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[ { "answer_id": 603, "body": "<p>From Baker, Donald I. \"To Indict or Not to Indict: Prosecutorial Discretion in Sherman Act Enforcement.\" Cornell L. Rev. 63 (1977): 405:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>The Assistant Attorney General must ultimately decide whether\n to bring a criminal prosecution. He bases that choice in part\n upon articulated principles, in part upon intuition gained from\n experience, and ultimately upon the facts of the particular case.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The choice to prosecute Microsoft and not Google, Apple, or Mozilla for (what you claim to be) ostensibly similar activities is an exercise of prosecutorial discretion. My guess is that the Attorney General's office simply does not believe the actions of the other companies rise to the level of an antitrust violation. When they believe they do, they prosecute. (<a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Apple_Inc.\" rel=\"noreferrer\"><em>United States of America v. Apple Inc.</em>, et al., 12 Civ. 2862 (DLC)</a>).</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp.#Settlement\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Microsoft settled their case</a>. No other party is responsible for Microsoft's decision to settle, even if they were doing the same thing, and even if they are later found to be guilty for or come to a settlement agreement regarding the same thing.</p>\n", "score": 5 }, { "answer_id": 615, "body": "<p>The Sherman Antitrust Act was written in the 1890s. It does not deal with the packaging of web browsers. It deals with monopolies and 'trusts'. (In this context 'trusts' are contracts between companies to fix prices and create effective monopolies. This was a major problem with steel and oil in the 1890s.)</p>\n\n<p>It was alleged that Microsoft conspired to restrain the trade in web browsers, and attempted to create a monopoly in the web browser market place.</p>\n\n<p>The relevant text is</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>15 U.S. Code § 1 - Trusts, etc., in restraint of trade illegal; penalty</p>\n \n <p>Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal. Every person who shall make any contract or engage in any combination or conspiracy hereby declared to be illegal shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding $100,000,000 if a corporation, or, if any other person, $1,000,000, or by imprisonment not exceeding 10 years, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>(<a href=\"https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/1\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/1</a>)</p>\n\n<p>and</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>15 U.S. Code § 2 - Monopolizing trade a felony; penalty</p>\n \n <p>Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding $100,000,000 if a corporation, or, if any other person, $1,000,000, or by imprisonment not exceeding 10 years, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>(<a href=\"https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/2\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/2</a>)</p>\n\n<p>(At the time of the Microsoft prosecutions, the fines were lower.)</p>\n\n<p>The background: Microsoft were the dominant purveyor of computer operating systems at the time of the \"browser wars\", a time when numerous browser companies were selling internet browsers or otherwise providing them for free to the market.</p>\n\n<p>Microsoft started giving away Internet Explorer as an integrated part of Windows. They were also alleged to have changed or exploited the way Windows worked to make that integration very tight, to the exclusion of competing products. (By not exposing key APIs publicly.)</p>\n\n<p>The prosecution's case was that Microsoft used its market power as the dominant operating system provider in an attempt to monopolize the browser trade, which it regarded as a separate area of trade. It was argued that this was an intentional and deliberate process to exclude and kill off competitors.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Paul Maritz, a senior Microsoft vice president, [is alleged to have stated] an intention to \"extinguish\" and \"smother\" rival Netscape Communications Corporation and to \"cut off Netscape's air supply\" by giving away a clone of Netscape's flagship product for free.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://www.webcitation.org/query?id=1298665666970514\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.webcitation.org/query?id=1298665666970514</a></p>\n\n<p>In the first trial, the prosecution were successful, and a break up of the Microsoft Corporation into separate companies making different products was ordered as a remedy. However on appeal the DC Circuit Court of Appeals quashed the lower court's finding and held that the judge in question had not merely committed errors of law but acted unethically in other matters on the case.</p>\n\n<p>Microsoft and the Department of Justice later reached a settlement.</p>\n\n<p>Wikipedia has a nice description if you are interested in the soap opera side of the case: <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp</a>.</p>\n\n<p>It has been suggested in the other answer that the US Attorney General could simply decline, as a matter of prosecutorial discretion, to prosecute clear breaches of the Sherman Act committed by Microsoft competitors. However, the Sherman Act also creates a duty on US Attorneys—</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>it shall be the duty of the several United States attorneys, in their respective districts, under the direction of the Attorney General, to institute proceedings in equity to prevent and restrain such violations.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/9\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/9</a></p>\n\n<p>Now in your question you say, \"today every operating system has its own built-in browser\"—the background is quite different to that of the 1990s. Apple, Microsoft and Google, are competitors in many spheres. My belief is that it would be quite difficult to accuse any of them in conspiring to create a monopoly, because there are many alternative products one can use these days to achieve the same ends. Moreover, all of them have learnt from the prosecution of Microsoft that there are limits to how tightly products can be bundled.</p>\n", "score": 3 } ]

