Who decides? Reasonable people (and even reasonable judges) can and do have differences of opinion on the relative importance of seriousness of harm and culpability in determining a sentence for a conviction of a particular course of illegal conduct. The difficulty in balancing the apples and oranges factors of seriousness of harm (which, in part, reflects a person's capacity to inflict serious harm in the future and also reflects society's judgment about how serious it is to do something with ill intent) and culpability. To insure that these factors are balanced in a predictable and fair way, we embody the weighing of those two factors in a collective legislative judgment codified in a state or national penal code, rather than a case by case decision making process by judges. The modern trend towards giving more weight to culpability. If anything, the tendency at the present is for legislative judgment to give more weight to culpability than it has in the past as social science methods in criminology have demonstrated that culpability demonstrated in criminal conduct actually carried out by a person is indeed highly predictive of that person's future dangerousness to society For example, cruelty to animals is an offense which reflects very high levels of culpability despite often involving relatively modest amounts of harm viewed in a human-centric way. But, cruelty to animals is increasingly being upgraded from a misdemeanor to a felony, because it is a very diagnostic litmus test for psychopathy in an individual and very frequently eventually escalates to causing serious harm to humans. Similarly, drunk driving when it is charged based upon a traffic stop, rather than an accident that occurred while someone was driving drunk, is a very low harm offense, just like any other traffic offense, and historically has only been a misdemeanor. But, in cases where someone is repeatedly convicted of drunk driving, the culpability is high and the conduct tends to reflect a very difficult to self-regulate addiction and substance abuse problem that is highly likely to recur and to eventually result in a high harm accident. Repeated convictions are what distinguish an incident where someone is basically just criminally negligent in driving when they should have known that they shouldn't, from the far more serious case where someone recklessly and with indifference to the well being of others drives drunk knowing full what the risk that they are exposing other people to. And because repeat drunk driving convictions are more culpable and reflect a personal character of the offender that shows a high likelihood of causing future harm to others, many states are starting to upgrade repeat drunk driving from a misdemeanor to a felony even though the actual harm from the specific incident of drunk driving that only gives rise to a traffic stop is still just as low the fifth or sixth time someone is convicted as it was the first time. Conclusion So, in sum, assigning different penalties to different levels of culpability is a way to allocate limited correctional and punishment resources in a manner proportionate to the future risk of dangerousness that the current conviction provides undeniable evidence of in a non-arbitrary manner. Indeed, most people simply internalize the notion that more culpable conduct deserves more serious punishment because it is wrong, without conceptualizing in the more theoretical abnormal psychology informed and utilitarian framework in which I have described it above to demonstrate the implicit logic and wisdom behind the gut instinct that more culpable conduct should be punished more seriously, especially when its cause is not a passing incident that is unlikely to recur.

Article 199 of the Penal Code, as it appears from changes up to 2017, says: 人を殺した者は、死刑又は無期若しくは五年以上の懲役に処する。A person who kills another person is punished by the death penalty or imprisonment for life or for a definite term of not less than 5 years. This is for homicide as opposed to other related crimes, and there are also effects on sentencing for someone who is guilty of multiple offences, for example. The term can be halved if there are sufficient extenuating circumstances, so 2.5 years seems to be the minimum. In any case, 10-15 years is within the range.

Can a witness safely admit to committing illegal actions? Can someone who is testifying as a witness in a U.S. civil (small claims) case receive immunity from criminal acts? Consider this hypothetical: The defendant is accused of stealing something from the plaintiff. However, the stolen item was a bottle of alcohol and the witness who wants immunity is under the legal drinking age. The witness wants immunity from any claims that he illegally obtained or consumed alcohol. Is there any precedent saying that a witness is immune to any crime he admits to while being a witness?

Is there any precedent saying that a witness is immune to any crime he admits to while being a witness? Yes, there is precedent, but it unlikely to apply to your situation. The applicable type of immunity is called witness immunity. There are two types of witness immunity, transaction (aka blanket immunity) and use immunity. Both must be granted by the prosecution. Check out this article on Nolo-Legal for a description of the two: http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/immunity-exchange-testimony.html Immunity can apply to a civil case, but the prosecution's grant of immunity must specifically say so. See Pillsbury Co. v. Conboy, 459 U.S. 248, 263–64 (1983). While there is authority for witness immunity in civil cases, the witness would be unlikely to get it. Generally, the prosecution provides immunity when they need testimony from a witness and that witness asserts their 5th amendment right against self incrimination. By providing immunity, the prosecution removes the 5th amendment concerns and the witness can then be compelled to answer the prosecution's question. This process is explained in more detail in this article. http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/when-prosecutors-grant-immunity-what-does-immunity-grant-mean-the-witness.html Given the way in which immunity is granted to witness, it is most likely to happen in civil cases where the government—not a private party—needs a witness's testimony. For example, a civil case brought by the government for a consumer protection, anti-trust, or securities law violations against a company. Also, the witness might want to know the statute of limitations for under-aged possession of alcohol. If it lapsed there would be no need for immunity.

Your ability to assert your Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination is not limited to cases where you are on trial or have been accused of a crime. Your ability to assert that right is also not an absolute bar against being ordered to testify: if you are given immunity, you can be forced to testify. Alice cannot hold Bob in contempt – only the judge can. Bob can explain to the judge why a simple truthful "yes" or "no" answer is not possible, if he knows how to do that (does he understand the notion of a false presupposition, or unclarity?). He could for example assert truthfully that he does not understand the question (pointing to the distinction between "Charlie's body falling on the vase, causing it to fall and break", and "Charlie acting with apparent intent to break the vase", since it's not patently obvious that the former scenario constitutes "breaking the vase"). However (changing the scenario a bit), he has to understand that if the question is "Did Charlie shoot Delilah?" and the fact is that Ethan forced Charlie to shoot Delilah, saying "No" based on a theory of blame is not reasonably interpreted as truthful testimony. Taking the 5th, without setting forth your basis (not understanding the question) runs the risk that the prosecution will grant immunity from prosecution, and therefore you don't get to avoid answering the question. Immunity covers various things except that it does not cover prosecution for perjurious testimony. See US v. Apfelbaum, 445 U.S. 115: the Fifth Amendment does not prevent the use of respondent's immunized testimony at his trial for false swearing because, at the time he was granted immunity, the privilege would not have protected him against false testimony that he later might decide to give. Immunity is conferred under the control of some applicable statutory law, such as 18 USC 6002 which says that no testimony or other information compelled under the order (or any information directly or indirectly derived from such testimony or other information) may be used against the witness in any criminal case, except a prosecution for perjury, giving a false statement, or otherwise failing to comply with the order.

Information about a defendant’s character or past misdeeds are not generally admissible during a court proceeding. It can be brought in to rebut testimony. If the defendant takes the stand and asserts that they never discriminated against anyone due to their nation of origin, then evidence they they have done so becomes relevant.

The potential problem is if there is a form which you had to sign which says "I am a US citizen", and you signed the form (who reads the fine print, anyhow?). Unfortunately, that statement is false, and there are consequences for making a false statement. However, that law penalizes false statements with the intent to deceive, not mistaken statements. Nevertheless, this is a matter that a professional really needs to deal with. If there was no form and they didn't verbally ask you to assert that you are a citizen, then there is less of a problem (for you), but still one needs to be extremely cautious in dealing with the court. [Addendum] It is highly likely that the form contained wording like "swear" or "certify" and mentions "perjury", so the error would be in the ballpark of perjury. Perjury is making "a false statement under oath or swears to the truth of a false statement previously made and the statement is required or authorized by law to be made under oath". Aggravated perjury is perjury which "is made during or in connection with an official proceeding and is material". The term "material" means "matters; is not inconsequential". The consequence of a non-citizen improperly serving on a jury is that a mistrial has occurred, which is not inconsequential. Aggravated felony is a third degree felony. The penal code says that An individual adjudged guilty of a felony of the third degree shall be punished by imprisonment in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for any term of not more than 10 years or less than 2 years. (b) In addition to imprisonment, an individual adjudged guilty of a felony of the third degree may be punished by a fine not to exceed $10,000. I must emphasize that an essential element is "intent to deceive and with knowledge of the statement's meaning", an element that cannot be present if there is no awareness of such a statement. Thus an innocent mistake could be legally excused. When you become aware that a statement made under oath was false (assuming such a statement was made), then in maintaining the falsehood, that would be intentional deceit. This is why it is necessary to consult with a lawyer. On the Houston form, you would have to check the "are a US citizen" box. The Fort Bend county form has you certify and sign on the front page: it does not require you to certify that you are a US citizen, only to certify (and sign) if you are not – so if you failed to read the back side, that isn't a literally false statement. I can't locate an online form for Tarrant county, so dunno if that out is available.

united-states Witnesses are generally confined to giving testimony from their own personal memory; most of the time, they can't read a statement into the record or just tell the jury to go look at some other piece of evidence. But this creates problems when a witness knows an important fact but doesn't remember it when she takes the stand. Maybe she counted exactly how much money she stuffed in the robber's bag as she was doing it, and she wrote it down as soon as he fled, but a year later, she can't remember that it was $93,736.45. But the prosecutor isn't allowed to just give the witness a stack of evidence and let her go hunting through the documents to answer each question. Instead,he goes through the "Do you remember" colloquy to lay the necessary foundation to refresh the witness's memory, as contemplated by Rule 612, which then also triggers certain rights for the opposing party with respect to the document used to refresh the witness's memory.

The general rule is that sworn testimony of a witness with personal knowledge of the facts is competent evidence. A guilty verdict in a criminal case will only be upheld on appeal if sufficient competent evidence to support that verdict was admitted at trial. The hearsay rule is not about the reliability of witness testimony in general, it is about quality control with respect to witness testimony. The primary effect of the hearsay rule is to prevent someone trying to prove something from doing so by affidavit without making the person who actually made that statement that proves something come into court where they are subject to cross-examination. This shifts the burden of getting someone into court from the person trying to defend against evidence to the person relying upon the evidence. Cross-examination of a live witness is more effective at resolving subtle ambiguities or omissions in a statement than an unresponsive affidavit or testimony from someone who merely heard someone else say something. The hearsay rule also minimizes the risk illustrated by the children's game of "telephone" where one person passes a statement to another in many iterations and the person at the end of the line announces the statement, which is often greatly degraded or distorted from the original statement. Hearing something straight form the "horse's mouth" avoids that. There are many circumstances, however, where these considerations are not paramount, which is why there are myriad exceptions to the hearsay rule. Witness testimony under oath and subject to cross-examination still does not mean that the party offering it automatically proves what the witness testified to in most cases. The finder of fact can weight the credibility of the witness, physical evidence, documents that are not hearsay or are exempt from the hearsay rule, circumstantial evidence contrary to witness testimony, or of course, directly contrary testimony, in deciding what the real facts of a case are, and indeed, cases rarely go to trial unless there are disputes concerning what the facts of the case really are.

I have not found a case directly on point, but there is a case in the right neighborhood. In Flordia v. Carter 364 So. 2d 1249, Carter was charged with perjury for making a false statement under oath. He recanted his testimony in a letter to the defense attorney the next day. Subsequently he was charged with perjury: the trial judge dismissed the case based on his having recanted (which is a defense to perjury). The judge said (quoted in the appeal below and citing a relevant precedent Brannen v. Florida 114 So. 429) It matters not whether Carter knew his original testimony was false or whether he was merely mistaken. "The law encourages the correction of erroneous and even intentionally false statements on the part of a witness, and perjury will not be predicated upon such statements when the witness, before the submission of the case, fully corrects his testimony." The lower appeals court rejected the trial court's dismissal, saying Recantation is a defense to an allegation of perjury only where there is an acknowledgement of the falsity of the original sworn statement, a voluntary retraction of that statement, and a new statement which discloses the true facts. It is not a viable defense where the perjured testimony has substantially affected the proceeding or it has become manifest that such falsity has been or will be exposed. Otherwise, one could rest on his lie, allowing it to substantially affect a proceeding, and never retract unless the falsity had been exposed. This would provide no inducement or encouragement to tell the truth. That court basically felt it was based on the threat of being discovered, and felt that a particular state statute had taken away the recantation defense, so they reinstated the charge. The appeal to the Florida Supreme Court, Carter v. Florida 384 So. 2d 1255 basically declared that the appeals court was wrong about the statute (they officially held that recantation is a defense to perjury). They concluded that Carter gained nothing by recanting (that was a distinguishing feature in a precedent that the lower court favored). The dissent in this decision opined that It may be that the false deposition testimony by Dr. Carter was inadvertent and without criminal intent.... These, however, are factual issues and should be resolved by a jury rather than by the trial court on a motion to dismiss. What unifies all opinions on the matter is that a false statement made under oath must be recanted. The reason why Carter was not convicted was that he (possibly) was unaware that his testimony was false and he did recant when he became aware of the facts.

Documents are not protected under the 5th Amendment, so a person can be compelled to produce documents that may incriminate them. The person cannot be forced to testify against themselves, however – they can invoke their right to not testify against themselves. The attorney-client privilege canon has some exceptions, for example (4) to secure legal advice about the lawyer's compliance with these Rules or (2) to prevent the client from committing a crime or fraud that is reasonably certain to result in substantial injury to the financial interests or property of another and in furtherance of which the client has used or is using the lawyer's services (bearing in mind that POTUS is required by law to turn all documents over to the national Archives, so turning the records over is "compliance with the law" and a think that an attorney would do for their client, though this event is quite belated). No subpoena was issued and no testimony was given, so the Fifth Amendment is irrelevant.

Can I legally refuse entry to people with face coverings Can I refuse entry and/or service at my retail business (food service, grocery, book store, etc.) to individuals wearing face coverings? i'm specifically interested in religious coverings such as hijab/niqab/burka. If individuals ignore this policy, would it be trespass and would that mean I could call the cops to have said individuals removed?

You do not give a jurisdiction so I will assume Australia. Discrimination is legal unless it is for a prohibited reason One of the prohibited reasons is if it is on the basis of a person's religious beliefs. So, you are completely within your rights to an individual wearing a face covering provided that the wearing of such a covering is not part of that person's religious belief. So, you can say no to motorcycle helmets, baseball caps and balaclavas - you cannot say no to a hajib if it is worn as a religious observance of either Islam or Christianity, a habit if worn by a Christian nun or a kippah worn by an orthodox Jew. Providing your policy contains such exceptions you are good to go. https://www.humanrights.gov.au/employers/good-practice-good-business-factsheets/quick-guide-australian-discrimination-laws

"Public place" is not a good description of a bar. "Public accommodation" would be a better description. But it isn't a public accommodation 24-7-365(366). It's only a public accommodation during the hours it is open to the public. Presumably the owner is free to close it to the public and rent it to some private group. During the rental period, it's up to the private group to decide who to admit. (The owner would have a veto for anyone who can't be admitted, for example, because the person isn't old enough to enter a bar.) The private group is not bound by the policies that prohibit unfair discrimination by public accommodations.

There are numerous practical solutions, such as calling their supervisor, or calling the employee of yours who set up this arrangement, or providing some kind of proof that you are the ultimate boss. From a legal perspective, (1) the guards are acting as your agents which gives them some authority to exclude people but (2) you can revoke that authority. There are many things that security guards can do to keep people out, and some of them would be technically illegal (others would be blatantly illegal and we can skip that). I'll cite Washington state criminal law, and you can probably find analogs in Mexican law. First, are they on your property? If you revoke permission to be in the property, that is trespass: (9A.52.070: Criminal trespass in the first degree.) (1) A person is guilty of criminal trespass in the first degree if he or she knowingly enters or remains unlawfully in a building. (9A.52.080 Criminal trespass in the second degree.) (1) A person is guilty of criminal trespass in the second degree if he or she knowingly enters or remains unlawfully in or upon premises of another under circumstances not constituting criminal trespass in the first degree. How are they stopping you? If they are physically stopping you, that is assault (battery), the severity of which depends in the degree of force: (9A.36.031: Assault in the third degree) (1) A person is guilty of assault in the third degree if he or she, under circumstances not amounting to assault in the first or second degree: (d) With criminal negligence, causes bodily harm to another person by means of a weapon or other instrument or thing likely to produce bodily harm; or (f) With criminal negligence, causes bodily harm accompanied by substantial pain that extends for a period sufficient to cause considerable suffering; or (9A.36.041: Assault in the fourth degree) (1) A person is guilty of assault in the fourth degree if, under circumstances not amounting to assault in the first, second, or third degree, or custodial assault, he or she assaults another. Another possibility is 9A.40.040 Unlawful imprisonment: (1) A person is guilty of unlawful imprisonment if he or she knowingly restrains another person. They don't have to actually use force, they can simply threaten to do so, which is 9A.36.070: Coercion. (1) A person is guilty of coercion if by use of a threat he or she compels or induces a person to engage in conduct which the latter has a legal right to abstain from, or to abstain from conduct which he or she has a legal right to engage in. Though the police are supposed to enforce the law, they may decline to act if it us not clear to them that there is a violation of the law. It would not really help to prove that you own the company, because nobody really knows the relationship between the company and the building – maybe you own the company, someone else owns the building, and you've been legally evicted. So looking for a legal solution isn't the most productive use of your time. Instead, make sure you can contact the guard supervisors, company colleagues in charge of security, and carry your ID badge with you. Let us suppose that the guard company, guards, and your security chief are conspiring to rob you. The long-term and slow solution is to get a court order plus sue the pants of everybody who has done you wrong. The crux of the matter for the police would be, who owns the building (what evidence do you have that you own the building). I could actually show the police proof that I own my house. If the crooked security chief shows up with a document saying that he owns the building, you'd be stuck. But otherwise, establishing ownership of the building should cause them to stop the guards from blocking you. Unless the cops are part of the conspiracy. There's nothing you can do to absolutely protect yourself against a well-planned conspiracy (they make movies based on that).