[ "software", "antitrust-law" ]

[ { "answer_id": 609, "body": "<p>(Most of this post is focused on discussion of the surrounding issues, with little in the way of advice. If you actually have to deal with this problem, skip to the end.)</p>\n\n<p>American defamation law is extraordinarily weak (relative to Europe) thanks to <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._Sullivan\" rel=\"nofollow\"><em>New York Times Co. v. Sullivan</em></a>, which established the actual malice standard (you're only liable for defamation against a public figure if you knowingly published false information or wrote with \"reckless disregard for the truth,\" which basically means you didn't care whether it was true). American courts are loath to interfere with freedom of speech or of the press just to make some politician happy. This suggests to me that a libel-in-fiction claim would be a long shot to begin with. Interestingly, <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPEECH_Act\" rel=\"nofollow\">we also have specific protection against foreign libel judgments</a>, so I'll just be focusing on American law.</p>\n\n<p>On the other hand, <a href=\"http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/law-order-faces-a-case-of-libel-in-fiction\" rel=\"nofollow\">it does happen</a> (NB: In New York, the \"State Supreme Court\" is the <em>lowest</em> court in the state). For our purposes, here is the most relevant paragraph:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Mr. Batra filed his lawsuit under a doctrine known as libel-in-fiction. To win his case, he must demonstrate that the identities of the real and fictional characters “must be so complete that the defamatory material” becomes a “plausible aspect” of the plaintiff’s real life, Justice Shafer wrote in her ruling, quoting case law.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>It seems to me that a composite character could not pass that test. But it's less clear to me that this standard is in use across the entire US (what case is the judge quoting from?). And frankly, you don't really want to be in court arguing over this sort of thing unless you're very clearly in the right. In this case, NBC has already lost, because they now need to go through discovery and probably a full trial. That's expensive. (Actually, this happened back in 2008, but I haven't been able to find any further information about this case via cursory Googling. I imagine they quietly settled, but I can't confirm that. If anyone has a more recent link, it would really help.)</p>\n\n<p>I found that link in <a href=\"http://www.rightsofwriters.com/2010/12/could-i-be-liable-for-libel-in-fiction.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">this blog post</a>, which seems to be very detailed and well-referenced. I would suggest consulting it for further information.</p>\n\n<p>If you look at the copyright page of a book, you may see a <a href=\"http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThisIsAWorkOfFiction\" rel=\"nofollow\">notice</a> like this one:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I find it rather hard to believe you can actually disclaim liability with a notice buried in part of the book which no one reads (unlike contract law, the reader never explicitly \"agrees\" to this disclaimer), but it probably doesn't hurt.</p>\n\n<p><strong>In short</strong>: Talk to your publisher, your editor, and their lawyer(s). They've dealt with this issue before and have a vested interest in helping you. If you're self-publishing, it's probably a good idea to discuss this and other legal issues (such as copyright registration) with a lawyer, since doing all those things by yourself can get rather complicated.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "united-states", "libel" ]

[ { "answer_id": 84, "body": "<p>A disclaimer claiming to disclaim authors of content on the website can/cannot protect those authors depending upon:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Visibility of the Disclaimer on the website</li>\n<li>On whether it can be proved that the disclaimer was included intentionally to be brought into the user's notice.</li>\n<li>Location of the dispute.</li>\n<li>In United States many courts have ruled in favor of the disclaimers if the were strategically placed not to be missed by the user.</li>\n<li>In European Union on the other hand there is a directive which strikes down legal obligations which have been imposed and this would make disclaimers unenforceable. </li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>For more information, please refer <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_disclaimer\">This Link</a></p>\n", "score": 6 } ]

[ "united-states", "internet" ]