Your description of the facts is vague enough that we can't offer an informed judgment, but to remedy this, I will paraphrase your account of the facts (you can decide whether this is what you were trying to say). I was sitting outside of the Sprint store today waiting for my step daughter to come out. While waiting, two police officers walked up to my car and asked me to turn off my vehicle and come inside. When I voluntarily went inside, the store staff said that they called the police because they had had some sort of problems with people applying for service and absconding with the phone to resell on the black market, and they thought that was part of some such criminal plan. Because of that, they refused to give her a phone or service contract. But then they also told us to never come back, threatening arrest for trespassing. I have never been in that store before. Were my rights violated? No, neither by the police nor by the manager. The police, or the store manager, can legally request you to come in for a conversation: what matters most is whether you were forced to come in against your will. By your report, you were not, so your rights were not violated. The police are irrelevant to the remainder of the question. What remains is whether your rights were violated because the manager told you to go away and never come back under pain of prosecution. The store is private property, meaning that the owner has wide latitude to grant or deny permission to enter. If they hate pink hair and your hair is pink, they can legally "ban" you. If they suspect you of involvement in a criminal activity, that can most certainly legally ban you. That does not mean that it was a righteous or justified decision on their part, or a good business choice, but it is their legal right. So, no, your rights were not violated.

You are correct that the federal law does not prohibit sex discrimination in "public accommodations", the category that includes your examples. State laws tend to be more restrictive, see for example Washington's RCW 49.60.215 which declares that It shall be an unfair practice for any person ... to commit an act which ... results in any distinction ... except for conditions and limitations established by law and applicable to all persons, regardless of race, creed... sexual orientation, sex... PROVIDED, That behavior or actions constituting a risk to property or other persons can be grounds for refusal and shall not constitute an unfair practice. The definitions allow for a few exceptions as to what kind of place is so restricted, most notably a facility "which is by its nature distinctly private", nor "any educational facility, columbarium, crematory, mausoleum, or cemetery operated or maintained by a bona fide religious or sectarian institution". Here is a paper that summarizes the situation with women'-only clubs. For example, New Jersey law has the exception that nothing herein contained shall be construed to bar any place of public accommodation which is in its nature reasonably restricted exclusively to individuals of one sex, and which shall include but not be limited to any summer camp, day camp or resort camp, bathhouse, dressing room, swimming pool, gymnasium, comfort station, dispensary, clinic or hospital, or school or educational institution which is restricted exclusively to individuals of one sex... So it depends on the state, but most states prohibit any sex discrimination in public accommodations.

The only religious matter I'm aware of that are inadmissible are for special circumstances where one's religious beliefs may be compromised if asked in court. The classic example tends to be clergymen/women being subpeonaed for information against a defendant in court. Conversation with clergy is protected in the United States and is one of a few times cops are not allowed to listen to your one phone call or visit. The typical invocation of this would be a criminal, who confesses his sins to a Catholic priest, and may confess to a crime while receiving the Sacrament of Penance. Since Catholic Priests are bound by the "Seal of Confession" to not speak about the identity of the sinner or nature of the sin. The Priest can be excommunicated if he does this. However, if the religion of the witness is relevant to the case (say a discrimination case) it might be prudent to inquire into the witness's religious beliefs. Suppose a major employer has a special menu in their cafeterias for Hala and Kosher observers but does not offer a fish or non-meat option for meals on Fridays in Lent, then a Catholic's belief in this practice might be called into question.

No You say you won't disclose personal information, therefore, you can't disclose personal information. Now, if your privacy policy said "We won't disclose your personal information except ..." then, so long as you did the "..." that would be fine (subject to privacy law).

You've really got two questions here: 1) "Is it an invasion of privacy to know that I'm using an ad blocker?", and 2) "Is it discrimination to refuse service based on what software I'm running?". Taking them in order: Because of how HTTP/HTML works, there are essentially two ways for a server operator to know what software you are running. Your browser announces that it's running something. This usually takes the form of a modified User-Agent header. I'm not aware of any privacy laws that consider "Person A told me something" to be an invasion of Person A's privacy. They guess it based on the actions your browser takes. For example, if the website gets a request for a page, and the site's ad network does not get a matching request for an ad, the server deduces that the user is running an ad blocker. Since this is based on things that the server operator could reasonably be expected to be informed of, it isn't an invasion of privacy under any law I'm aware of. Is it discrimination? Yes. But not all discrimination is illegal. In general, only discrimination based on protected categories (race, sex, etc.) is prohibited, and I can't imagine a jurisdiction making "choice of browser add-ons" to be one of those categories, not least because it's something the person being discriminated against can easily change.

Can I claim compensation for expenses incurred when an item is late for delivery? I ordered a huge amount of timber to clad my house. I was assured delivery on a particular day and had booked builders and hired towers and scaffolding. The timber arrived two days late meaning I've had to pay two builders wages for two days, plus the cost of the towers and scaffolding - totaling about £800. Am I entitled to claim this back off the company? I spoke to them and they're only willing to refund the cost of delivery (£120). They said that I could, if I wanted, file a claim in a small-claims court, or seek the money from the credit card company.

It would depend on your contract. Clearly, if I was selling timber and you ordered some with the agreement that I'll try to deliver at date X with no extra penalties, it would cost some amount. If we had a contract where I deliver at date X and pay for all your cost if the timber doesn't arrive at that date, then I'll either refuse to take the contract or charge you more. Maybe substantially more.

Given that this is a UK based company, the most applicable Act would be the Unsolicited Goods and Services Act 1971 A person who, not having reasonable cause to believe there is a right to payment, in the course of any trade or business makes a demand for payment, or asserts a present or prospective right to payment, for what he knows are unsolicited goods sent (after the commencement of this Act) to another person with a view to his acquiring them [for the purposes of his trade or business], shall be guilty of an offence and on summary conviction shall be liable to a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale. This law specifically refers to [unsolicited] charges for entries in directories. You also mentioned that they're misrepresenting that a company is already a customer and sending out invoices on that basis. That would be a breach of the Fraud Act 2006 A person is in breach of this section if he dishonestly makes a false representation As to their enforceability, that answer is no. If this came before an actual judge, the judge would throw it out in a heartbeat. No agreement was made to provide a service in return for a payment and these companies rely on sending threatening letters via (seeming) third-parties precisely because they wish to avoid that level of scrutiny.

No Or at least not necessarily. Contract terms are legally one of three types: Conditions, Warranties, or Intermediate. Breach of any term allows the aggrieved party to sue to recover damages - monetary compensation to restore them to the position they would have been in had the breach not occurred. Breach of a condition also (or instead) allows them to terminate a contract. Breach of a warranty does not. Intermediate terms are terms that might be a condition or might be a warranty depending on how egregious the breach was. A contract can explicitly make a term a condition, the historical and still used phrase being that X is “of the essence”. If the contract is not explicit (most aren’t), then that is the concept that the court uses to decide - is the term “of the essence”, that is, absolutely fundamental to the performance of the contract. Similarly a term can be explicitly a warranty, usually by saying party Y “warrants” something. Most incidental or procedural terms are warranties - if breached, they never give rise to a right to terminate. Most terms are intermediate, particularly most terms about time. Normally, intermediate terms are warranties but if a breach is egregious enough, then this can elevate the term to a condition. Payment terms are a classic: if you are a day or a week late in making payment, the other party can’t cancel the contract. If you are a year late, they can. Somewhere in between, your breach changes the term from a warranty to a condition. For your situation, the early delivery is clearly a breach of a warranty, not a condition. If it even is a breach - the contract may say that they are obliged to deliver by 1 December: delivery on 1 November is clearly in compliance with that term. If it is a breach, you do not have the right to terminate the contract and if you tried you would be breaching the contract yourself by repudiation. By the way, repudiating the contract is definitely breaching a condition. A huge number of contract disputes turn on who validly terminated and who repudiated the contract. If it is a breach, you can sue for damages which, since they have not charged you for November, would be what it cost you or what you lost by having their bin on your premises for a month. My guess that this would be in the order of zero.

Since they have allready given you a form to fill that you have sent back with the original receipts, I will assume that the major preconditions have been fulfilled (mainly that they have asked you to come in writing and have not exclude reimbursement). This a case of civil law based on §670 BGB. Since they have not fullfilled their obligation, you must send them a reminder (Mahnung) in the form of a registered letter, requiring them to do so within a reasonable timeframe (like 10 working days after receipt of the letter). look for standard letters on this topic (Mahnungen) The letter should be descriptive in nature (i.e. a Judge, after reading a copy of the letter, will understand the whole situation). Nowadays such a letter should be sent through your local Amsgericht, so that they can certify that your copy of the letter was included in the original letter. If they don't react to this, then you must charge them. This is a basic description of the needed method. Look up the details of the process and/or for someone to assist you. Section 670 Reimbursement of expenses If the mandatary, for the purpose of performing the mandate, incurs expenses that he may consider to be necessary in the circumstances, then the mandator is obliged to make reimbursement. Sources §670 - German Civil Code (BGB) Wer trägt die Reisekosten für das Vorstellungsgespräch? - ingenieur.de

The first thing to notice is that the £100 offer appears to be a legit offer. That is to say, accepting it will create a binding agreement between you and the company. There is no reason yet for the company to believe that you have suffered more damages, and you do have reasonable options to prevent them (ask bank for a new card - that's not going to cost you £100). The second observation is that the GDPR does not really affect the first observation. The GDPR itself does not give rise to additional civil claims or special damages. Yes, the GDPR states that the company is in the wrong, but parties can make agreements how a wrongful deed is made right again. And their offer appears to do so. Note that accepting the offer does not take away your continuing GDPR rights. It just affects their past error. You can still ask them whether they have your card data on file today.

When selling a residential property in the UK, you normally fill out a form called the TA10 Fittings and Contents Form, which outlines everything in the property included in the sale. This isn't a legal requirement, but your conveyancing solicitor will normally recommend it. Anything else left in the property after the completion of the sale is still, legally, a possession of the previous owner and the new owner is obliged to inform them of these possessions in writing. So, you do have to return it (and most people in such situations do return the possessions without question). However, if the presence of those possessions means you can't be reasonably expected to move into the property, then you can claim compensation from the previous owner for alternative accommodation (i.e. a hotel) until the situation is rectified. Or if the previous owner refuses to collect the possessions, you can likewise claim compensation for the costs of disposing of it. Alternatively, if they do want the possessions back, but take their time getting it, you can charge them fair storage costs.

It's right in the contract In the event I fail to take delivery of the vehicle purchased by me within forty-eight (48) hours after I have been notified by you that it is ready for delivery and pay the total contract price in the manner indicated, my deposit in the amount of $300 may, at your option, be retained by you to compensate you in whole or in part for any loss sustained by you. Your right to retain my deposit shall be in addition to and not instead of any other right or remedy provided by applicable law including, without limiting the generality of the foregoing, the sale of the car or truck I agree to purchase. If the amount of my deposit exceeds actual damages sustained by you, you will promptly refund the difference to me. The car was ready on day 3. As a result, the Customer was obligated to pay and take delivery of the vehicle until day 5. Because the customer did not follow through with the purchase, the deposit is used to compensate the salesman in the amount that covers the costs of preparing the sale and having the car on the lot for those days that the salesman could not sell it to someone else. At the end of day 5, the contractual obligation to hold the car for the customers in exchange for the deposit ended, and the other clauses of the contract (car for rest of payment) become void. The car salesman is in his right to sell the car because the actual sales contract has fallen through and the holding fee/deposit expired, as the very quoted paragraph shows. Based on the final sentence of the quoted portion of the contract, to get a part of the deposit back, one would need to establish that the losses are less than the contractually fixed amount of 300 USD. When I had my car at the workshop and could not get it back on the day it was done with repairs, I was also informed that holding my car for more than a day would incur storage fees of up to 15 € per day. Similarly, the last time I bought a car, I was told that the sale included a fresh inspection and oil. Those are costs to the seller and can be accounted for in the deposit. The inspection costs about ~120 € for a new TÜV certificate and exhaust check and the materials for an oil change come for about 70 €. This leaves about 70 € cover for the mechanic and salesman's wages for about one hour. That's 300 €, or about 330 USD today. As such, costs to prepare a contract and transfer, inspect the car for roadworthiness as well as storage fees most likely are reasonably assessed to be in the 300 USD area.

It is the use of a "menace" which creates the crime, not the nature or validity of the demand. That's not correct. You've inadvertently missed the other element of the offence: that it's an "unwarranted demand". A person is guilty of blackmail if, with a view to gain for himself or another or with intent to cause loss to another, he makes any unwarranted demand with menaces; and for this purpose a demand with menaces is unwarranted unless the person making it does so in the belief— (a) that he has reasonable grounds for making the demand; and (b) that the use of the menaces is a proper means of reinforcing the demand. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/section/21 For example, I may have reasonable grounds under the Consumer Rights Act to demand a refund for a faulty good. It might be sensible to moderate one's language, e.g. "If I do not receive a satisfactory response from you within 30 days of the date of this letter, I intend to issue proceedings against you in the county court without further notice. This may increase your liability for costs." vs. "If I do not receive the money from you within 30 days of the date of this letter I'll take you to the f***ing cleaners, sunshine." But the language doesn't make the demand unwarranted.

Is this call from "the Treasury Department" an attempted identity theft? I got a phone message in which a robotic voice identified itself as the Treasury Department, contacting me about some matter related to my taxes, and saying if I didn't reply I could be arrested. Is there any chance at all that's legitimate?

Chances are almost exactly zero that this is a legitimate call. However, if you would like to verify that with the Department of the Treasury, they have a fraud hotline at 1-800-359-3898, which you can find on their contact us page. Assume any information they give you is false, and only contact the Department of the Treasury (or any other agency/company) though numbers listed on their website. If the scammers continue to harrass you, you can report them to your local police.

As it turns out, Talgov has a convoluted way it bills taxes which it doesn't explain on its bills or website. Its website claims to bill electricity at a rate of $7.59/month + $0.10522/kWh but, with taxes, it actually comes to $8.5631 plus $0.11598/kWh. On top of the advertised rate, it bills a gross receipts tax of 2.56406%. It also bills a public service tax of 10% on the monthly charge + $.07792/kWh + the gross receipts tax. That gets you the higher effective billing rate I mentioned above. The $.07792/kWh is reached by replacing the ECRC rate from the website with $.0077/kWh--I don't know why and I can't find an official document saying this--but that's what is happening apparently. So, Talgov doesn't bill sales tax after all and private residences are not exempt from the taxes it bills. Thus, it has not overcharged me a tax I should be exempt from and Talgov is allowed to do what it is doing, but it would be better if they represented their billing rate more honestly on their website. I'm also still not sure how they reach their 2.56406% gross receipt tax rate. The Florida statute that addresses gross receipt tax seems to specify either 2.5% or 2.6% (I can't figure out which should apply), but not something in between: (b) 1. The rate applied to utility services shall be 2.5 percent. 2. The rate applied to communications services shall be 2.37 percent. 3. An additional rate of 0.15 percent shall be applied to communication services subject to the tax levied pursuant to s. 202.12(1)(a), (c), and (d). The exemption provided in s. 202.125(1) applies to the tax levied pursuant to this subparagraph. 4. The rate applied to electrical power or energy taxed under subparagraph (a)3. shall be 2.6 percent. I found the information about the Talgov tax rates in a document from a Jacksonville utility company that compares utility rates for various utility companies, including many in Florida. Some Florida companies use a 2.5% gross receipt tax and some use a rate between 2.5% and 2.6%. This is also strange because that Florida statute seems to suggest the rate should be uniform statewide. TL;DR: Talgov is not charging sales tax, but rather some other taxes that I am not exempt from. I was able to figure out what rates they were charging for those taxes, but not why.

Am i going to jail? I'm so scared. No, probably not. The details depend on jurisdiction, but normally the only crime you could be accused of would be that of forgery. However, forgery by definition requires an "intention to deceive". So my personal advice would be to come clean immediately: Go to your employer, and tell them you did not understand the checkout system and accidentally signed yourself, instead of having the customer sign. If you do that, what you did would not count as forgery, because (as you explain) you did not do it on purpose to trick someone. Now, your boss may still decide to discipline you in some way, maybe even fire you, but that's out of your hand. If they are reasonable, they'll hopefully understand a minor mistake on the first day. That said, it is possible your jurisdiction has special penalties for incorrectly filling out medical documents, so there may be more to it - but I doubt it. To be sure, try asking someone you know and trust who is familiar with the legal rules around medication. Or book a single consultation with a lawyer - this is not cheap (typically around $100 in the USA, or 100€ in the EU), but will give you peace of mind. You could also try asking around if there is a local initiative which offers legal help, possibly a professional organization or trade union.

Yes Yes, telling lies is generally not unlawful, much less criminal, as long as you did not intend to profit by them, and there is no specific law violated (for example it is a crime to lie to a law enforcement officer about matters materiel to an ongoing investigation). Attempting to get the scammer to send you money on false pretenses, however morally justified some would consider it, is likely to constitute fraud.

The United State doesn't have a national sales or value added tax, so the IRS would only care about the phone sale insofar as it might represent income to the seller. Insofar as it's income to the seller, it doesn't matter whether the transaction is cash, bitcoin or barter, the seller is supposed to account for it in their income taxes. If you are suggesting that bitcoin sales could be hidden, well, folks have been hiding cash transactions since taxes were invented. Worst case, the IRS discovers that the seller's spending is wildly out of line with their stated income and they begin a criminal investigation.

It has been investigated, it simply has not been prosecuted. The investigation started when someone reported suspicious activity in Hastert's accounts. The investigation proceeded from a belief that he was being blackmailed. After listening to a wire of a conversation between Hastert and the alleged blackmailer, the officers investigating decided it was not a simple case of him being blackmailed--they or the prosecutors' office used their discretion to go after Hastert for illegally structuring his payments to avoid anti-money-laundering reporting laws, and to my knowledge have not yet pursued any blackmail charge. Police and Prosecutors have very wide discretion regarding what charges they bring. In addition, it is very common to have a civil lawsuit brought that implicates criminal laws, but not have the criminal violations be charged. For example, if you steal a purse you go to jail, but if you steal a building you are rarely charged with a criminal offense. It is rarely to a civil litigant's advantage to bring up criminal matters and there are ethical rules limiting the interaction between the two.

Are online stores supposed to state the true “order cost”/value of an order on the package/envelope for the customs? Yes Is it common practice to slash 10x off of the price for the customs to not add various fees? Common? Probably no. Uncommon? Also, probably no. Isn't that illegal? Yes Of course, they can claim it was a mistake if ever found out, but if they do it consistently, that seems difficult... Not to mention there must be electronic proof of how much each order actually cost the customer? Yes Look, robbing banks is illegal but people still rob banks. Similarly, ripping off HM Revenue & Customs is illegal but people still do that too. In fact, far more people do that than rob banks.

Yes, they are. A business can decide not to do business with someone for pretty much any reason. The obvious prohibited reason is due to your race. But I don't see how eBay would even know your race. Some State laws might protect you, but I don't think there's any that applies in this case. For example, California might give you a means of appeal if someone stole your identity and they performed those transactions, not you. But I don't know of any Federal or State law that would change the very, very basic principle of law that a property owner gets to decide who can and cannot access their property. eBay owns eBay. One key benefit of ownership is precisely that you can make decisions that other people consider to be unfair, discriminatory (other than the specifically prohibited categories) and draconian. Other people don't have to agree with your decisions for them to be lawful.

Can you copy a trademark's goods and services description? Assume a trademark filed with the USPTO uses the language "software used to calculate PI, the square root of PI, and the cosine of PI" in its description of goods and services. Can another, subsequent, unrelated, trademark applicant to the USPTO use this exact same language in its goods and services description? If yes, why? If not, is the grievance with: a) the USPTO, because directly copying goods and services language is forbidden, and/or b) the original trademark holder, because the trademark goods and services description is the intellectual property of that original trademark holder

Of course another applicant can use that language. What they can't do is register the same trademark for the same goods or services. If the goods or services protected by a trademark were required to be unique, there'd be no point in having trademarks. Instead, we would have state-sanctioned monopolies. To put it another way, the point of a trademark is to identify the commercial source of particular goods or services. Suppose you sell oranges under the trademark-protected name "Jerzy's oranges," with a goods and services description reading "the sale of oranges." Your registration does not prohibit others from selling oranges; it prohibits them from selling oranges using your name. Any competitor can register a unique trademark to use in the sale of oranges, however, with an identical goods and services description of "the sale of oranges."

There is no IP in ideas! There is copyright in writing it down - they can't use your exact words without permission. However, sending it to them in the form of a suggestion would give them a pretty much unassailable argument that you have given them an implicit licence. You can patent an invention (not an idea), claim IP in a trade mark (also, not an idea), register a design (again, not an idea) and hold copyright in an artistic work (once more, not an idea). They are required to keep confidences but offering them a suggestion probably doesn't count as supplying confidential information. I can see no risk in acting on customer suggestions. Hence, the idea to raise prices can be acted on or not at the discretion of the company.

Is this legal? Generally yes, unless it unlawfully exceeds the scope of the license. Also, if it is, how can I check if it's permitted by the original store's EULA? Read the whole EULA, focusing on terms related to resale, assignment, and transferability.

"Doing the same thing" is very common. We even have names for certain categories of websites, such as "web shop" and "blog". Such concepts are not protected in general. Obviously, you can't copy the name of existing webshop, or their logo, but things like a "rectangular layout of products for sale" aren't original. There is of course a grey area here, because there's a continuum of similarity. In general, similarities that follow from technical justifications are acceptable (having an upload button is sort of the point for your website), similarities that are cosmetic only (same color choice) might be interpreted as intentional attempts to cause confusion.

Don't get hung up on unauthorized resale. That only prohibits unauthorized resale. Authorized resale is ok. From http://www.justice.gov/usam/criminal-resource-manual-1854-copyright-infringement-first-sale-doctrine: The first sale doctrine, codified at 17 U.S.C. § 109, provides that an individual who knowingly purchases a copy of a copyrighted work from the copyright holder receives the right to sell, display or otherwise dispose of that particular copy, notwithstanding the interests of the copyright owner. The right to distribute ends, however, once the owner has sold that particular copy. See 17 U.S.C. § 109(a) & (c). Since the first sale doctrine never protects a defendant who makes unauthorized reproductions of a copyrighted work, the first sale doctrine cannot be a successful defense in cases that allege infringing reproduction.

This is permitted so long as it doesn't violate a valid trademark or service mark (or a few equivalent rights in names that are comparable such as collective rights to market beef under the name "Waygu" only if it is produced in a certain area of Japan under Japanese law) that covers goods or services of the same type in the same economic market. A trademark arises either when a term acquires a "secondary meaning" associating its use in connection with a particular kind of good or services in a particular market with a particular provider of that good or that service, or by registration of the trademark or service mark. "Tresh" and "Cassiopeia" are not terms that inherently are related to software, so they are permissible to use as trademarks for software unless someone else already has established trademark protection for them.

The question is always, would a reasonable customer be confused into thinking that the two are the same, or that there is some relation or sponsorship or attribute to one product or firm the rightful reputation of another. That is always dependent on the specific facts and the specific market involved. So-called "famous" marks get extra protection. The exact markets involved will matter. Any stylizations such as colors and typefaces may matter. Logos may matter. I can't say if one of those specific names would be found to infringe on the other.

I would refer you to I Received a Letter/Email. . . from the USPTO website. Generally though you should be careful about using another company's trademark as part of your product's name. A less risky option would be to name your product Shareaholic and then in the subtitle or description write for use with Pinterest. The point of trademarks is to prevent consumers from confusing the source or sponsorship of a product or service. If you were in court, the central question would become "would a consumer reasonably be confused whether Shareaholic for Pinterest was made by or approved by Pinterest?" And you have to remember, most consumers don't read small print such as "not affiliated with Pinterest". Lots of visitors to Pinterest and by extension users of your software may be children or elderly and computer-illiterate. You may also want to read "How do I know whether I'm infringing" at the USPTO website.

Recourse for damage to an item loaned to another? When you loaned someone your car, and the car came back in a bad condition, most things are not working like hooter, reverse lights, windows cracked, etc., can you legally demand him/her to fix the car? I am in South Africa.

I can't speak directly to South African law. I am an American (but not a lawyer). Much of the relevant American law is derived from English common law, and I will assume for the purposes of this answer that this is true for South African law as well. In this example, you lent a car to a friend, and from the sound of it, primarily for the friend's benefit. (If it had been an "exchange of favors," and s/he let you use a beach house in return, a different "standard of care" would apply.) Because of this fact, your friend owes you a high standard of care for your car. Even "ordinary" wear and tear would be too much. Basically, your friend was responsible for the car's "upkeep," and was supposed to return it to you in as nearly the "original" condition as possible. Not having done so, s/he could be liable to you for getting you a "new" car of the same make, or at least a car that was no older, and had no more miles that yours had, when you lent it.

Is it legal in the US for a company that rents out car parking spaces, to bundle the renting of a parking space to buying insurance for the content of the parked car? Yes. Honestly, I'm a little surprised that I've never see this practice in real life. All things not prohibited are allowed, and there is nothing, per se illegal about bundling services and requiring them to be purchased as a package deal (there may be some licensing issues for insurance sales involved, but those would probably be easily overcome). Sometimes bundling gives rise to an anti-trust violation, but neither the parking lot operation business nor the car insurance business are so consolidated that this would fairly be viewed as some kind of anti-competitive practice.

I'm confident that there has been no successful breach of contract lawsuit on that basis: that is not the right legal basis. Actions against a shoplifter would either be under tort law or, much more likely, criminal law. Put simply, theft is a crime, encoded in the laws of all nations, and the government will shoulder the burden of punishing a shoplifter. Since the goal of criminal law is to guarantee a well-ordered society (not to restore the victim of the crime), a victim of theft may have to pursue their own legal case against the criminal, if they want to be restored for their loss (let us say that the criminal also ate the evidence).

They can charge you with anything they think you did. And yes, the circumstances play a large part in the decision to arrest, charge and prosecute. However, circumstances include you: Reputation is everything. If you are a 17 year old male troublemaker with a long juvie rap sheet, including 3 past instances of stealing golf carts, then expect to be charged with the theft. Honestly you would probably be charged with the theft if you had simply stayed away and called the cops to report it abandoned. If you came upon it in your vehicle and it's obviously blocking the road and your apparent motive is to figure out how to move it so you can get by, then you're probably in the clear. If you're a 44 year old owner of a golf cart business, PAL supporter, city councilwoman and know half the cops including one in the car that stopped you, then, they're going to pretty much listen to you as far as what's the deal with the cart. Probably ask you for help moving it safely, might even ask you to get your cart-hauler to take it to impound. You won't hear from the D.A. obviously; nobody will say "Sue Councilwoman stole a golf cart" because it would sound absurd and make the speaker appear to be a politically motivated liar. That's the power of reputation; no one would speak it even if you did steal it. (Of course if you got caught doing it on a Ring camera, well, the hero takes a fall!) Anything in between, they'll deal with it in proportion to both the facts about you and the fact about the situation. You do not have a right to get the same credibility as the councilwoman; that is earned. That's the power of reputation.

The Kentucky restriction against "hit and run" is KRS 189.580, which says that The operator of any vehicle, whose vehicle…is involved in an accident …shall immediately stop and ascertain the extent of the injury or damage and render reasonable assistance Notice that the legal requirement is for the operator to do something: the law requires nothing of the vehicle itself. Supposing that you are correct that the vehicle was operated by someone who hit and ran, then if the police gain suspicions that such is the case, and if those suspicions are reasonable, then then could obtain a warrant to obtain evidence from the vehicle, which could be used against the operator. The fact that you (might) now own the vehicle would not transfer legal responsibility to you – responsibbility goes with the actor, not the instrument.

No, you cannot sue the expert for his errors. You can sue the insurance company for failing to pay out per the insurance contract. They will then introduce the expert's report as evidence, and you will contradict it with the following evidence: your two witnesses your testimony that the other driver admitted responsibility (this is normally an exception to hearsay rules - but beware, courts are unwilling to treat saying "I'm sorry" as admitting responsibility). your testimony that the conditions made wheelies impossible your testimony that you cannot perform wheelies anyway.

Is it illegal to ask a company for money in exchange for information on a bug in their software/website? That in itself is legal. Indeed, the company would incur unjust enrichment if it coerced you to disclose your discovery for free. Only if you threatened the company to divulge to others your discovery unless the company pays you, it would be illegal and trigger charges such as extortion (likewise, legislations outlaw the unjustified delivery of programs or instructions for hacking a software/network/etc., although this goes beyond your actual question). Can the company take legal action against me? That seems doubtful, futile, and it could backfire (please note I have not done any research on legal precedents about this). Although the terms and conditions of the website or the End User License Agreement (EULA) of software might prohibit you to reverse engineer (RE)/decompile/etc. the application, anti-RE clauses are unenforceable and the remedies therefor are indeterminate because the sole act of conducting reverse engineering does not subject the company (or third parties) to any losses. The company's decision to take legal action for your discovery could backfire from two standpoints. First, it calls attention to the fact that the software at issue is defective and unsafe. And second, the bug is likely to be detected by someone else anyway, thereby potentially compromising customers' systems.

Suing relatives or friends to trigger an insurance policy is sometimes necessary, particularly if the insurer is being recalcitrant. Apart from that it is pointless to sue someone who has no money! In common law jurisdictions you can of course sue anyone for negligence. One of the things that you have to prove to be successful is that the defendant owed a duty of care. It may be difficult to prove that a child had such a duty.

Is it perjury if I accidentally make a false statement under oath, but fail to correct it once I realized? This answer claims that you are required to correct an accidental false statement made under oath: When you become aware that a statement made under oath was false (assuming such a statement was made), then in maintaining the falsehood, that would be intentional deceit. Is this true? In particular, could an accidental false statement (which, being accidental, would not be perjury) become "upgraded" to a perjury once the person realizes it to be wrong? I searched around a bit, but could not find any mention that there is a duty to correct an accidental mistake once you become aware of it. The U.S. Code does not mention anything about corrections in § 1621 - Perjury generally. German law lists a later correction of a perjury as a mitigating circumstance (Strafgesetzbuch § 158 - Berichtigung einer falschen Angabe), however this only applies if the original misstatement was intentional. I'm particularly interested in answers about the USA or Germany, but general answers are also fine.

I have not found a case directly on point, but there is a case in the right neighborhood. In Flordia v. Carter 364 So. 2d 1249, Carter was charged with perjury for making a false statement under oath. He recanted his testimony in a letter to the defense attorney the next day. Subsequently he was charged with perjury: the trial judge dismissed the case based on his having recanted (which is a defense to perjury). The judge said (quoted in the appeal below and citing a relevant precedent Brannen v. Florida 114 So. 429) It matters not whether Carter knew his original testimony was false or whether he was merely mistaken. "The law encourages the correction of erroneous and even intentionally false statements on the part of a witness, and perjury will not be predicated upon such statements when the witness, before the submission of the case, fully corrects his testimony." The lower appeals court rejected the trial court's dismissal, saying Recantation is a defense to an allegation of perjury only where there is an acknowledgement of the falsity of the original sworn statement, a voluntary retraction of that statement, and a new statement which discloses the true facts. It is not a viable defense where the perjured testimony has substantially affected the proceeding or it has become manifest that such falsity has been or will be exposed. Otherwise, one could rest on his lie, allowing it to substantially affect a proceeding, and never retract unless the falsity had been exposed. This would provide no inducement or encouragement to tell the truth. That court basically felt it was based on the threat of being discovered, and felt that a particular state statute had taken away the recantation defense, so they reinstated the charge. The appeal to the Florida Supreme Court, Carter v. Florida 384 So. 2d 1255 basically declared that the appeals court was wrong about the statute (they officially held that recantation is a defense to perjury). They concluded that Carter gained nothing by recanting (that was a distinguishing feature in a precedent that the lower court favored). The dissent in this decision opined that It may be that the false deposition testimony by Dr. Carter was inadvertent and without criminal intent.... These, however, are factual issues and should be resolved by a jury rather than by the trial court on a motion to dismiss. What unifies all opinions on the matter is that a false statement made under oath must be recanted. The reason why Carter was not convicted was that he (possibly) was unaware that his testimony was false and he did recant when he became aware of the facts.

Short Answer Statements of jurors about their deliberations are not allowed to be considered for any purpose, subject to very narrow limitations which do not apply in the fact pattern you are asking about in this question. The General Rule And Its Exceptions Consideration of juror statements, subject to narrow exceptions, is barred by Federal Rule of Evidence 606(b), which has a state or territorial equivalent that is substantially similar in every U.S. jurisdiction that has true jury trials (as opposed, for example, to courts-martial which look like jury trials but are not jury trials from a legal doctrine perspective). Federal Rule of Evidence 606, which is the model for the lion's share of these rules reads as follows: Rule 606. Juror (a) At the Trial. A juror may not testify as a witness before the other jurors at the trial. If a juror is called to testify, the court must give a party an opportunity to object outside the jury’s presence. (b) During an Inquiry into the Validity of a Verdict or Indictment. (1) Prohibited Testimony or Other Evidence. During an inquiry into the validity of a verdict or indictment, a juror may not testify about any statement made or incident that occurred during the jury’s deliberations; the effect of anything on that juror’s or another juror’s vote; or any juror’s mental processes concerning the verdict or indictment. The court may not receive a juror’s affidavit or evidence of a juror’s statement on these matters. (2) Exceptions. A juror may testify about whether: (A) extraneous prejudicial information was improperly brought to the jury’s attention; (B) an outside influence was improperly brought to bear on any juror; or (C) a mistake was made in entering the verdict on the verdict form. This is subject to exceptions only in a few extremely limited circumstances: To document interference or influence on the jury from outside the jury during the trial or deliberations (e.g. bribery of a juror, a juror's consultation of outside facts, blackmail of a juror, counsel for a party providing information not authorized by the judge to the juror). This is covered by Rule 606(b)(2)(A) and 606(b)(2)(B). To establish that a mistake was made filling out the verdict form (e.g. testimony immediately following a jury trial that the jurors confused the names of two co-defendants and incorrectly filled out the jury form convicting each one of the crimes where the jury found the other co-defendant guilty). This is covered by Rule 606(b)(2)(C). Under an exception created just this year for the first time (the source opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court by a 5-3 vote in this case, Peña-Rodriguez v. Colorado (March 6, 2017), is here), to document that one or more jurors essential to the verdict reached the result as a result of a racially/ethnically discriminatory reasons (e.g., one or more of the jurors who voted to convict in a case resulting in a conviction said "let's convict him because he's Hispanic" and then did so). This is not expressly covered by Rule 606(b), but the U.S. Supreme Court held that it is constitutionally necessary to allow it. The situation you pose does not involve any of these exceptions. Instead, it concerns the internal deliberations of a jury not subject to outside influence, and it does not involve racial or ethnic bias in deliberations. So, this information is legally irrelevant and may not be considered by any court at the trial or appellate level. Procedural Aspects Of This Question Of course, in all of these scenarios including the exceptions, the mere fact that a juror says something publicly is meaningless legally. But, there is no means by which a lawyer in a case (or anyone else) can obtain information about juror deliberations through a subpoena or other compulsory court process. The only way anyone could find out about improper jury deliberations is if a juror voluntarily discloses these facts. Any effort to introduce consideration to this statement would have to be submitted to the trial court (generally, the trial court that handled the original case, but sometimes a habeas corpus action trial court) in either the form of a sworn affidavit of the juror, or live witness testimony of the juror under oath in the trial court in a post-trial hearing of some sort. This would have to be submitted by a lawyer for the defendant (or less often by the prosecutor in the case, seeking to right a wrong discovered by the prosecutor, for example, in the context of a separate bribery investigation conducted by the prosecutor's office). The juror or a third-party would not have standing to challenge the verdict or to bring juror statements to the court's attention in a legally effective manner. A statement of a juror about the verdict or how it came to be at a trial can only be considered at the trial court level and only: (i) in a post-trial motion for a new trial, which can be considered on direct appeal, (ii) in a collateral attack on the original verdict in a different kind of post-trial motion (state practice differs regarding what these motions are called), or (iii) in a collateral attack through a separate civil action (called a habeas corpus action) to set aside a jury verdict. Generally speaking, appellate courts never consider new evidence in any kind of case and can only consider evidence that is part of the official trial court record. The only true exception to this rule is that it may consider a post-trial fact that would terminate the case for procedural reasons (e.g. the existence of a settlement by the parties, or the death of a defendant during the pendency of the appeal or earlier which would render the appeal moot). Appellate courts can take "judicial notice" of certain matters that constitute general knowledge not specific to the case before them (e.g. the existence and duration of the U.S. Civil War, or the distance between New York City and Chicago, or the name of elected officials at the time the facts of the case took place). But, evidence concerning juror statements is not something about which judicial notice may be taken. Policy Considerations Why do we have such a rule when allowing this testimony could prevent serious miscarriages of justice? In rough order of importance, the reasons include the following: To protect the ability of a jury to engage in "jury nullification", which is an issue also informed by the double jeopardy protections of the 5th Amendment to United States Constitution (applied to state and local proceedings by virtue of incorporation through the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution and parallel state constitutional protections) against revisiting a jury acquittal in a criminal case for any reason. To minimize the burden jury service places on jurors who would otherwise routinely be interrogated by lawyers unhappy with their verdict after the trial even if they didn't want to speak with those lawyers. To protect the finality of verdicts on appeal and in post-trial proceedings as this would add another set of grounds to disturb a court decision in addition to those which can be observed in the court record. Non-Obvious Consequences Of This Rule One important consequence of this rule is that "harmless error" analysis by an appellate court, which is conducted when there is a legal error made in a jury trial to determine if the error, if it had been corrected, was material enough to change the outcome of the case, is always conducted on a hypothetical and theoretical basis rather than based upon actual factual knowledge of what would have or would not have influenced the jury's decision. Another important consequence of this rule for appellate practice is that jury verdicts will be upheld in any case where it would be possible for the trial court record to allow a jury to come to the conclusion that it did, whether or not the jury actually considered the arguments and facts it would have had to have considered to correctly reach its verdict. Thus, it is frequently the case that a jury misunderstands the jury instructions or the facts of the case and makes an incorrect decision as a result, but that verdict is upheld on appeal because it would have been possible for a jury which, for example, found witnesses that the actual did not actually believe were telling the truth to have been truthful to rule in the manner that it did. Another practical effect of this rule is that it is easier to overturn a judge's decision on appeal because the judge must articulate his or her factual and legal basis for each ruling, than it is to overturn a jury verdict, since a jury need not articulate the reasoning behind its verdict except to the extent that it is given and completes special verdict forms when it deliberates.