[ { "answer_id": 582, "body": "<p>No, you cannot just call the police and throw him out.</p>\n\n<p>Here are two concepts which sound a bit abstract: \"<em>who does the property belong to</em>\" and \"<em>who can use this property</em>\".</p>\n\n<p>Let's say I rent an apartment. One night, the landlord knocked on the door and asked to stay for the night. I have <em>every</em> right to kick him out. Why? This is my <strong><em>home</em></strong>. This area is for my private residential use. I certainly has ultimate decision power on what activities can happen inside this area.</p>\n\n<p>But the landlord owns the place. He can sell, transfer, or otherwise stop renting the place to me, <strong><em>provided that a reasonable time is given to notify the occupant</em></strong>. He cannot, out of no where, show up next morning and tell me I have 30 minutes to get all my stuff out of the apartment. That is just utterly unfair.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p><em>Does he need to physically hand over the key?</em></p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Well, not really. He needs to return the place to its original condition. He needs to remove all stuff brought by him. If he drilled a hole in a wall, he has to patch it. If he removed a cabinet, he need to <strong>put it back</strong>. Finally he needs to give you access. Physically handing over the key is one of many ways.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p><em>Ideally I would add a clause to the contract so a tenant waives this right when this kind of breach occurs.</em></p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Nope. You cannot. Even if you add this clause, the court would likely consider this clause <strong><em>unenforceable</em></strong> (but does not void the rest of the contract!). Such clause is to bias towards the landlord. You must give the occupant a reasonable time to respond to your request of asking him to move out.</p>\n\n<p>Let's suppose:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I have already sent several notices, demanding him to move out, but\n after 3 months, he is still occupying the property</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>If that is the case, you can take him to the court. He has no legal ground to occupy and continue to use the property which he does not belong.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>A reasonable time of a move out notice is usually 30 days, here in HK.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "rental-property", "hong-kong" ]

[ { "answer_id": 606, "body": "<h1>Sort of.</h1>\n<p>In this instance, it doesn't seem that the damages awarded (if any) would be <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damages#Compensatory_or_expectation_damages\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">compensatory damages</a>, but <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damages#Speculative_damages\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">speculative damages</a>. <a href=\"http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/speculative_damages\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">A good definition is</a></p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Possible financial loss or expenses claimed by a plaintiff that are contingent upon a future occurrence, purely conjectural, or highly improbable. These damages should not be awarded. For example, a plaintiff may claim that in ten years, as he ages, he may begin to feel pain from a healed fracture caused by a defendant (even though no doctor has testified this is likely to happen), and should therefore recover money from the defendant now.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>In order to be awarded compensation, a plaintiff <em>must</em> prove that there is a high likelihood that the future event would occur. The required likelihood may be subjective, in part because it is hard to estimate the odds of many claims. In the situation given here, there is a 0.1% chance of a payoff. That is most likely far too low to be considered likely.</p>\n<p>Now, if the plaintiff argued for <a href=\"http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/actual_damages\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">compensatory damages</a>, then s/he might receive an amount of money equivalent to the price of one lottery ticket - or the same ticket back. Assuming the original ticket is destroyed, the odds are the same (and even if it is not destroyed, the odds change by only a tiny amount); the same thing happens if the original ticket is returned, instead. The plaintiff has not lost any chance to win the million dollars.</p>\n<p>Bonus question: If you paid $500 or $2,000 dollars and wanted to be awarded compensatory damages, you might receive those sums of money. If you wanted to be awarded speculative damages, you would most likely receive nothing, because the odds are the same.</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "common-law" ]

[ { "answer_id": 594, "body": "<p>There is no general duty to carry your identity with you when inside the UK, nor to identify yourself to any official. Many UK citizens have no photographic proof of identity at all. (My parents did not for many years, until they obtained fresh passports.)</p>\n\n<p>I am confused where you could be stopped by immigration officers. If you appear at a UK Border without your passport, it is a real headache, but immigration can find your record on the computer and will, if you satisfy them you are a UK citizen, eventually admit you. (They have no power to deny entry to a British Citizen, and must be satisfied you are not a British citizen to deny you entry.) For clarity, in respect of some comments, I am not advising that anyone should do this, but I am saying in the worse case scenario if somehow you end up without documents you can still be looked up in the computer, and your identity can be checked at the UK Border without a passport.</p>\n\n<p>In general you are not required to identify yourself to a police officer, unless you are arrested.\n<a href=\"http://www.findlaw.co.uk/law/criminal/your_rights/500109.html\" rel=\"noreferrer\">http://www.findlaw.co.uk/law/criminal/your_rights/500109.html</a></p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>If I am stopped and searched, do I have to give my name and address?</p>\n \n <p>Although the police will likely ask for your name and address, you are not required to give it unless the police arrest you or are reporting you for an offence.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>There are a small number of occasions when you may be required (by law) to identify yourself when you are simply going about your private business. If you are driving a vehicle the police may stop you and require you to identify yourself. If you do not have your driving licence, you may produce it at court at a later date; in the mean time the police can check your status by computer. <a href=\"http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/part/VII/crossheading/powers-of-constables-and-other-authorised-persons/enacted?view=plain\" rel=\"noreferrer\">http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/part/VII/crossheading/powers-of-constables-and-other-authorised-persons/enacted?view=plain</a> </p>\n\n<p>If you are travelling domestically inside the UK by air, the police can stop you and require photographic identification at or after the security check point under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. (<a href=\"http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/schedule/7?view=plain\" rel=\"noreferrer\">http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/schedule/7?view=plain</a>) However, I travel within Great Britain by air several times a month and usually do not bring anything more than a credit card and a change of clothes, and I have never had any problems. Most airlines will \"advise\" you to bring photographic ID.</p>\n\n<p>If however you do travel between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, immigration staff are often interested in your status then. It is wise to have photographic ID on such a journey.</p>\n", "score": 12 }, { "answer_id": 592, "body": "<p>I've yet to find any source for this, but no: to the best of my knowledge, there's no requirement to carry any form of ID at all times in the UK. It's purely used for specific situations, e.g. buying alcohol. I certainly don't carry my passport on me at all times, and I don't think I know anyone else who does. There certainly seems to be no statute requiring British citizens to carry ID.</p>\n\n<p>Should you encounter a situation where identification of some kind is required - speeding when you don't have a copy of your driver's licence to hand is the most common example - you have 7 days to show your documentation to the police.</p>\n", "score": 4 } ]

[ "united-kingdom" ]

[ { "answer_id": 512, "body": "<p>The judgment (<a href=\"http://www.bailii.org/eu/cases/EUECJ/2014/C13112.html\">Google Spain and Google (Judgment of the Court) [2014] EUECJ C-131/12</a>) is definitive on this point at paragraph 41:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>...the activity of a search engine consisting in finding information published or placed on the internet by third parties, indexing it automatically, storing it temporarily and, finally, making it available to internet users according to a particular order of preference...</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>In your example, the blogger would be unaffected by the decision as his links are presumably collected and sorted by hand. However, the blog itself may be removed from Google <em>et al</em> at the request of John Doe.</p>\n", "score": 5 } ]

[ "copyright", "international" ]

[ { "answer_id": 371, "body": "<p>Fair comment is a defense against defamation claims where the statement at issue is an expression of opinion, reasonably based on (preferably disclosed or well-known) true facts, which is on a matter of public concern, and which is the honest opinion of the speaker which was not made specifically to cause harm. The basic idea is that on an issue of public concern, an honest opinion isn't defamatory unless it makes a reasonable listener think the speaker knows something that is in fact not true (the classic example is \"In my opinion, Jones is a liar:\" here the speaker implies he knows that Jones lied, which is a statement of fact that can be true or false).</p>\n\n<p>In your example, there are questions that have to be reached before fair comment even enters into it. First off, in US law <em>any</em> defamation claim has to be for a statement that a reasonable person would interpret as being a statement of fact or (if it's an opinion) implying a statement of fact (like \"I think Jones is a liar\"). This is context-dependent. \"I wouldn't let my child be alone with someone like <em>famous convicted pedophile 1</em>, <em>famous convicted pedophile 2</em>, or <em>politician</em>\" is more likely to be read as \"<em>politician</em> is a pedophile.\" A marked work of fiction is unlikely to be read as a statement of fact. If the statement is read as a simple opinion, or as pure fiction, there's no defamation under US law.</p>\n\n<p>Once we've established that an express or implied statement of fact is at issue, fair comment asks whether the fact is true or false and whether it's an issue of public concern. But in the US, with a politician, you'd never go for the fair comment defense, because you have a much stronger defense -- a politician can only win the suit if they show that not only is the statement false, but the speaker actually knew or strongly suspected that it was false. It's not enough that a reasonable person would suspect it's false; it has to reach the level of recklessness, which is <em>extremely</em> hard to show (public figures in the US do not often win defamation suits). This is strictly easier than for fair comment.</p>\n\n<p>If the politician wasn't a politician, and was actually a private figure, then fair comment could enter into it. In that case, the question is whether the statement is a reasonable opinion drawn from the (true) facts that lots of people didn't want their daughters alone with the person. While it's context-dependent, that could very well be fair comment.</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "united-states", "libel", "defamation" ]