Yes. This is legal. See, e.g. SPARF v.U.S. 156 U.S. 51 (1895); U.S. vs Moylan, 417 F 2d 1002, 1006 (4th Cir. 1969); U.S. v. Krzyske, 836 F.2d 1013 (6th Cir. 1988) ("the jury asked the judge about jury nullification. The judge responded, "There is no such thing as valid jury nullification." The jury convicted the defendant. On appeal, the majority and the dissent agreed that the trial judge's instruction was untrue, but the majority held that this false representation was not a reversible error."). Indeed, procedurally, the system is specifically designed to prevent courts from even considering such a question. See also, e.g. People v. Iannicelli, 2019 CO 80, § 2 (Colo. 2019) (holding no crime was committed) ("Defendants Mark Iannicelli and Eric Brandt stood in the plaza square adjacent to the Lindsey-Flanigan Courthouse in Denver and asked people entering the courthouse whether they were reporting for jury duty. If any of these people answered affirmatively, then Iannicelli and Brandt would hand them one or more brochures discussing the concept of jury nullification, which the brochures defined as the process by which a jury in a criminal case acquits the defendant regardless of whether he or she has broken the law in question. As a result of this conduct, the People charged Iannicelli and Brandt with multiple counts of jury tampering") This is deeply entwined with the U.S. law interpretation of the Fifth Amendment Double Jeopardy Clause's protections, which prohibit a retrial or appeal following a judgment of acquittal, which have been incorporated by the U.S. Supreme Court as applicable in state courts as well.

Yes. Juries aren't terribly accurate. There is an irreducible chance that no matter how clear the outcome should be that the jury will get it wrong. Based upon a review of the academic literature on wrongful convictions and inaccurate acquittals, I generally tell my clients that this is about 10%. Many people think that this is a low end estimate. Also, sometimes a jury will acquit a defendant in a case where they think that the defendant was actually legally guilty because of extraordinary circumstances, and so the jury will disregard the law and acquit. This practice is called "jury nullification." And, as other answers have noted, sometimes the prosecution or the judicial system screws up for reasons that are unforeseeable, after a not guilty plea, in a way that makes proving your guilt difficult or impossible. Basically, if you "roll the dice" there is some non-zero chance you will be acquitted, while if you plead guilty, there is none. Also, sometimes court decisions will change the law in way favorable to you after the trial, and as long as your case is still on direct appeal from the conviction, you can benefit from those changes in the law, which you cannot if you simply plead guilty without any concessions. Likewise, if you are innocent and the evidence is currently strongly against you, but you wish to preserve the ability to later attack the conviction based upon future newly discovered evidence, not pleading guilty is generally necessary to preserve that option. Another circumstance where going to trial but losing can still be worth it, is where there are extenuating circumstances that make your conduct understandable, even if it is not a legally valid defense. Getting these facts in front of the judge in a fuller fashion, as a trial can make possible, can convince the judge that while you are legally guilty, that you deserve leniency. Going to trial typically results in a longer sentence, even without a plea bargain, however, so going forward with a hopeless trial is rarely a good move.

You can't prove a negative, so they can't be convicted of perjury for lying about whether they remember; Yes, they can. The government can convict the witness of perjury by proving that they did remember. This may be difficult, but it's not impossible. Now you may say that we can't ever prove with certainty what a person did or didn't remember. But the legal standard isn't certainty, it's beyond a reasonable doubt. So a jury is allowed to draw a reasonable inference about whether they remembered, based on evidence of their outward behavior and other circumstances. As an extreme example, suppose Alice was overheard chatting freely about topic X an hour before the trial, but when asked about topic X on the stand, said she didn't remember. When presented with evidence of her earlier conversation, a jury could reasonably infer that she was lying about not remembering. Is it possible that she truly had a memory lapse in the intervening hour? Sure, anything is possible. Is it reasonable to believe that she did? Probably not. The US Department of Justice's Criminal Resource Manual has this to say on the subject: Witnesses who claim not to remember, rather than deny a fact, may be prosecuted for perjury. However, the government must prove both that the witness at one time knew the fact and that the witness must have remembered it at the time he or she testified. United States v. Chen, 933 F.2d 793, 795 (9th Cir. 1991). If the dates of the transaction and testimony are sufficiently close, memory may be inferred. Instances in which the witness remembered other events that occurred at the same time or earlier than the event in question, or mentioned the event either immediately before or after his testimony, would be probative of the witness's memory at the time of the testimony. The two witness rule does not apply to prosecutions based on false memory lapses, and circumstantial evidence is sufficient, since there is no direct evidence possible concerning what the defendant actually believed. Gebhard v. United States, 422 F.2d 281, 287 (9th Cir. 1970). There's a similar issue in all laws that deal with a person's knowledge or intent. Suppose Alice hits Bob with a stick and he dies. To convict Alice of murder, it must be proved that by hitting Bob, she intended to kill him. Can we ever really know what was in her heart? Maybe not, but if there is evidence that shortly beforehand, she told someone that she was going to kill Bob, it would be a reasonable inference that this was her intention.

You can't guarantee a juror's disregard, and some attorneys might utilize the "once it's said, it can't be unsaid" strategy because they know that the jury will still keep it in the back of their mind even though they've been told to ignore it. But there are checks and balances to prevent a remark having an impact on the final decision: Jury deliberation. Chances are, not all jurors will keep the thought in their mind. The jury gets a chance to deliberate after the case has been presented, and it's very easy for other jurors in the deliberation room to point out they're ignoring that piece of information and not let it influence the final decision. Declaring a mistrial. A mistrial is fully at the judge's discretion, but generally anything that affects the jury's ability to remain impartial can result in a mistrial being declared (for example, if an attorney deliberately said something outrageous to influence the jury when they knew it would be withdrawn, the judge will likely declare a mistrial without much thought). Once a mistrial is declared, the case will be postponed and a brand new jury will be selected that hasn't heard the previous remarks - easiest way to erase it from their minds is to not use their minds.

Maybe I'm reading Walsh wrong, but it seems to me to be saying that Stout might apply in some cases, but it doesn't in that specific case. I think you are indeed reading it wrong. In the Walsh case, the court says: We have not had occasion to decide the question up to this time, but now that it is presented, we not only reiterate the doubt which we expressed in the McAlpin case (supra), but we think that the question of the defendant's negligence was erroneously submitted to the jury in the Stout case, and that we ought not to follow it as a precedent. It's clearly repudiating Stout here, and not just as it applies to that case. It literally says they think it should not be followed as precedent.

This is actually a very complicated question, about (1) the scope of "knowingly", (2) what kind of "intent" is required for conviction, (3) how does the jury understand and evaluate concepts of intent and (4) how does an attorney persuade the jury that the situation does or does not satisfy the particular intent requirement. One thing we can dispose of quickly is the possibility that the law says that the accused has to actually know that the act is against the law. It is a standard legal fiction (2,400 years old) that the accused knows the law, or should have known. As for the 4th element, persuasion, on the strong side we have statements of intent by the accused – "And I pulled out my rifle and blew his head off, and I laughed the whole time". What the jury has to decide is whether the accused had in mind a conscious purpose of doing some act (that is, it wasn't just an accident like butt-dialing, or an instant stimulus-response reaction to some event). "Intent" generally falls in the realm of acting "purposely", which the Model Penal Code §2.02 defines as: A person acts purposely with respect to a material element of an offense when: (i) if the element involves the nature of his conduct or a result thereof, it is his conscious object to engage in conduct of that nature or to cause such a result; and (ii) if the element involves the attendant circumstances, he is aware of the existence of such circumstances or he believes or hopes that they exist. which more or less means what you think "with intent" means. That doesn't say what they intended to do, it just distinguishes intent from negligence and accident. The prosecutor would then present factual evidence that the accused had a bad intent, like showing that he actually made an attempt to access credit card account data (that such data had been accessed when he broke into the system), etc. We can sort of dispose of the other scope question about "knowingly", namely, what things would he have to know? The chunk accessing a protected computer without authorization can be interpreted in a number of ways, having to do with which elements of the clause are known to the accused. You might know that you were accessing but not know that you were unauthorized; you might know that you were accessing and unauthorized, but not know that the computer is protected. The only reliable way to know which is which is to study the case law on a statute and see if there is a controlling decision that say e.g. that you have to know that you are accessing and are unauthorized, but you don't have to know that the computer is protected. I haven't determined (yet) is there is decisive case law on this, but I'm betting that the outcome would be that not knowing of the protected status of a computer carries no weight. As for what kind of intent, there is a distinction between "specific intent" and "general intent". The distinction comes down to having some evil purpose like "make him suffer" (general intent) versus a specific evil purpose like "kill him". Finally, the people who actually decide, the jury, will be given instructions that say what they have to look for. Here is the tip of the tip of the iceberg, from California's criminal jury instructions. The judge will say... The People must prove not only that the defendant did the acts charged, but also that (he/she) acted with a particular (intent/ [and/or] mental state). The instruction for (the/each) crime [and allegation] explains the (intent/ [and/or] mental state) required. A[n] (intent/ [and/or] mental state) may be proved by circumstantial evidence. Before you may rely on circumstantial evidence to conclude that a fact necessary to find the defendant guilty has been proved, you must be convinced that the People have proved each fact essential to that conclusion beyond a reasonable doubt. Also, before you may rely on circumstantial evidence to conclude that the defendant had the required (intent/ [and/or] mental state), you must be convinced that the only reasonable conclusion supported by the circumstantial evidence is that the defendant had the required (intent/ [and/or] mental state). If you can draw two or more reasonable conclusions from the circumstantial evidence, and one of those reasonable conclusions supports a finding that the defendant did have the required (intent/ [and/or] mental state) and another reasonable conclusion supports a finding that the defendant did not, you must conclude that the required (intent/ [and/or] mental state) was not proved by the circumstantial evidence. However, when considering circumstantial evidence, you must accept only reasonable conclusions and reject any that are unreasonable. and then there will be some specific elaboration of whether they have to find that the accused just generally intended to do bad, versus intended to specifically defraud.

Micro businesses in EU selling electronic goods, how to comply with EU VAT regulations? According to EUVATACTION Key Facts the business is among other things required to: store personal data securely for 10+ years calculate taxes for every EU country based on client's location as determined by 2 distinct and non-contradictory pieces of evidence Points 1 and 2 mean that a small/micro business can not do this alone. Period. Thankfully, there are services like Taxamo which claim to be able to do it for you, but: nobody really knows what the exact EU VAT rates are for every country, region, time of year, product, ... There is no central EU authority at the moment which supplies "official" information on EU level and Taxamo and others don't have a crystal ball that the EC doesn't have the technical aspects of the integration enable you to get the transaction counts "99.9% right" simply knowing a tax rate doesn't really help you apply the tax rate all the time - in Croatia for example you need to pay the tax when you issue the invoice, not when funds get billed to your account, for example you are liable, not the service provider, if something is calculated badly in some EU countries like Croatia your business will get a huge fine if it's just 2-3 euros off So... Here's the little chain question :) is there any way to comply with these rules 100%? if not, how much bad stuff can happen if you don't comply with the regulation 100%? But 99.9% for example :D (simply because of technical limitations some transactions will not be presented or calculated properly) Does the bad stuff depend on your country, the country of the buyer or combination of both? if the bad stuff is bad, and if there's no way of complying technically are there ways for a subscription based service selling an online service (using recurring credit card charges) to avoid being subject to this VAT scheme? (i.e. presenting the product in a different way or restricting yourself just to B2B transactions) if there's no way to avoid the VAT scheme does it make sense to open a company outside of the EU to handle payments if the said country does not acknowledge jurisdiction of EU law over its businesses, and if so, where? :) Or in short :D What would Google do? :D

I think you vastly exaggerate the difficulty. Basically: when a user registers, ask for their address, including country, as well as a phone number (including country code, which you may validate via SMS for instance). This should give you the 2 pieces of information that help you determine the country In the case of the UK, HMRC says: Support for MOSS registered micro-businesses UK micro-businesses, that are below the current UK VAT registration threshold and are registered for the VAT Mini One Stop Shop (VAT MOSS), may use best judgment and base their ‘customer location’ VAT taxation and accounting decisions on a single piece of information, such as the billing address provided by the customer or information provided to them by their payment service provider. based on the country, use the standard VAT rate for that country. The difficulty here is to track when those rates change, but your accountant should be able to keep up with that. There is very little chance any special reduced rate would apply to such services, and in any case, no tax authority will complain if you apply the standard rate instead of the reduced one! then declare everything online to your local MOSS (you don't need to register with each tax authority! You can, but you don't need to). In the case of a micro-business, this should be more than enough to comply with the rules.

That GDPR Disclaimer is no protection in some jurisdictions: the applicable laws to that situation in germany for example don't care about the GDPR: Cold calling, mailing, or e-mailing private people to advertise services all is handled by the same law: Without the consent it is expressly illegal under §7 of the law against unfair competition (Gesetz gegen unlauteren Wettbewerb UWG) and such cases are rather Slam-Dunk if the origin can be made out. The punishment can be a 300.000 € fine. The fact that to email someone you need their e-mail address and that e-mail addresses and private addresses are by default considered personally identifiable information is making it worse for the advertizer: Without either an exception (there is none available to cold-emailing) or special allowance of the person the data belongs to, you violate §4 of the federal data protection law (Bundesdatenschutzgesetzes BDSG) just by handling their e-mail address. That's a separate crime from the UWG one, adding up to another 300.000 € fine under §43 BDSG - or even up to 2 years in prison under §44 BDSG! Oh, and if the email does not contain a proper sender's address, that's another chance for a huge fine under the UWG... So, GDPR is your least trouble, if you violate the marketing laws of a country, or their own data privacy laws. A disclaimer means nothing as the act of sending the mail, even to an unintended addressee, is what is illegal and the law as written does not give a damn about 'I didn't want to advertise to that person' when in fact you sent them unwanted advertisements. Oh, and the very repository you suggest? It would violate the very same §4 BDSG and be illegal for processing private data if it was not actively asked to do that by the end user. As a result, that database is useless: It does kick back all people not in its database. Its database is incomplete because only few people give their address to that database as people not aware of the database never add their data on their own. So it regularly violates §4 BDSG with every German citizen's e-mail address it gets and kicks back, and claiming those addresses would be OK, it throws the company trying to check the database under the bus because they rely on data that is impossible to be reliable. tl;dr Don't do cold-(e)-mail marketing. You throw yourself into boiling oil with a lit torch in hand. further reading Other laws banning such behavior I had listed here, and I quote myself: The US has the CAN-SPAM-Act, which illegalizes sending unsocialised advertisements. You may NOT send a mail if any of the following is true: it has no opt-out the email was gained by 'harvesting' contains a header not matching the text contains less than one sentence the adressee does not have any relation to you In fact, you are liable for a 5-digit fine per infringing e-mail in the US. The FTC itself suggests to never buy e-mail lists - as E-mail harvesting or generating any possible e-mail adress itself is illegal.

No The contract is created at the moment that an offer was accepted. In normal circumstances: You accepted an offer that they made to the general public by sending a purchase order for specific items at specific prices, or They accepted your offer by communicating their acceptance to you (being advised that the goods have been dispatched counts). However, in this circumstance, the company has been explicit that the contract is only created when either: You checkout and pay, or They “supply an invoice to you.” It appears that neither event happened so there is no contract. Their specific terms have overridden the common law rules on offer and acceptance (as they are allowed to do) and the offer has not been accepted until you receive their invoice. Specifically, it cannot be accepted by performance (dispatching the goods) and the requirement for the invoice to be supplied overrides the postal rule. Note that, in this case, you got lucky. 99 times out of 100 there would have been a valid contract and you would have breached it. In future, cancel orders specifically, don’t make assumptions.

Yes, this violates the GDPR if the user is in Europe. Data which is tied to a personal device can be tied to the person who owns it. From "What Is Personal Data" by the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) (emphasis added): Personal data is information that relates to an identified or identifiable individual. What identifies an individual could be as simple as a name or a number or could include other identifiers such as an IP address or a cookie identifier, or other factors. If it is possible to identify an individual directly from the information you are processing, then that information may be personal data. If you cannot directly identify an individual from that information, then you need to consider whether the individual is still identifiable. You should take into account the information you are processing together with all the means reasonably likely to be used by either you or any other person to identify that individual. The bit about "all means reasonably likely" in the last bullet includes the kind of de-anonymisation tactics described in the NYT article. There are 6 lawful bases for data processing in the GDPR, and all processing must fall under at least one of them. (a) Consent: the individual has given clear consent for you to process their personal data for a specific purpose. (b) Contract: the processing is necessary for a contract you have with the individual, or because they have asked you to take specific steps before entering into a contract. (c) Legal obligation: the processing is necessary for you to comply with the law (not including contractual obligations). (d) Vital interests: the processing is necessary to protect someone’s life. (e) Public task: the processing is necessary for you to perform a task in the public interest or for your official functions, and the task or function has a clear basis in law. (f) Legitimate interests: the processing is necessary for your legitimate interests or the legitimate interests of a third party, unless there is a good reason to protect the individual’s personal data which overrides those legitimate interests. (This cannot apply if you are a public authority processing data to perform your official tasks.) Selling data isn't covered by any of the others, so consent must be obtained. Permission must be clear and positive, and you cannot predicate delivery of a service on the processing of data that isn't necessary for that service. So for instance you cannot say "You can use this service as long as we are allowed to collect and sell your data" because selling the data isn't necessary to the provision of the service. From "Consent" by the ICO: Consent requires a positive opt-in. Don’t use pre-ticked boxes or any other method of default consent. Explicit consent requires a very clear and specific statement of consent. Keep your consent requests separate from other terms and conditions. Be specific and ‘granular’ so that you get separate consent for separate things. Vague or blanket consent is not enough. [...] Avoid making consent to processing a precondition of a service. This applies to any processing of data about individuals within the EU, so just being an American company doesn't get you a free pass to ignore the GDPR if your app gets used by Europeans. The "Legitimate interests" basis is more problematic, in that the company collecting the data has to conduct a vague "balancing test" to determine if this basis applies. For direct marketing the ICO has written this, which says that direct marketing may be a legitimate interest, especially if you can show that the user has expressed interest in such adverts. For instance a location service which promises to tell you about nearby special offers would fall into this category. Against this, the impact on the user's privacy has to be considered, and location data is "special category data" because it can reveal medical information (e.g. hospital attendance) or religious affiliation (e.g. which church you go to). So unless the relationship between the recorded location data and the service is very direct its not going to pass the balancing test. The company would also need to distinguish between knowing the current location and keeping a record of historical locations; the two need separate justification. And of course nothing about this covers the sale of the data; this is considering a company which sells advertising space in it's app, not one that sells the data itself.

The main tax law is that you have to pay income taxes on your income even when you're in a foreign country. You may also be subject to income tax requirements in the foreign country, so that depends on local law and the existence of tax treaties between the US and that country (which will also involve details of the employer, employment and why you are in that country). For example, if you're working for a solely-US company (not e.g. Amazon) and go to Norway for 3 months "working holiday", just doing your job online in a different country while skiing, you almost certainly would not have any Norwegian tax liability. It just depends on the specifics.

No, it does not. There is indeed a 2-year guarantee for all goods, but "goods" is defined to be a "tangible movable item" according to Directive 1999/44/EC Article 1, subsection 2(b). In less legalese, a physical item; software doesn't count. While there has been discussion about extending this protection to software, I'm not aware of this having been done yet. Even if it were, determining whether goods are "faulty" ultimately comes down to whether it conforms to the contract of sale (Article 2). I think it's likely that vendors in this area would put a disclaimer for unforeseen security vulnerabilities, or something to that effect.

Per Art 3(2), GDPR only applies to non-European companies when their processing activities relate to the offering of goods or services to people in Europe, or when the processing activities relate to monitoring people in Europe. However, the word “offer” of this targeting criterion requires some level of intent. It is not enough for GDPR to apply that they're marketing to someone who happens to be in Europe, but GDPR would apply if they are intentionally marketing to people who are in Europe. I don't know what they are marketing, so I don't know if that would be the case here. Even if GDPR were to apply, it would not be the most appropriate law. Yes, there's the GDPR right to erasure, which applies under some conditions (though there's a pretty absolute right to opt-out from marketing). The EU's ePrivacy Directive provides more specific rules though, in particular that every such marketing email must offer a way to unsubscribe. Other countries have comparable anti-spam laws, potentially also the home country for this online service.

Online stores shipping stuff internationally usually include a clause in their Terms along the lines "buyer is responsible for all clearance/import fees and taxes". What those fees and taxes are depends on: destination country (the actual tax) carrier (e.g. FedEx) (clearance charges as the carrier also acts as your customs broker) value and, sometimes, what the item is. The onus is on the buyer to check all those charges in advance before deciding to buy. It would have been naive to assume that, when you buy internationally, all that you pay is what the store gets plus import tax (unless you're ready to be present at the customs when the item arrives, fill forms and liaise with them yourself).

What is the difference between "controlled substance" and "needing a prescription"? I was prescribed a medication. The doctor said it was not a controlled substance. Why did he write a prescription? If it's not controlled couldn't I just go to the pharmacist and ask for the medication? It is not a common medication and obviously something you would only get from a pharmacist. I practically don't see getting the medication without going through a doctor. The only thing I could see is health insurance only covering it if it's prescribed. In that case, could I ask him to prescribe me Tylenol to have my insurance pay for it? Or is controlled just an extra layer of prescription?

The concept of "controlled substances" has a special meaning, and stems from the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, resulting in Chapter 13 of Title 21. Ordinary presecription drugs are the result of an older act, the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, which is also implemented in Title 21. The basic distinction is the difference between "potential for abuse" vs other stuff, and potential for abuse was the historically first desideratum in restricting pharmaceuticals in the old days. There are 5 "schedules" (lists) regarding controlled substances, ranging from the absolutely forbidden Schedule 1 (weed, 1-pentyl-3-[1-(4-methoxynaphthoyl)]indole which probably has a shorter street name) down to Schedule V small doses of opium. Pharmaceuticals fall into three categories: over-the-counter, prescription, and controlled. Things like ibuprofen over 200 mg is not a "controlled substance" though does require a prescription, as do anti-cholesterol drugs (since they are thought to pose "some risk"). There are also completely unregulated substances, such as green tea, olive oil, vitamin c, which so far are not subject to federal regulation (since they have not been deemed to pose a risk). OTC substances can be bought without special hoops, though they cannot be marketed without passing through hoops. Prescription and controlled require a prescription from a DEA-authorized physician. Ephedrine and pseudephedrine are a recent zombie class of pharmaceutical which do not require prescription, but are subject to purchase quotas. Controlled substances are subject to much higher levels of scrutiny, to ascertain that the prescription is legitimate and the recipient is the intended recipient; there are also stricter laws about possible justifications for prescribing regular prescription drugs vs. those on one of the 5 schedules. (And the rules are different for the 5 schedules). It is generally unknown whether doctors can prescribe non-prescription pharmaceuticals, in order to shift the cost to insurance. There is no specific statute prohibiting that, but doctors are also subject to contractual restrictions between themselves and the insurance networks they deal with, so they may have agreed to not engage in such conduct. As far as I can tell, it is not actually illegal for a doctor to write a prescription for OTC Tylenol.

Presumably you consented to have an x-ray. It is a reasonable assumption that it was not your intention to simply be given the films without interpretation by a radiologist. If that was your intention then the obligation would be on you to make that clear since it is so far from ordinary practice that no reasonable person could know that. To use your analogy it would be like you asking to have your window washed but not wanting to have the soapy water rinsed off afterwards (assuming these were separately billable services). Further, rights and obligations under contracts are transferable by default. So it is perfectly legitimate for the lab to outsource the radiography without having to ask you.

The CDC does not authorize shots or vaccine distribution. The FDA authorizes vaccine distribution, or distribution of medicines in general. A medicine is authorized for use in a certain way, which is an "instruction" directed at the medical professional. So-called "off-label" use is discussed by the FDA here. Such use if legal, it simply stretches the limits of what the FDA was allowed to approve (e.g. was found to be safe and effective for X, was not similarly tested for Y). Patients are free to take whatever medicines they want if they can find them, and if they are not on the Controlled Substances list. Hence it's legal to take DMSO, but it's not legal to peddle it as a cancer cure. The prescription regime for covid vaccinations seems to be somewhat relaxed, in that it is likely that many people get a vaccine without a (meaningful) doctor's exam, instead, you show up and get the shot. This is normal with flu shots. The upcoming 3rd shot approval is addressed to doctors, so they can then recommend third shots.

Merely encouraging people not to vaccinate via educational and political communication without purporting to provide individualized medical advice is probably not the practice of medicine and protected by the First Amendment's protections for freedom of speech, rather than constituting medical malpractice. Also, many anti-vax individuals (I couldn't quote a percentage) do so out of religious conviction and are protected not just by the freedom of speech in the First Amendment, but also by the free exercise component of the freedom of religion under the First Amendment. Generally speaking, it is harder to find a legal grounds for disregarding the free exercise of religion than it is to find a legal basis to regulate otherwise free speech. For example, commercial speech is subject to more rigorous regulation than private political and educational speech, which is why there are no private businesses taking anti-vax positions in their advertising. The theory is that courts are not in a good position to make general determinations of the truth of policy positions or statements about general truths as opposed to what happened in a particular transaction or occurrence. This is in part because a ruling by the right court at the right time can preclude the correctness of its determination from being revisited indefinitely and from time to time, accepted conventional wisdom and scientific consensus at one time are revealed later on to have been wrong with more discussion and investigation. I think that this is unlikely to be the case in the vaccination area, but the whole point of the First Amendment's protection of these kinds of issues is that we can't know in advance what will continue to be widely accepted and what will turn out to be mistaken. But, if someone in a medical diagnosis and treatment profession (e.g. M.D., D.O., physician's assistant, or nurse), were to advise a patient in a capacity as a medical care provider not to vaccinate, and as a result that person's child got sick from a disease that vaccination could have prevented, there probably would be medical malpractice liability. A somewhat similar issue arises when health insurance companies or government agencies set rules on providing care. In those cases, it isn't uncommon to have a physician or other medical professional placed on a committee or in an office such as medical director, with that person making the call and exposed to liability although not in the same way as a treating medical professional. A case about a month ago found malpractice by an insurance company's medical director (the company was United Health) to be a huge liability for both the medical director and the insurance company.

What’s the problem? Most likely the situation is 100% sure that he or she wouldn’t have performed the operation without anaesthesia. Therefore anaesthesia was not something his brain needed to remember, therefore it didn’t. He gave a truthful answer. He has no memory of it. He doesn’t need a memory of it, he just needed to make sure it’s done. Do you have any reason to believe it was not done? Operating without anaesthesia would be negligent. Not remembering it is done is not. On the other hand, he would have remembered the patient screaming if he started cutting without anaesthesia.

In German Law you need to give your agreement ("Willenserklärung") to a contract or in this case terms of service. This is done by telling the other part. In some cases this can also be implied by an action (example: putting your bottle of beer onto the cashiers table is an offer to buy this bottle). As a second criteria a "Willenserklärung" needs to be the exact will of the part that declares its will (the website user in this case) §§ 133, 157 BGB or that the other side (you) could only see so (not the case here as this mainly speaks of content). If you visit a website and there are terms of services, the "Willenserklärung" is only given when the user read and agreed to the terms. If he did not, the terms of service are not applied until the user agrees to them. So I would recommend to block the website until the user agreed (overlay) as you need to proof he did when in court. Additionally there are so called AGB's in Germany. Those are contracts that are used or planed for many (more than 3) uses and set by one side (you). This may apply here, so you need to follow a lot of other rules like making sure the user had access and agreed, then there are many content restrictions and so on... I recommend consulting a German Lawyer specialized on this topic as this is very complex and includes other German laws for Media too, depending on the content of your site and terms. Also note that everything said is only based on my own knowledge and can not be used as safe legal source.

Could the new mRNA vaccines have come to market without any testing? No. The FDA still has to approve emergency limited approvals of new vaccines. At least as a practical matter, the FDA requires some testing to grant this approval, although not the full testing regime of a non-emergency application for a new vaccine or drug approval. FDA approval is the limiting principle that prevents emergency drug approval from being used recklessly despite a lack of civil liability. I know this from news reports about the COVID vaccine approval process and can't cite chapter and verse of the relevant statutes. If there are no legal consequences, what reason would pharmaceutical companies have to conduct clinical trials before going to market? Drug companies have to get FDA approval for every single product they make. If they act in bad faith to get emergency approval, the FDA will not treat them well in the future and could even revoke their authority to manufacture any drugs going forward. Also, keep in mind that vaccines are not particularly high profit margin products for drug companies.

In principle, a verbal contract is just as binding as a written contract. The catch is that it can be difficult to prove what was said. Unless you have witnesses, it would just be your word against his. As DStanley says in the comments, if you have proof that you paid half -- canceled checks or receipts or whatever -- that would be evidence that there was some sort of agreement. Whether your daughter is allowed to drive the car on a specific day depends not just on who owns the car but who has legal custody of your daughter. If a friend of hers said that it is okay with him for her to drive his car to a wild party where there will be drugs and an orgy, the fact that he has full title to the car does not mean that her parents have no right to tell her she can't go! You didn't say what the custody arrangements are, but if you have full custody or shared custody, this would give you certain rights to tell her what she is and is not allowed to do.

Is it legal to write PhD theses for other people? I got an offer from a newspaper to make my story public on how I wrote a lot of PhD's for paying customers. Do I have to fear legal consequences and what would happen if I make it public (without naming the customers)? I didn't wrote in "dangerous" fields like chemistry or medicine. Only in following fields: Physics Mathematics Computer Science Biology Philosophy German French Law Economy Scandinavistic Molecular Biology Psychology Etc. As far as I know, I don't have to fear any legal consequences. But I wanted to ask here to be sure. And do I have to fear problems with lawyers when I go to public with my story? Like they will force me to name my customers? I want to protect my customers - it would be bad for business. This is a totally theoretical question. I am not asking for legal advice.

Some states in the United States have laws specifically about selling theses (etc.) For example, see Pennsylvania Code Title 18 - CRIMES AND OFFENSES Chapter 73 - Trade and Commerce 7324 - Unlawful sale of dissertations, theses and term papers: No person shall sell or offer for distribution any dissertation, thesis, term paper, essay, report or other written assignment to any student enrolled in a university, college, academy, school or any other institution within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania knowing, or under the circumstances having reason to know, that said assignment is intended for submission either in whole or substantial part under said student's name to such educational institution in fulfillment of the requirement for a degree, diploma, certificate or course of study. Similar laws exist in many other states. For example, California, Florida, Texas, Virginia, Oregon, New York.

Anything that somebody writes is copyrighted, even if you call it a "press release". That means that nobody can copy it without permission. If you hand it out to a bunch of people and write "press release", the only reasonable interpretation of the designation "press release" is that you are granting permission to copy (as well as paraphrase).

Yes, except for the part where you say "thus". Copyright protection isn't limited to published works, though in the past this was the case with US law. Current US law defines publication as the distribution of copies or phonorecords of a work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending. The offering to distribute copies or phonorecords to a group of persons for purposes of further distribution, public performance, or public display, constitutes publication. A public performance or display of a work does not of itself constitute publication. Web distribution is one way to distribute a protected work. The distinction between published and unpublished works matters in terms of registration requirements, it figures into the question of the nationality of the author, the duration of protection for a work for hire and (pseudo)anonymous works, as well as the duration of protection for works created before January 1, 1978 but first published between then and January 1, 2003, and so on. The US Copyright office provides guidance that derives from court cases, and they have this to say about published vs. unpublished. They give as an example of publication ("Offering to Distribute Copies or Phonorecords to a Group of Persons") Publication occurs when copies of a photograph are offered to clients, including but not limited to newspapers, magazines, agencies, wire services, and websites with a license permitting further distribution or display of the photograph. also An offer by the copyright owner on a public website to purchase and download an app that they developed and made accessible on that website constitutes publication of that app. German copyright law makes mention of "publication" as well, for instance The right of publication and of exploitation of the work accrues jointly to the joint authors; alterations to the work shall be permissible only with the consent of the joint authors. However, a joint author may not refuse his consent to publication, exploitation or alteration contrary to the principles of good faith. Each joint author shall be entitled to assert claims arising from violations of the joint copyright; he may, however, demand performance only to all of the joint authors. §6 says that (1) A work shall be deemed to have been published when it has been made available to the public with the consent of the rightholder. (2) A work shall be deemed to have been released when copies of the work have been offered, with the rightholder’s consent, to the public or brought to the market after their production in sufficient quantity. An artistic work shall also be deemed to have been released when the original or a copy of the work has been made permanently available to the public with the consent of the rightholder. One would have to inquire into the specifics of German law to know if "putting one copy on a website" constitutes being brought to the market after production in sufficient quantity.

As Putvi says, you are being extorted and this is a criminal matter and thus a matter for the authorities in your jurisdiction. However, you have a second problem entirely apart from that - you almost certainly broke academic ethical rules by submitting a piece of work that you did not write as your own (these things are pretty cut and dried in academic circles). This will not go away. Regardless of whether your extortionists are brought to justice, they can still release your details at any point in time and ruin your career, or it can come out in other ways. Own up to this with your university as soon as possible, and see if you can make it right. This will be hanging over you for the rest of your life, and can drop at any moment - these sorts of things have ruined people before.

Well, actually, fair use is maximally relevant. Copyright means, put simply, DO NOT COPY. Citing or not is irrelevant (plagiarism is a whole other non-legal kettle of fish). Technically, what you describe is violation of copyright. However, under section 107 of Title 17 (the copyright law), you could attempt to defend yourself against an infringement suit on the basis that your action was "fair use". See this LSE q&a for the essentials of fair use.

Publishing government records is pretty classic First Amendment-protected activity. Keeping in mind that one can find a lawyer to sue for anything, I think that person would likely be operating well within the law. One thing in particular that I'd recommend staying aware of is how one might attempt to monetize this endeavor. There have been a lot of sites publishing arrest records, court records, and mugshots, and then charging people to have them removed to keep them from popping up in a Google search for those people's names. That is -- rightly -- regarded as sketchy behavior; while several states have passed laws prohibiting that business model, I don't believe any such law exists in Washington State at this point.