[ { "answer_id": 540, "body": "<p><em>I am not a lawyer; I am not <strong>your</strong> lawyer.</em></p>\n\n<p>I may have some of the terminology wrong, and I haven't researched specific statutes or sections, but I recall an interesting interaction between the USA PATRIOT Act and EU/Dutch Data Storage Laws.¹</p>\n\n<p>EU Data Storage Statutes and Regulations generally require that owners of data (that is, those to whom the data refers, or those who the data identifies) are notified of access to the data by a third party.</p>\n\n<p>However, the USA PATRIOT Act contains requirements for the provision of data to law enforcement agencies, <em>without</em> notifying the owners.</p>\n\n<p>This conflict is a likely reason for the company being unable to locate data in the United States.</p>\n\n<p>As mentioned, there could (also) be contractual obligations that prevent them from doing so.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>_{\n1. I'll put this link here though, because my quick-and-dirty answer has yielded this article: <a href=\"http://www.forbes.com/sites/ciocentral/2012/01/02/can-european-firms-legally-use-u-s-clouds-to-store-data/\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.forbes.com/sites/ciocentral/2012/01/02/can-european-firms-legally-use-u-s-clouds-to-store-data/</a>\n}</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "international", "business" ]

[ { "answer_id": 534, "body": "<p>This language is almost certainly included in an attempt to make the agreement comply with the <a href=\"http://www2.publicationsduquebec.gouv.qc.ca/dynamicSearch/telecharge.php?type=2&amp;file=/C_11/C11_A.html\">Charter of the French Language</a>. The Charter is the legal document that sets French as the official language of the Canadian province of Quebec.</p>\n\n<p>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.\"</p>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n", "score": 7 }, { "answer_id": 464, "body": "<p>You see this most often when a legal document is available in multiple languages. Translation isn't perfect, so by stating that one language is the \"official\" version, it eliminates the possibility of having multiple, contradictory versions of the document, with all the potential problems that entails.</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "legal-history", "legal-writing" ]

[ { "answer_id": 530, "body": "<p>Countries, and supranational governments like the EU, have jurisdiction over companies that do business in their jurisdictions.</p>\n\n<p>Oracle is technically not a U.S. corporation; it's a closely related group of California and Delaware corporations. Very few companies incorporate under U.S. federal law (I believe some banking corporations are required to, but don't quote me on that). Almost all companies are incorporated under state law.</p>\n\n<p>However, if Oracle does business in Texas, it still has to obey Texas law. And if it does business in the EU, it still has to obey EU law.</p>\n\n<p>Some laws make distinctions in some corporate matters between domestic corporations (incorporated under that state's laws) and foreign corporations (incorporated under another state's laws). But if you do business in a state, including an EU member state, you still need to obey that state's general laws, including antitrust law.</p>\n\n<p>Short version: if you visit another country, you can't go around shooting people, then say, \"your laws don't apply to me, I'm an American.\" Neither can a company, no matter where it's incorporated.</p>\n\n<p>As for stopping the merger...any country where the merging companies do business can stop the merged company from doing business there if the merger violates local law. If this is a major, commercially important region like the EU, then failure to get EU approval will stop the merger. If it's a minor territory, the company will sometimes enter into an agreement to divest itself of local assets or entities. For example, if merging Oracle and Sun would create an antitrust problem in the minicomputer repair market in Laos, the merged entities would sell off either Oracle's or Sun's Laotian minicomputer repair division.</p>\n", "score": 7 }, { "answer_id": 531, "body": "<p>Chapka's answer covers the legal aspects that give the EU <em>authority</em> to impose their laws on US companies. However, there are also practical aspects around enforcing penalties. A court has no formal power outside its jurisdiction; a European court judgment (which is what happens if a company violates EU rules) can't be directly enforced in the US, because US law enforcement doesn't obey the orders of European courts. Enforcing those penalties can be done in two ways.</p>\n\n<p>First, the EU can ask US courts to enforce the EU judgment; the odds that this works depends on the specifics of the case. In general, US courts are more likely to enforce a judgment from a proceeding they view as fair, and if it's compatible with public policy. There's a pretty good chance an antitrust case against Google or Microsoft would be enforced in the US; they do a lot of business with Europe, and antitrust is something the two places both feel is good policy. In contrast, Chevron is currently fighting enforcement of an Ecuadorean judgment on the grounds that it was obtained based on fraud and corruption, and is having a fair amount of success so far.</p>\n\n<p>The alternative is to enforce a judgment on the assets the court <em>does</em> have jurisdiction over. Google and Oracle have many offices in the EU; they pass most of their revenue through Ireland and the Netherlands for tax reasons, but even without that they have real, legitimate offices in the EU. A judgment can be directly enforced against their assets there. To use the Chevron case as an example, Chevron transferred all its assets out of Ecuador, meaning that Ecuador can't directly seize anything.</p>\n", "score": 7 } ]

[ "european-union", "jurisdiction", "competition" ]

[ { "answer_id": 525, "body": "<p>It might possibly be illegal.</p>\n\n<p>For criminal law, usually you need to obey the laws of three countries:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>The country you are a national of (by personality principle)</li>\n<li>The country from where you make the sale (by territoriality principle)</li>\n<li>The country that hosts the attacked interest (by territoriality principle)</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Then it depends on the jurisdiction (and other factors) whether the sale is legal or not. I'll use the example of my country, Czech Republic.</p>\n\n<p>There is a crime called <em>\"Unauthorized access to a computer system or data storage device\"</em>. For example, you commit this crime by exploiting a vulnerability in a web application and copying the web owner's data on your computer.</p>\n\n<p>It is also codified that whoever wilfully facilitates the committing of a crime by providing the criminal with resources (such as the exploit) is considered to have also committed the crime. For this to apply, you must have known or expected that the exploit will be used to commit a crime. The courts would decide this. </p>\n", "score": 6 } ]

[ "software" ]

[ { "answer_id": 520, "body": "<p>The answer, as with almost every question about U.S. law, depends on the jurisdiction you're dealing with.</p>\n\n<p>In practice, though, most state and federal unfair trade practices (UTP) laws are based on one pretty basic question: is what the shipper is doing fair? These laws normally take the form of a long list of specifically prohibited practices, then a \"catch-all\" that basically says, if a reasonable person would think it's a scam, don't do it.</p>\n\n<p>In general, if the risks are disclosed to the customer, and the seller is acting in good faith, the mere fact of a long lead time will probably not be in violation, although of course state laws will vary; some may require refunds under some circumstances. If there is inadequate disclosure, or the seller has no intention of selling anything, then it will almost certainly fall under the state UTP law.</p>\n\n<p>In other words: if your unicorns only lay eggs every couple of blue moons, you can sell the rights to the next egg as long as you fully disclose this to the customer and, possibly, offer a refund option if your state requires it.</p>\n\n<p>If you're selling the rights to your unicorn eggs but you don't actually have any unicorns, you will almost certainly be in trouble.</p>\n\n<p>Mail order sales are a special case, governed by federal law. The FTC has <a href=\"https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/business-guide-ftcs-mail-internet-or-telephone-order\" rel=\"nofollow\">a faq for non-lawyers</a> on compliance with the law. But, again, all they require is that you are honest with your customers. There is a section specifically dealing with \"dry-testing,\" basically, selling a product that is not yet available (and that won't be if not enoiugh people order it). Here's what they say:</p>\n\n<p>In an advisory opinion, the FTC told a publishing company that it could \"dry-test\" its merchandise as long as the following conditions were met:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>In promoting the merchandise, the merchant can make no suggestion that the merchandise will be shipped or that customers expressing an\n interest in it will receive it.\n In all promotional materials, the merchant must disclose all material aspects of the promotion, including the fact that the\n merchandise is only planned and may not be shipped.\n If any part of the promotion is later dropped, the merchant must notify subscribers of the fact within a reasonable time after\n soliciting their subscriptions.\n If, within a reasonable time after soliciting their subscriptions, the merchant has made no decision to ship the merchandise, it must\n notify subscribers of this fact and give them the opportunity to\n cancel and, where payment has been made, make a prompt refund.\n The merchant can make no substitutions of any merchandise for that ordered.</p>\n</blockquote>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "united-states", "business" ]