I am wondering if anyone here could say if it is worth going into law, particularly when coming from a good law school (and assuming I have a real interest in the subject and enjoy research, etc.). Is it true that the profession is contracting, and that it could be hard to find a decent job? Is there decent upward mobility in the profession, or should one expect a sub-60-70k salary for many many years after school? Is there anyone here that thinks not going into law (ie pursing a Ph.D. instead) is a better choice? I went into a top law school (the University of Michigan, ranked #8 when I matriculated, graduated in the top 25%, cum laude, with an editorship of a law journal under my belt) with almost the same academic background (undergraduate math major) and a similar LSAT score to you. It was a somewhat easier choice for me. I was a solid A- math student, but didn't have the chops and talent to pursue a PhD in math and make an academic career out of it, even though I was something of a math prodigy. I also didn't have the passion for it. I saw that I was spending my free time focused on the humanities, social sciences and campus politics and journalism, rather than on math (although tutoring and grading paid my way for all of my personal and living expenses). A legal job definitely provides a secure lifetime of decent employment, can be intellectually challenging in some subfields (other kinds of practices not so much), and provides a certain amount of interpersonal interaction and immediate, easily understood relevance that you can't secure as an academic mathematician. It isn't that hard to find a decent job for a graduate of a top law school, and the profession is not meaningfully contracting. Indeed, almost no occupation has been less impacted economically by the pandemic. Post-law school compensation is bimodal. A minority (maybe 30-40%) start at large law firms (sometimes after a judicial clerkship) and make very good money (low 100s) right off the bat. The rest get decent middle class jobs at first. Most, from both routes, end up eventually self-employed in small and medium sized law firms, although a lucky few (maybe 5%-10%) end up as partners in big law firms and a similar share end up as senior civil servants. The problem is that the instincts you learn getting as far into math as you have are not very advantageous to a Big Law career, which places a huge premium on social skills, upper middle class to upper class social capital, and hard work as what amounts to being a super-bureaucrat at relatively menial details for long uncreative hours that are only dimly connected to results. A lawyer needs to be smart, but being a "genius" intellectually doesn't provide much marginal benefit. Most economically successful lawyers have quite narrow and specialized practices that present fewer intellectual challenges as you mass produce the same kind of work over and over, and lawyers derive a lot of their income from their capacity to market their services effectively to the affluent and the powerful. Also, a lot of your compensation in law is basically for your marketing, for taking on highly stressful responsibility, and for dealing with very unpleasant situations. It often isn't the most enjoyable life style unless you have a very particular type A, competitive, extraverted personality who understands people extremely well but isn't academically oriented. Corporate law, in particular, values your interpersonal skills very highly and doesn't place much of a premium on your intellectual legal knowledge and research ability. Those things are factors of production in corporate law but they aren't what leads to success there and are often pawned off on junior associates who never have a shot at making partner. I could have done better economically (I basically took what amounted to a mommy track for various reasons), but didn't understand the profession, or what the work involved, or what was critical to get ahead at the time and in my early career and had other priorities and a set of values and world views ill suited to the work. If I was doing it all over again, I would have chosen a quantitative heavy but non-math PhD path (maybe Economics or physics or operations research or statistics) or would have become an actuary, rather than becoming a lawyer. I love knowing the things that I know because I went to law school (which I loved) and because I've have an incredibly diverse (although not terribly well paying) legal practice for 25 years. I was a professor (in a gradate estate planning program for financial planners) for a while, and it was the best job I've ever had and I still enjoy teaching a lot. I also spend lots of time in math related hobbies to exercise and enjoy math related talent that I have but can't use very often at work. If I were in your shoes, with publications already and an acceptance in a top graduate math PhD program, I would definitely take that path. It is a field within academia with a healthy trend line of stability or growth within academia, and being a professor (which you have a viable shot at doing) is a wonderful way to live. There are fewer job seekers per open position for PhDs in math than in most academic disciplines. I've never met a math prof whose regretted his choice (and I know many, having grown up all my life as a child of a professor and a college administrator in a small college down and having been a math major).

My lawyer answers my question, thinking he is giving legal advice to a non-client when he is actually answering a client's question. But if you read the FAQ, posts at law.stachexchange are not legal advice. In fact, questions that are so specific as to risk becoming a request for legal advice are routinely closed. But let's go further: The issue at hand is not the one your lawyer is hired to help you with. He is not your lawyer for that issue. Even if we considered the relationship through law.stackexchange legal representation, the conversation would not be privileged. You are posting in a public forum, and expecting reply in the same way. You are free to waive the privilege of communication with your lawyer, and you are doing that by using this way of communicating with him. At this point, the only thing your lawyer would have done would be voluntarily giving for free some info that he could have billed you for. What exactly would be the issue here? It is exactly what pro bono is for. The only way to breach confidentiality would be if your lawyer were to convey things that you said to him confidentially to the public, but here it would not be relevant if the OPs author were already his customer or not.

Are there any laws on copyrighted material, preventing them from being translated? I am an aspiring translator and hoping to go to university within the next two years. Part of going to university tends to include work experience in the section you wish to work in. Due to my location, it is near impossible for me to find work experience within a translation company, and as such, I would like to put some sort of translation 'portfolio' together, to show that I have put effort into ensuring this is the right path for me. My question is, am I allowed to produce translations of different texts that are not in the Public Domain as part of the portfolio, providing I give credit to the original writers and link back to their site? I understand that this can depend on the copyright licence on the website itself, but according to the law in general, am I restricted from producing translations of such works? Would the answer be the same if the site does not appear to display any copyright notice?

U.S. law defines a derivative work in 17 USC §101: A "derivative work" is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, [...] abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. Similarly, the Copyright Act of Canada reserves exclusively for the copyright holder the right to produce, reproduce, perform or publish any translation of the work... Finally, in any of the 171 nations that are signatories to the Berne Convention treaty, Authors of literary and artistic works protected by this Convention shall enjoy the exclusive right of making and of authorizing the translation of their works throughout the term of protection of their rights in the original works. Therefore, if it highly likely that you need authorization from the copyright holder to produce a translation of a copyrighted work in your jurisdiction. In nations that are Berne signatories, copyright is automatic, so there is no need for a copyright holder to display a copyright notice in order to receive exclusive rights under copyright law.

Here's one way to avoid the issue altogether: Wikipedia, or anyone for that matter, can't copyright information (only its expression). You can reword (automate the process?) the content (ie, w/out doing "independent research") and it's yours! Of course, I'm not a lawyer so consult one of those.

I gather that Fischer can claim copyright on its written form of public-domain music because the company adds interpretive markings to its sheet music, and those markings themselves constitute creative content? They can probably also claim copyright on editorial content. For example, a piece may have multiple sources that do not agree with one another, and the editor's choice of how to reconcile these inconsistencies is subject to copyright. Even the layout and typography or engraving are subject to copyright, so if the score is nothing but a faithful transcription of the composer's only manuscript, making a photocopy of the score is infringement. In that case the only contents of the sheet music covered by copyright would be whatever unique musical markings Fischer adds, and not the notes set down by the original composer? The notes themselves are not protected by copyright if the composition has passed into the public domain, but to make a score that does not infringe the copyright in the Carl Fischer edition, you would have to find another source. A copy made by hand might be okay because it would not reproduce the layout and other graphic design elements. Is there any reliable way to determine which elements of a work like classical sheet music are covered by a copyright claim, other than to infringe and have the claimant reveal that at trial? You can consult the sources that the editor used. Anything that isn't in the sources is editorial and therefore protected. If you can't find out what sources were used, find all the sources you can. Anything that's present in a source that is old enough to have passed into the public domain is in the public domain.

The audio book would probably be an infringing derivative work because the client could redistribute it once the client received it. It sounds very much like a product that is regularly sold by merchants relying on copyrights. Conceivably, simply reading a book aloud to a client in some sort of streaming context that could't be shared with others or replayed would merely be fair use, much like hiring a baby sitter to read a book aloud to your children would be clearly fair use. If there were an automatic text to sound converter as opposed to an individualized performance, it might not be considered infringing. There are people with programs that do this who haven't been sued, but the boundaries haven't been explored very thoroughly. Honestly, there isn't a lot of guidance in this area from statutory language, and the questions would often not be guided by much case law involving similar facts. Your intuition living in the modern world is probably almost as good as a lawyer's in this situation.

how would this differ between say ArXiv which is open access, and a publication that is pay-only, like Elsevier or Nature? It wouldn't. But if the equation is the creation of the author of some publication, as in the author is expressing some unique mathematical expression, obviously the publication should be referenced. But is referencing enough? Are there additional rights one must obtain from the publication and/or author in order to show this content? Laws of nature, including purported laws of nature, are not protected by copyright. So, usually, key equations in an academic paper aren't protected by copyright law. Referencing the work is important as a matter of academic ethics, but is legally irrelevant. Copying of exposition by the author beyond laws of nature is permitted as fair use if it is limited to quotations necessary for academic discussion and criticism, but copying of an entire work would not be permissible fair use in most cases and would constitute copyright infringement. Of course, there is a large gray area between those extremes.

Well, actually, fair use is maximally relevant. Copyright means, put simply, DO NOT COPY. Citing or not is irrelevant (plagiarism is a whole other non-legal kettle of fish). Technically, what you describe is violation of copyright. However, under section 107 of Title 17 (the copyright law), you could attempt to defend yourself against an infringement suit on the basis that your action was "fair use". See this LSE q&a for the essentials of fair use.

Whoever "derived" the illegal derivative work most likely has copyright in his derivations, unless they are not worth copyright protections. Say I take the Harry Potter books and add a few chapters and try to sell it - that's copyright infringement of course, but I have the copyright on these additional chapters. However, I don't have the right to allow you to copy the derived work. And even if you have the right to copy the original work, you don't have the right to copy the derived work because it is a different work. I could extract my changes, and allow you to take them and do with them what you like. You could then create an illegally derived work yourself. I couldn't sue you, but the original copyright holder could. To the comments: One, a work and a derivative of the work are not the same, so even if you have the right to make a copy of a work, that doesn’t give you any right whatsoever to copy a derivative work - they are not the same work. Two, the copyright holder has the exclusive right to control copying and the creation of derivative works. If the copyright holder doesn’t want derivatives to exist, then creating them, copying them etc. is always copyright infringement.

Depending on where exactly you are in the world, there is some protection for the representation of copyright-expired material if work went into presentation. So you might be allowed to put a Bach cantata into musical notation yourself, since he died in 1750, but you cannot simply copy another publisher's sheet music to save that work. The same might apply to an old newspaper article. If you find a print and scan it, you can upload it, but you may not be able to take it from the database organized by someone else. In austria, there is §40f Urheberrecht, which defines databases (they may or may not be collected editions). §40h clarifies how the right to a private copy in §42 extends only to "private use and neither directly nor indirectly commercial purposes." In germany, there is 87a-e UrhG, which covers databases whose assembly did not represent creative work (e.g. by simply ordering things by date). They are protected if the assembly required significant investment. This "lesser protection" lasts only 15 years, not 70, and there is a "a significant part" test for copying less than the whole database.

Is it legal to copy pictures found on social media and upload them again? I know with other works, as soon as a person creates it, it is automatically copyrighted. So does that mean when a person takes a picture its automatically their property and no one else can do anything but view it? I ask because I'm curious how this effects social media. I'm part of a free running group I found through Meetup.com and they normally take pictures and post them to the Meetup page. I would like to put some pictures on my Facebook but not sure if its allowed. It's not really feasible for me to ask every person in the picture because most of them I don't know!

The default answer is NO, but you would have to check the terms&conditions of Meetup.com. For a simpler example, just look at the bottom of this page: "user contributions licensed under cc by-sa 3.0 with attribution required". That means that you can copy pictures from this site to your Facebook page, if you acknowledge the photographer and link back to here.

You don't seem to be distinguishing properly between "original artwork" and photographs of it. A 19th-century painting will be out of copyright, so you can set up an easel copy it yourself, or even take a photo if the owners don't mind; your copy can be used however you please. However, other people can't use your photograph without your permission. Similarly, if you want to reuse a photograph used in an art book, the important thing is the copyright on the photograph, not the painting.

Not only can’t you trademark it, you can’t use it The original logo is covered by copyright which belongs, prima facie, to the original artist. It doesn’t matter that they are based in Russia; Russia and the US are both signatories to the Berne Convention which means they protect each other’s copyright. That means you can only use it if it is fair use (it isn’t) or if you have the copyright owner’s permission (you don’t). Could I still use the logo I bought and trademark it in the US granted that the seller had made some revisions to the stock photo he found? Not if the seller didn’t have permission to make those changes. Creation of a derivative work is one of the exclusive rights copyright gives. The seller had changed up some parts of the stock image, this includes color scheme, orientation, and made the picture look a little low poly. See above. The original artist of the stock photo is based in Russia and as far as I can see there is no registered copyright on it and don't think they could apply for US copyright anyway. They already have copyright. They would need to register it in the US before they could sue but there is no impediment to them doing so. While I'm not sure where the seller (located in Pakistan) officially downloaded the logo, I had nothing to do with the final design of it or downloaded anything from a stock photo website myself, so I'm not sure if I'd be bounded by any terms of the stock photo website Makes no difference. Just because you didn’t steal the car, that doesn’t make it ok for you to drive it. The stock image is very niche and a bit random. Across all the websites the artist has published it on, it has about 5 or 6 downloads altogether. Not relevant at all. As far the copyright of the seller's work goes, the Fiverr terms state that buyers have all the copyright, though I don't know if this is nullified by the use of the stock image. You can’t sell something you don’t own. If the seller had no right to upload the photo (as it seems they didn’t), the terms of the website don’t matter. The true owner never agreed to those terms and isn’t bound by them.

Exactly the same way it works over all other content There are no special classes of copyright, there’s just copyright. What a user of a service may do with copyright materials will be spelled out in the licence. If there is no licence, then they are left with fair use/fair dealing.

You can do whatever you like with posts made after you change the rules - you have to leave the previous stuff alone. The contributors' have accepted the terms of the licence: They own the copyright or have permission from the copyright holder to post it (the promise) They agree that it can be edited altered or removed CC-BY-SA allows people to copy the stuff off the website and republish it - this is way outside what the contributors agreed to. These people have given permission for their work to be altered but not copied.

The creative commons licenses explicitly include a paragraph that they cannot be revoked once granted. That is an important concept of all free licenses (CC, but also MIT, Apache etc) Now it's a fact that Flickr (and maybe other sites) do allow changing the license to something less permissive. If you use one of their images, it's really best to keep a proof that it once was available under the CC license you originally got it with. This can be e.g., a screenshot or a link to the wayback machine. Wikimedia commons is often affected by this problem, as people regularly upload files from Flickr (which is absolutely ok, if they have a CC-by-sa or similar license at the time of the upload). Commons has installed a review process for such uploads. Trusted users check that the uploaded files really have the license on Flickr that the uploader declared. If later the license on Flickr is changed by the original owner, the history on Commons is considered to be enough evidence that the license was, in fact, permissive earlier. More about this can be read here.

All your work is yours. They've made it very clear it wasn't a work for hire, so it's yours. They can't copyright any of their ideas. You can't copyright an idea. Only specific creative elements authored by them and present in your work could be covered by copyright. You didn't use their block diagrams. I don't see how references to other sites to look at would constitute a creative element they authored. That said, you probably want to talk to a lawyer and get a written legal opinion that you can rely on.

Yes, you can do that, assuming that the pictures are really in the public domain (i.e. due to their age, and not only claimed to be). But you probably shouldn't, but you'll probably want to add a label to the images anyway (what it depicts, who the original painter is, etc). So adding a "public domain" tag to each image shouldn't be a big issue. You can do that on a separate page as well, giving the source for each. Note that while using pd images does not create a copyright violation, even if you blatantly say that you created them yourself, it could still be considered plagiarism. When writing a science book or even a thesis, this could get you into trouble.

Partial rental days at end of a long-term lease I started a small real estate rental business by renting out a property for residential tenants. At the end of a 4.5 month lease, then tenant and I came into a dispute about paying for a partial day on the final day of the lease. The contract says the lease ends on Sunday, August 14th. The tenant wants to vacate the morning of Aug 14th but not pay for Aug 14th because he will not stay a full day on Aug 14th. I offered him a partial day, so that he would only pay half of the day if he leaves before noon. But he rejected my proposal. The tenant wants to stay the night Saturday night and depart Sunday morning without paying for Sunday. The tenant refuses to pay for even a partial day on Sunday, even though he will occupy the unit until departing Sunday morning. Who is right, the tenant or me, the landlord?

If the lease ends on 14 August then, unless there is a time in the lease, the tenant must be gone before 0:00:00 15 August. If they leave anytime on the 14th (or earlier) they are in compliance with the lease. If there is no provision for pro-rata rent if they overstay and agreement cannot be reached, if the tenant overstays the landlord can sue for whatever damage (loss) that actually caused. Specific legislation wherever you are may change this.

Is there any sort of implied expiration date for a contractor's completion for medium size contractor jobs (< $10k)? Absent a provable deadline, the question would be whether the delay is reasonable (or habitual) under the circumstances. The contractor's presumption that he can do whatever he wants regarding unspecified aspects of a contract is inaccurate. Those matters can still be decided on the basis of contract law and/or under principles of equity. See also the Restatement (Second) of Contracts, which is frequently cited by U.S. courts, at §235(2) and §243 regarding non-performance of a contract. Will my verbal complete-by date hold up in lieu of any written complete-by date? It depends on each party's credibility. Proving that he essentially ignored your follow-up requests will make it harder for him to credibly refute your assertion about the verbal deadline. In case none of your follow-up efforts (or none of his responses) are in writing or if he denies that you repeatedly called him, you might want to subpoena his phone service provider --if the matter goes to court-- and file as evidence the resulting production of records.

There is, in general, a rule that all matters connected with a single transaction or event should be included in a single legal case. Different jurisdictions apply this diffidently, and I haven't yet researched this in Maryland specifically. Also, if you agree to pay a part of what the landlord claims, you will quite likely be asked to sign a settlement agreement as part of the transaction. This is likely to include a release of all claims connected with your tenancy at the apartment. If it does, and you sign the agreement, you will be giving up any claim you might otherwise have because of the failure to properly notify you. You may want to consult a lawyer about this. A one-time consultation might not be very expensive. If you sued the landlord, you could do so in small claims court, where legal costs are significantly lower than in other courts.

It is the tenant's responsibility to understand the written contract. Oral statements about the contract do have to be consistent with the written contract (that is, in the context where you ask the landlord what a particular clause means before signing -- not in the case where you are modifying an existing contract). If I were renting a room and the contract says "Du må betale $1000 hver dag", which I don't understand because my Norwegian is terrible, I would ask about this, and the landlord might say that it means "You must pay $1000 every month", which could be a decent deal. Actually, the clause says "You must pay $1000 every day". When the reality of the situation becomes clear, then it is obvious that we didn't have an agreement in the first place. Perhaps he mis-spoke, or his English is as bad as my Norwegian, but I would not be held to rate in the written contract, assuming that I could back up my claim that he gave me that interpretation: the lease would probably be voided, as not an actual agreement. The underlying principle is that there has to be a "meeting of the minds" where the parties understand what they will get and what they must give, and there was a demonstrable failure of understanding. On the other hand, if I sign a contract without really reading it carefully, and there is a clause in English (which I speak) saying that I have to pay $1000 a day, but I didn't really think about the clause so that in a sense I didn't understand what I had agreed to, well, I may still be on the hook. (On the third hand, a court would probably say that's a ridiculous rent and void the contract on policy grounds). In general, "not my first language" is not a get-out-of-contract card, though attempts to trick people into signing documents in languages that they really have no understanding of won't be successful. Virtually nobody but a lawyer actually understands contractual language, yet contracts are enforced all the time. A contract can be explicitly modified by verbal agreement, or can be entirely verbal, but oral agreements face evidence problems, namely, what exactly did A and B say? It's scientifically well established that parties can be morally certain that the conversation went "A" (for one person) and "Not A" (for the other person). Using "could" rather than "would" in speech makes a huge difference in interpretation. There is a rule, the parol evidence rule, which essentially says that unless there is a good reason to not do so, the contract as written is what is enforced. Even if the conversation had been written into the contract, there's no basis in the contract for objectively determining whether a thing is old and "just broke". So even as an additional clause in the contract, it doesn't afford you a clear escape hatch. You might be able to prove with expert testimony that indeed the pipes had been corroding for a hundred years, and you could not have caused the pipes to burst.

If you began the lease with no mention of additional payment specifically for parking, and were of the understanding that you could use the property to park cars, and have been using the property to park cars with the knowledge of the landlord, and the landlord has not previously mentioned parking as a distinct part of your lease that carries a fee, you have a very strong argument that parking cars on the property was part of your leasing the property. People park cars on their property regularly; it is a reasonable default assumption that unless told otherwise, you could do this at will. The landlord presumably knew you had been doing this and had not notified you that e.g. it was against an explicit part of the lease or was against a legal regulation to park cars on that property without a fee paid. This is a request for additional payment for something you are currently able to do for free, and doing as part of an existing contract. Therefore, your landlord is offering a change to your lease: the rent will go up by thirty dollars or you will be barred from parking cars on the property. In neither case do you receive additional consideration, so it may not be a legitimate change at all. Regardless though, you do not have to accept the false dichotomy: you can choose to continue parking your car on the property and not pay the money for doing this. Do not agree to the change. Do not pay any additional money. See a lawyer that specialises in tenancy law for your jurisdiction and obtain their opinion before replying to the demand for a change in the terms of your lease; you may have access to free legal advice depending on where you live.

When the fixed term ends, you have two options if you want to stay. The first option is that you and the landlord can sign a new tenancy agreement, with a new fixed term. This new agreement replaces the old one at the end of the current fixed term, so the landlord is free to make changes, including proposing any number for the rent - and you are free to reject it. Alternatively, when the fixed term ends, if you don't sign a new agreement, and you don't leave, the tenancy automatically* becomes a Statutory Periodic Tenancy - often called a rolling contract. This has no fixed term, which means that if you want to leave, you have to give 1 month's notice, while if the landlord wants you to leave, they must give 2 months' notice. Apart from that, the terms of the existing contract, including the rent review clause mentioned in the question, remain in force. The rent review clause suggests that the landlord can unilaterally impose a rent increase after the fixed term ends, but only up to the amount specified. Hence, without signing a new agreement, any increase beyond that would not be allowed. Also, it doesn't appear to make any mention of future rent increases, which suggests that the default rules for rolling contracts will apply, in that the landlord can propose a rent increase, which you can accept or reject. Failing that, the landlord can impose one via a Section 13 Notice, but only once a year. If you feel the requested rent is unreasonable, you can challenge this, and a tribunal will make a ruling based on the state of the property and the rents for similar properties in the area. (* If the tenancy has any provisions relating to what happens once the fixed term ends, then the tenancy may become a Contractual Periodic Tenancy. However, unless those provisions relate to rent, then they may not be relevant here.)

No The tenant is liable if they break a contract: there is no contract here. One of the tests for a contract is that there is an offer that if accepted will create a clear, unambiguous contract. Looking at the enumerated facts: Alan advertises a room to rent in a joint tenancy property in which they are lead tenant - not an offer, this is an invitation to treat Zoe views the room and verbally expresses an interest in renting it - not an offer, this is the opening of negotiations Alan passes on Zoe's contact details to the estate agent - not an offer, this is communication between one party and their agent The estate agent contacts Zoe by email, providing a draft contract and asking for further information in order to complete her details - not an offer, the contract is a "draft" Zoe provides the requested details, again by email - not an offer, just a transfer of information The contract is drawn up and the estate agents inform both Alan and Zoe that it is ready to be signed - this is an offer A week later (having not yet signed), Zoe informs the estate agent that she no longer wants to take the room - ... that was not accepted Further, the tenant is liable if they are promissory estopped - they have withdrawn a promise made to a second party if the latter has reasonably relied on that promise. Zoe has made no promises other than one to negotiate - she has negotiated.

Review the terms of the lease, and determine (a) what deductions can be made from the security deposit, and (b) what charges can be made for lease changes or tenant changes. If the amount and type of deduction for "lawyer fee" is included in either of those areas, then it sounds like the landlord did what the lease allowed. But if not, then the deduction could be improper. If you're in the U.S., you could see a lawyer specializing in landlord-tenant law; or there might be a "tenants' union" in your area, which is usually a nonprofit organization that provides information for tenants to exercise their rights.

Penalties for speeding on private roads In Washington State, a private road is just that: a road on private property, as opposed to a road on a public right-of way. Sometimes these roads have speed-limit signs. Does ignoring one of these signs carry any penalty besides being asked to leave the property and never return?

RCW 46.61.419 gives government police the right to enforce speeding violations as defined in RCW 46.61.400 in certain communities (condominiums and gated communities), per RCM 64.34, 64.32, or 64.38, if: (1) A majority of the homeowner's association's, association of apartment owners', or condominium association's board of directors votes to authorize the issuance of speeding infractions on its private roads, and declares a speed limit not lower than twenty miles per hour; (2) A written agreement regarding the speeding enforcement is signed by the homeowner's association, association of apartment owners, or condominium association president and the chief law enforcement official of the city or county within whose jurisdiction the private road is located; (3) The homeowner's association, association of apartment owners, or condominium association has provided written notice to all of the homeowners, apartment owners, or unit owners describing the new authority to issue speeding infractions; and (4) Signs have been posted declaring the speed limit at all vehicle entrances to the community. Thus there can be a speeding ticket. However, if you speed on my uncle's farm, that's just trespassing because that isn't one of the specified community types. The law only allows speeding enforcement by government law enforcement officers (not private security), and limits how low the maximum speed can be set. This raises an interesting question regarding speed enforcement on the Boeing bridge off S 104th in Seattle, which is private property and not part of a "community", yet quite urban and frequently used.

In Germany, you must not drive faster than reasonable under the circumstances. Since there is a sign covered by snow, that should keep your speed low. Since there is also a speed limit sign and you don't know what the speed limit is, that should also keep your speed considerably low to be on the safe side. I'd recommend that you make a judgement call what you would consider a reasonable speed limit at that point (you have a driving license after all, so you should be capable of making that judgement call) and assume that you overestimated a bit. Then take off a few more km/h for the snow.

According to Virginia law, Every person convicted of reckless driving under the provisions of this article is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor. That speed easily qualifies as reckless driving: A person shall be guilty of reckless driving who drives a motor vehicle on the highways in the Commonwealth (i) at a speed of twenty miles per hour or more in excess of the applicable maximum speed limit or (ii) in excess of eighty miles per hour regardless of the applicable maximum speed limit. The punishment for a class 1 misdemeanor is "confinement in jail for not more than twelve months and a fine of not more than $2,500, either or both." But wait! An airplane is heavy, so this may also apply: If it is found by the judge of a court of proper jurisdiction that the violation of any provision of this title (i) was a serious traffic violation as defined in § 46.2-341.20 and (ii) that such violation was committed while operating a vehicle or combination of vehicles used to transport property that either: (a) has a gross vehicle weight rating of 26,001 or more pounds or (b) has a gross combination weight rating of 26,001 or more pounds inclusive of a towed vehicle with a gross vehicle weight rating of more than 10,000 pounds, the judge may assess, in addition to any other penalty assessed, a further monetary penalty not exceeding $500. By the way, I couldn't find a general reckless endangerment statute (unrelated to specific objects like firearms or specific results like injury or death) in Virginia law. The closest thing I could find was disorderly conduct, which is also a class 1 misdemeanor. It's possible I just don't know where to look.

I'm assuming you are talking about something like this You didn't specify where you live, but in many places it is illegal to block the sidewalk with a car. I just looked up my local ordinances and it is there. In fact, it is your driveway, but often the land up to and including the sidewalk is considered part of a public easement. Typically you are required by law to maintain any grass in the easement, but if the sidewalk were to fall into disrepair, the local government would fix it. Information on easements can also be found in your local ordinances, here is an example in my area. Should I fight this ticket? You can try, but I doubt you will win. Is there anything I can do to my driveway to allow me to actually use it? I would suggest asking on Lifehacks. And post a link here to your question if you do, I'd be curious to know what they come up with.

In Washington, there is no criminal sanction for installing an "aftermarket" product on your vehicle. If we are speaking of non-commercial vehicles, the penalties for violating the various safety regulations is a ticket. The federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards can be consulted here. The criminal penalty provisions are here, as authorized by 49 USC 30170 – basically, lying in a report to the government will get you in trouble. You would have to track down all of the provisions in the regulations, but here is the bumper prohibition. The rule prohibits manufacture or importation of a car or a part that doesn't meet the standard. Subsection (b) addresses the "then added later" question, generally saying that there is little prohibition against you tweaking your car. First, if you "had no reason to know, by exercising reasonable care, that the vehicle or equipment does not comply with the standard", you are not subject to penalty. Usually, people have absolutely no reason to know that some part is unsafe, which is not the same as non-compliant, but you might pick up a really cheap bumper having been told that it is cheap because it totally ignores the applicable standards: then you would have reason to know. Used cars and parts are not subject to any federal scrutiny. The concept of a "vehicle in violation" is a legal misconception. Certain acts violate, objects do not violate. The chokepoint that controls car parts is the "manufacture or sell" part of the law, which prevents Auto Zone from selling you a bumper made of clay (it does not prevent you from installing such a bumper – unless your state has a specific law to that effect). The shop is in violation, not the customer.

There are multiple questions on different areas of law, but I will answer purely on any criminal liability arising by the drivers concerned and leave the question(s) on civil liability to others. The general rule to avoid creating unsafe situations appears to be in the Royal Decree of 1 December 1975, at Article 7, which states (via English translation): 7.2 Users must behave on public roads in such a way that they do not cause any inconvenience or danger to other users, including the staff working for the maintenance of the road and the equipment bordering it, the surveillance services and priority vehicles. Here are some specific regulations/offences relating to the railway crossing incident: Under Article 4 of the 30 September 2005 Decree: It is forbidden to stop or park a vehicle on level crossings. Carol may have committed an offence under Chapter 2, Article 2 of the 1975 Decree: It is forbidden to stop a vehicle or park it in any place where it is obviously likely to constitute a danger for other road users or to obstruct them unnecessarily... Dave may have committed an offence under Article 20 of the 1975 Decree: 20.2. The user approaching a level crossing must be extra careful to avoid any accident: when the level crossing is not equipped with barriers or traffic light signals or when these signals do not work, the user can only enter it after making sure that no vehicle on rails is approaching. ... 20.4. The driver cannot enter a level crossing if the traffic congestion is such that he would in all likelihood be immobilized on this crossing.

It wouldn’t Motor vehicle designs and modifications have to meet certain safety standards - so called “street legal”. These don’t. Play with them all you like on a private track but they won’t get on the road

Is it illegal to display a flag in front of a store? Maybe - not because it's a flag but because it could be an unlawful obstruction of the highway (which includes the pavement) contrary to section 137(1) of the Highways Act 1980: If a person, without lawful authority or excuse, in any way wilfully obstructs the free passage along a highway he is guilty of an offence and liable to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale. (i.e. £1,000) Many shops fall foul of this if they don't have a licence, especially with 'A' boards and goods displayed for sale.

Is forging another's signature prosecutable if forger had permission? After reading this post, I realized that a significant percentage of my friends and family could go to prison for forgery. Many couples I know sign one another's names all the time, including on the backs of checks. My wife and I have given one another blanket permission to sign for one another, and I know many other people with a similar understanding. In the United States, is it in fact illegal to sign someone else's signature on the back of a check if one has permission to do so? How about signing my wife's signature on our IRS forms?

Take the laws of Washington to be typical. RCW 9A.60.010 defines crucial terms: To "falsely complete" a written instrument means to transform an incomplete written instrument into a complete one by adding or inserting matter, without the authority of anyone entitled to grant it; and: "Forged instrument" means a written instrument which has been falsely made, completed, or altered Forgery then requires a bad intent: (1) A person is guilty of forgery if, with intent to injure or defraud: where (a) He or she falsely makes, completes, or alters a written instrument or; (b) He or she possesses, utters, offers, disposes of, or puts off as true a written instrument which he or she knows to be forged. In the scenario described, there is no intent to injure of defraud, and furthermore the document is not forged, because a forged document is one made / completed without authorization.

In general, you cannot contract to do anything illegal. However, ... An argument could be made that permission has been granted to, for example, enter property and remove the item. If permission has been granted, entering property and taking an item is not a crime.

I think the officer is probably lying, not just mistaken, but they are not required to always be truthful. In addition to the law against possessing ID with intent to commit, or to aid or abet, any crime, it is also against the law to be knowingly in possession of a stolen credit card, or any other property. An example of a strict-liability possession crime, which the officer knows of, is that it is a crime to possess heroin, period. I am skeptical that the officer actually believes that there is a law making it a crime to be in possession of a credit card with permission, and suspect that he thinks it is stolen.

Summary from comments. (Hat tip @jqning) Daniel Nathan Ballard writes here: [It] is not only improper it is UNLAWFUL and may result in serious repercussions... Such a misuse may constitute false advertising... (“It is no doubt true” that affixing the ‘Trade Mark Registered U.S. Patent Office” notice on goods that are not protected by a federally registered trademark creates “a prima facie case of fraud against the public… .”). ... Such use is also a form of “unclean hands” that can bar the user’s registration of the mark. ... Such a use may also bar the maintenance of an infringement case. ... And the fraudulent use of the trademark registration symbol DOES provide other marketplace participants with standing to oppose the user’s registration of the mark. http://www.avvo.com/legal-answers/use-of---symbol-but-not-federally-registered-1125746.html

This is known as a retroactive or ex post facto law. Such laws are explicitly forbidden by the US Constitution (Wikipedia reference), and are generally frowned on in jurisdictions where the rule of law applies, partly because it is difficult to prove criminal intent when your action was not at the time criminal.

It's not clear whether you mean that the entire agreement is carried out by text message. If you have a paper or electronic document stating what the parties will do, that is the agreement, and signatures are a conventional form of proof that there is an agreement. A handshake or a verbal statement – or text mesage – could also serve as evidence of the agreement, though there could be problems with the quality of the evidence (e.g. how do the witnesses know which piece of paper you agreed to). There is not a huge body of law surrounding text messages (and apparently none regarding text messages and contracts). We know that a text message is not a "printed receipt" (Shlahtichman v. 800 Contacts), and that a text message is a "call" w.r.t. the Do-Not-Call law (Campbell-Ewald Company v. Jose Gomez, Keating v. Nelnet). The closest that I have been able to come in terms of a decision about whether a text message is "written" is Commonwealth v. Mulgrave 472 Mass. 170, which states that While Massachusetts appellate courts have yet to approve admission of text messages or any other writing under the spontaneous utterance exception to the hearsay rule... The wording "any other writing" implies that the court believes text messages to be "writing", which of course it is if you look at the plain meaning of the word "write". Contracts can be formed and signed by email: 15 USC 7001 states that a signature, contract, or other record relating to such transaction may not be denied legal effect, validity, or enforceability solely because it is in electronic form....a contract relating to such transaction may not be denied legal effect, validity, or enforceability solely because an electronic signature or electronic record was used in its formation so the fact of electronic writing does not make the contract non-written. There must be a venerable and well-known rationale behind the written / oral asymmetry, which presumably has to do with the volatility of memory which would be front and center in a dispute about oral contracts. FRE 1001 "clarifies" that a "writing" consists of letters, words, numbers, or their equivalent set down in any form, and that a "recording" consists of letters, words, numbers, or their equivalent recorded in any manner. 15 USC 7001 also states that An oral communication or a recording of an oral communication shall not qualify as an electronic record for purposes of this subsection except as otherwise provided under applicable law So a recording of an oral contract would be useful to prove that there was an agreement, but would not change the fact that the contract is oral.

You certainly can't legally steal anything, ever. If it is legal, it is not stealing. In particular, if it is your property, it isn't stealing. The question is really, "is it your property"? This will be jurisdiction dependant. I am familiar with England and Wales, and other common law jurisdictions may be similar. The fact you co-signed for the car definitely does not make it your property. It just means that out of the goodness of your heart, you agreed to reduce the finance company's risk by promising to pay if your ex-friend didn't. In E&W, I don't think it is possible to register a car jointly, but there is a long page explaining that the registered keeper is not necessarily the owner of the car. My guess is that the car probably does not belong to you, so if you take it you will probably end up with a conviction for theft.

I am not a lawyer either, though I have been through Pennsylvania a few times. The relevant law is 18 Pa.C.S. 5703, which prohibits recording without consent of all parties (Penna is a "two-party consent" state, like Florida and Washington). Unfortunately, violation of that law is a third degree felony, which has a maximum of 7 year prison. A specific instance of someone getting in trouble for recording their boss is Commonwealth v. Smith (Smith used a cell phone to record his boss, then argued that a cell phone isn't a "device"; the court determined that it is, and that was Feb 16 2016 so who knows the final outcome). An attorney in Pennsylvania might be able to tell you how often people actually serve time for violating the law. You should call one.

Can a tourist who incidentally photographs children, be forced to delete the image? Here's a hypothetical: A tourist is visiting a popular attraction and decides to take photographs as a memento. Some of the photographs incidentally have other people in them including children. A concerned mother comes over to the tourist and demands that the photograph be deleted immediately but is refused. The mother calls the police. Is any offence committed, and can the tourist be forced to delete the image? I ask this because the media seemingly scaremongers everyone to believe that everyone is out to get their kids.

In the UK, no offence is committed, however many public locations cite the Data Protection Act 1998 as a reason to stop people taking pictures. DPA does not mention this topic at all, and is a red herring (however informing the location of this is unlikely to help, I have discovered) In fact, in the UK, the only laws that appear to exist cover either specific locations and properties (eg military installations) or using photography to take pictures of individuals in areas where they have an expectation of privacy. The Photographer's Rights Guide published by digitalcameraworld in 2012 is still current as far as I can see. It has this specific guidance: Photographers Rights: Taking Pictures of People in Public Are you breaking any law when you’re taking pictures of people in public? Probably not, but the position under UK law is uncertain. There are currently no general privacy laws under UK law, but the UK courts must take into account the European Convention on Human Rights, which gives everyone the right to respect for their private and family life. As this is an area of law that has been developing rapidly over the last few years, it is hard to be certain what will constitute an infringement. The key issue is whether the place the image is taken is one where a person would have a reasonable expectation of privacy. For example, it has been suggested that the right of privacy of a child could be infringed by publishing a photo of them with their parents in a public street. It is therefore advisable to be careful when taking photos intended for publication, even where the subject matter is in a public place. Failure to obtain a model release for the use of an image will certainly make it harder to sell the picture to stock libraries. Photographing children The same laws apply to adult and child subjects, but a child does not have the legal capacity to consent and a parent or guardian must therefore do so on their behalf. Be aware that schools, leisure centres and places where children and adults gather usually have their own photography restrictions. Although decent photos of children (see our tips for better pictures of babies, children and teenagers) taken in a public place may be fine for non-commercial use, seek permission from the child’s parents or guardians and don’t shoot covertly with a long lens. For commercial images, you’ll need to get a model release signed by the parents. Also read the section on the powers of police and security guards.

I would serve the parents (certified mail), with a "cease and desist" letter, telling them that the children are repeatedly trespassing on your property and that you want them to stop; even get the police involved if you have to. I know it sounds harsh, but you said New England; that's where I live and I know the trespass laws are not in your favor ... especially when it comes to kids. Take Connecticut as an example: This is their law on trespass and kids (not just attractive nuisance!): A possessor of land owes each person who enters his land a certain duty of care based on the person's status. The legal significance is that a possessor of land has the duty to an invitee to inspect the premises for hidden defects and to repair or erect safeguards, if necessary, to make the premises reasonably safe. He has no duty to inspect or to repair or erect safeguards for licensees. But he is liable if he knows of a condition, realizes it involves unreasonable risk, has reason to believe the licensee will not discover it, and he permits the licensee to enter or remain without warning or making the condition reasonably safe. Generally, an owner owes trespassers no duty of care because he has no reason to expect them to be on his property. Therefore, he does not have to warn or protect them from potentially harmful conditions on the property. However, an exception applies if a property owner knows, or has reason to anticipate, that children will trespass on his land. In this case, a special duty arises and the owner must take steps to protect children from any of the property's dangerous conditions. The post you just made indicates even you think that the rock walls, or other "normal garden features" could be dangerous; and they can be! The law requires that you take reasonable steps to eliminate the condition or by otherwise keeping children away from it. DUTY OWED TO TRESPASSER In Connecticut, the following rules apply to a possessor of land with respect to a trespasser. He may not intentionally harm the trespasser or lay a trap for him. The trespasser is entitled to due care after his presence is actually known. There is no duty owed regarding the condition of the premises. The possessor of land has no duty to trespassers if he is engaged in a dangerous activity until the person's presence is know. The possessor of land has no duty to warn trespassers of dangerous hidden conditions (Conn. Law of Torts, § 47). Duty Owed to Trespassing Children Connecticut's appellate courts have adopted the Restatement (Second) of Torts rule regarding the duty of a property owner to trespassing children (Duggan v. Esposito, 178 Conn. 156 (1979), Neal v. Shiels, Inc., 166 Conn. 3 (1974), Greene v. DiFazio, 148 Conn. 419 (1961), Wolfe v. Rehbein, 123 Conn. 110 (1937), Yeske v. Avon Old Farms School, Inc., 1 Conn. App. 195 (1984)). Under this rule, if an owner knows or has reason to know that children will be on his property, he has the duty to protect them from injury by either fixing the harmful condition or ensuring that the children will not have access to that part of the property. The rule states that a possessor of land is liable for harm to trespassing children caused by an artificial condition on the land if (1) the possessor knows or has reason to know that children are likely to trespass in that place, (2) the condition is one the possessor knows or has reason to know and should realize will involve an unreasonable risk of death or serious bodily harm to children, (3) the children because of their youth do not discover the condition or realize the risk, (4) the utility of maintaining the condition and the burden of eliminating the danger are slight compared with the risk to children involved, and (5) the possessor fails to exercise reasonable care to eliminate the danger or otherwise protect children (Restatement (Second), 2 Torts 339). Put in the letter that you are disclaiming any liability for injury to them that may occur on your property, and make them aware of all the ways they could be injured – so they've been informed. You don't have a duty to remove rock walls because unsupervised kids jump off them. They are not invitees, they are trespassers. So make it known you do not want them on the land and for any further breach you will call the police. Because otherwise you could be responsible. Using CT again as an example, you could include the legal statute about trespass in your notice: Trespass Crimes and Infractions A person commits first degree criminal trespass when (1) he enters or remains in a building or any other premises after the owner or an authorized person personally communicates an order to leave or not enter and (2) he knows that he is not licensed or privileged to be there. This crime also applies to entering or remaining at a place in violation of a retraining or protective order. This is a class A misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in prison, a fine of up to $2,000, or both (CGS § 53a-107). A person commits second degree criminal trespass when he enters or remains in a building knowing that he is not licensed or privileged to do so. This is a class B misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in prison, a fine of up to $1,000, or both (CGS § 53a-108). A person commits third degree criminal trespass when, knowing he is not licensed or privileged to do so, he enters or remains in any premises for hunting, trapping, or fishing or enters or remains in premises that are posted in a manner prescribed by law or reasonably likely to come to the attention of intruders or that are fenced or enclosed to exclude intruders. This also applies to state lands near state institutions. This is a class C misdemeanor punishable by up to three months in prison, a fine of up to $500, or both (CGS § 53a-109). It is a defense to these crimes if (1) the building was abandoned, (2) the premises at the time of entry were open to the public and the person complied with all lawful conditions on access and remaining on the premises, or (3) the person reasonably believed that the owner (or someone else with the power to do so) would have or did license him to enter or remain on the premises (CGS § 53a-110). A person commits simple trespass if, knowing he is not licensed or privileged to do so, he enters premises without intent to harm any property. This is an infraction punishable by a fine, currently $77 plus costs and fees if paid by mail (CGS § 53a-110a). A separate infraction covers trespass on railroad property when a person enters or remains on the property without lawful authority or consent of the railroad carrier. This is currently a $121 fine plus costs and fees if paid by mail (CGS § 53a-110d). You could just substitute your state's laws if you're in MA, or RI, or wherever. You could have a lawyer draft this letter for probably $200 (free if you have a friend who practices :~) and that will really scare them. Tell them they will be liable for any damage the kids cause/or may cause to your property. But without doubt, put them on notice!

There was no actual child who was caused to view the material, so there was no offense under that provision. By contrast, inciting a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity is an inchoate offense, so it is not necessary for any harm to an actual victim to have occurred. Note that the relevant section of the Sexual Offenses Act 2003 concerns "causing or inciting," and that the charge was "inciting." The section concerning watching a sexual act, by contrast, only inludes "causing."

In addition to the general considerations of (1) who is allowed to use non-deadly physical force to maintain order in a shop (which I think that one could do if "deputized" by the property owner or to protect the property of another as well), and (2) the use of non-deadly physical force to make a citizen's arrest (which many of these scenarios would justify as the disorder would be a crime if committed by an adult), (3) I suspect that there is also some point at which a bystander may intervene to prevent harms associated with an unsupervised minor being at large and in need of supervision. Generally speaking, intervention with the minimum reasonable non-deadly physical force to prevent property damage, or an assault, or a threat, is going to be permissible. As to the third reason: for a mentally normal ten-year-old that might be a stretch; for a four-year-old or a clearly impaired older child it might not. One could approach the child, say, "where's your mom or dad", "do you have a babysitter or sibling around?", "what is your name?", or "are you lost?" and detain the child until a satisfactory answer is provided or a suitable authority arrives, to prevent the problem of a child being lost, abducted or hurt by the child's own actions. It would be quite hard for a parent, guardian or babysitter to complain about this kind of conduct when the child was unsupervised and is released as soon as you confirm that this really is a responsible adult or older minor who is responsible for the child. It would be important in doing so to not secret away or isolate the child, to try to determine the location of the child's caretaker, to refrain from doing anything that would harm the child, and to seek assistance from an authority within a reasonable time. Typically, if no caretaker appeared, a cop would come and the cop would oversee the situation until a social worker could come. For example, Colorado has the following statute that would apply once a cop arrived (omitting lengthy provisions that apply to newborn children): § 19-3-401. Taking children into custody (1) A child may be taken into temporary custody by a law enforcement officer without order of the court: (a) When the child is abandoned, lost, or seriously endangered in such child's surroundings or seriously endangers others and immediate removal appears to be necessary for such child's protection or the protection of others; (b) When there are reasonable grounds to believe that such child has run away or escaped from such child's parents, guardian, or legal custodian and the child's parents, guardian, or legal custodian has not made a report to a law enforcement agency that the child has run away from home; . . . (1.3) A child shall be taken into temporary custody by a law enforcement officer without order of the court when there are reasonable grounds to believe the child has run away from the child's parents, guardian, or legal custodian and the child's parents, guardian, or legal custodian has made a report to a law enforcement agency that the child has run away from home. (1.5) An emergency exists and a child is seriously endangered as described in paragraph (a) of subsection (1) of this section whenever the safety or well-being of a child is immediately at issue and there is no other reasonable way to protect the child without removing the child from the child's home. If such an emergency exists, a child shall be removed from such child's home and placed in protective custody regardless of whether reasonable efforts to preserve the family have been made. (2) The taking of a child into temporary custody under this section shall not be deemed an arrest, nor shall it constitute a police record. A child is considered neglected or dependent under circumstances including the following (provisions related to drug or alcohol abuse by parents omitted): § 19-3-102. Neglected or dependent child (1) A child is neglected or dependent if: (a) A parent, guardian, or legal custodian has abandoned the child or has subjected him or her to mistreatment or abuse or a parent, guardian, or legal custodian has suffered or allowed another to mistreat or abuse the child without taking lawful means to stop such mistreatment or abuse and prevent it from recurring; (b) The child lacks proper parental care through the actions or omissions of the parent, guardian, or legal custodian; (c) The child's environment is injurious to his or her welfare; (d) A parent, guardian, or legal custodian fails or refuses to provide the child with proper or necessary subsistence, education, medical care, or any other care necessary for his or her health, guidance, or well-being; (e) The child is homeless, without proper care, or not domiciled with his or her parent, guardian, or legal custodian through no fault of such parent, guardian, or legal custodian; (f) The child has run away from home or is otherwise beyond the control of his or her parent, guardian, or legal custodian; I don't have easily at hand legal authority authorizing a third-party who is not a law enforcement officer to take custody of a dependent or neglected child until a law enforcement officer arrives, but I strongly suspect from the context that this is allowed either under common law, or a statute that I have not located, or some legal fiction (e.g., that the citizen is implicitly deputized by the law enforcement officer after the fact), or simply as a matter of custom and ordinary practice not codified in any authoritative legal source.

what the law says about a person sending nude photos to a 10 year old child. The pictures are of her mom. This is a felony under Australian law and comes under the umbrella of Child sexual assault. The following quotes are from Statutory definitions of child sexual abuse, from the Australian State and Federal Governments. From the legislation for Northern Territory: Care and Protection of Children Act 2007 Exploitation of child Exploitation of a child includes sexual and any other forms of exploitation of the child. Without limiting subsection (1), sexual exploitation of a child includes: (a) sexual abuse of the child; and (b) involving the child as a participant or spectator in any of the following: (i) an act of a sexual nature; (ii) prostitution; (iii) a pornographic performance. This type of abuse would also constitute Child Sexual Abuse and Child abuse generally. The person is also calling the child's mom a whore and talking about sexually explicit acts he is doing From the legislation for Australian Capital Territory: Children and Young People Act 2008 In this Act: "abuse", of a child or young person, means- .../... (d) emotional abuse (including psychological abuse) if- (i) the child or young person has seen or heard the physical, sexual or psychological abuse of a person with whom the child or young person has a domestic relationship, the exposure to which has caused or is causing significant harm to the wellbeing or development of the child or young person; .../...

The first sub-question here is whether (public) schools can compel (parents of) students to acquire internet service, a computer, and a webcam. The MA Dept. of Education maintains that public schools must purchase at public expense textbooks and other instructional materials and supplies intended for use and re-use over a period of years, and computers fall in the category of materials intended for schools to purchase and use and re-use. There is no legislative authority to compel parents to purchase equipment or sign up for internet services. If there is a choice between in-person and online instruction, the legal requirement to attend school can be satisfied by in-person instruction. The second sub-question is whether, if a child does have the technical ability to be connected to class via the internet, can they legally require the camera to be turned on? Every district has rules, so if there is a rule requiring parental consent in this situation, then parental consent is required. If it is legal at that level, there is still a legal risk to the school. Schools can generally do those things that are reasonably necessary for educating students as long as it doesn't infringe on fundamental constitutional rights, and the camera-on requirement is educationally reasonable. The risk to the school is violating the federal law FERPA, specifically a potential violation of the privacy requirements. Schools must protect personal information, which includes anything streaming from the camera (pictures, for example, are personally identifiable information). If you assume that they have an absolutely secure connection, then there is no risk of privacy violation. However, if you believe, even reasonably so, that a school practice creates a risk of breach of privacy, that still does not create a special right to avoid school.

An individual has no authority or legal basis to demand a personal "fine" for a perceived offense. The actions in the two scenarios would both be blackmail. although whether they would be prosecuted is quite another question. It would be reasonable for the shopkeeper to demand compensation for the lost merchandise. The offender (or the offender's parents) might offer to pay, either because they thought it the right thing, or in hopes to induce the shopkeeper not to call in the police. But if they specifically made "no police" a condition of payment, that would be bribery or attempted bribery. The resident in scenario 2 could demand compensation for an alleged civil wrong of excessive noise, whether or not the passer-by was speeding. ote that the amount of noise made would not be directly related to the speed of any driver (although no doubt there would be some relation) and no one driver would be responsible for keeping the resident up. I doubt that a civil suit, if pressed that far, would prevail, although it would depend on the factual details. The specific law of the local jurisdiction would also matter. But the moment there is a threat to bring evidence of a possible crime to the police, and a request for money instead, that is blackmail.

In the US, the details are determined at the state level. The term "abandonment" is used very broadly, and can include a situation where a parent leaves a child without making contact for a period of time (which may result in termination of parental rights, but not a punishment). "Abandonment" as it applies in Washington state is explained here. There is what is known as a "safe haven" law, which allows a newborn (under 72 hours old) to be transferred (anonymously) to a qualified recipient (health care employee, medic, etc.), and not be liable under the criminal laws. This does not include dumping the infant in the snow. Under RCW 9A.42.020, the parent would be guilty of criminal mistreatment in the first degree if their action "causes great bodily harm to a child or dependent person by withholding any of the basic necessities of life" (note that the law is not specific to children), and this is a class B felony. There are multiple grades of mistreatment, so if the action "creates an imminent and substantial risk of bodily injury" or "causes bodily injury or extreme emotional distress manifested by more than transient physical symptoms", this is 4th degree mistreatment, which is a misdemeanor. There are, in parallel fashion, laws against abandonment of a dependent starting at RCW 9A.42.060, punished as a class B felony down to a gross misdemeanor. The maximum penalty for a class B felony is $20,000 and 10 years in prison, and for a simple misdemeanor it is 90 days and $1,000. In case death results, the discussion could move to the homicide statutes. Homicide by abuse is when, with extreme indifference to human life, the person causes the death of a child or person under sixteen years of age, a developmentally disabled person, or a dependent adult, and the person has previously engaged in a pattern or practice of assault or torture of said child, person under sixteen years of age, developmentally disabled person, or dependent person. and this is a class A felony. If a person "recklessly causes the death of another person", this is manslaughter in the first degree (class A felony), but if it is "with criminal negligence", it is manslaughter in the second degree (a class B felony). Manslaughter charges are predicated on there not being an intent to kill. If the intent was to actually kill the child, this would be first degree homicide, where the punishment is life imprisonment. Additionally, first degree homicide can be found if "under circumstances manifesting an extreme indifference to human life, he or she engages in conduct which creates a grave risk of death to any person, and thereby causes the death of a person". State v. Edwards is a relevant case, where a person was charged with both second degree murder and homicide by abuse, and the issue came up that "extreme indifference to human life" is not a self-evident expression. It turns out that case law in Washington interprets this, as applied to first degree murder, as meaning "indifference to human life in general", not "indifference to the life of the specific victim". After a lengthy review of principles of judicial interpretation, the court upheld the trial court's refusal to give the first-degree murder definition of indifference, that is, it is up the the jury to decide what constitutes extreme indifference, for homicides other than 1st degree murder.