[ { "answer_id": 519, "body": "<p>Whether your car is street legal in State A is determined entirely by the laws of State A.</p>\n\n<p>If the law of State A states that only a certain level of tint is acceptable, and doesn't make an exception for out-of-state registrations, you will be in violation. You may or may not get a ticket if you're just passing through, but if you do get one, you won't have a defense to it.</p>\n\n<p>The only way the law of State B would matter would be if:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>The law of State A actually incorporated State B law by saying something like, \"...unless the vehicle is registered in another state, the driver is a resident of that state, and the vehicle is in compliance with that state's laws.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>or</p>\n\n<ol start=\"2\">\n<li>The law of State A was independently unenforceable, either as written or as enforced; for example, if it affected some federal Constitutional right (e.g., \"Cars driven by suspicious-looking people may not have tinted windows,\" with only Black drivers being ticketed).</li>\n</ol>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "united-states", "canada", "vehicle", "interstate-travel" ]

[ { "answer_id": 509, "body": "<p>The origins aren't known exactly, as it turns out.</p>\n\n<p>Court dress goes back quite some time. Edward III - living up to the example of <a href=\"https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/69/in-the-past-how-did-lawyers-learn-the-academic-side-of-law\">Edward I</a>, and <em>his</em> legal improvements - was not the first to mandate that judges wear appropriate attire, but it became established during his reign. Judges of importance wore robes lined with fur and silk. Their attire also included a hood and cowl, as well as a mantle. Colors varied, with violet being the color of choice in the winter green in the summer.</p>\n\n<p>In medieval times, the coif, a white cap, was used by monks. Skullcaps (in black) were adopted later on, but wigs became the head covering of choice in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, largely because they became part of the formal clothing worn at the time - not just inside courtrooms.</p>\n\n<p>References:</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/about-the-judiciary/the-justice-system/history/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Court and Tribunals Judiciary</a></p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://www.cardozo.yu.edu/life/spring1999/wigs/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Wigs, Coifs, and Other Idiosyncrasies of English Judicial Attire</a></p>\n", "score": 4 } ]

[ "united-kingdom", "england-and-wales", "legal-history" ]

[ { "answer_id": 493, "body": "<p>Yes, there are international treaties that the UK would breach if they legalised narcotics. Those are:</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/treaties/single-convention.html\">The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961</a></p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/treaties/psychotropics.html\">The Convention on Psychotropic Substances, 1971</a>, and</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/treaties/illicit-trafficking.html\">The United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, 1988</a></p>\n\n<p>The majority of UN members are bound by these treaties: 185 of 193 for the 1961 and 1971 treaties, and 189 of 193 for the 1988 treaty. For a full list of signatories and of parties to the treaties, click 'Status of Treaty Adherence' under each treaty.</p>\n\n<p>As to what specific breach the UK would commit if narcotics were legalised, the answer can be found in one of the articles of the 1961 convention:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Article 4. General obligations</p>\n \n <p>The parties shall take such legislative and administrative measures as may be necessary:</p>\n \n <p>(a) To give effect to and carry out the provisions of this Convention within their own territories;</p>\n \n <p>(b) To co-operate with other States in the execution of the provisions of this Convention; and</p>\n \n <p>(c) Subject to the provisions of this Convention, to limit exclusively to medical and scientific purposes the production, manufacture, export, import, distribution of, trade in, use and possession of drugs.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>In other words, we are bound by this treaty to enact legislation to ensure that the use and possession of drugs is limited only to medical and scientific use.</p>\n", "score": 7 }, { "answer_id": 496, "body": "<p>For further information about how countries go about managing their international obligations whilst relaxing domestic legislation, the recent example of coca leaf in Bolivia is interesting. After proposing an amendment to the <a href=\"https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/treaties/illicit-trafficking.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">UN Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances of 1988</a> (which was rejected), the country withdrew from and then re-acceded to the <a href=\"https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/treaties/single-convention.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961</a>, adding a reservation that exempted coca leaf from the application of the treaty. Some countries objected but <a href=\"http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/2013/January/bolivia-to-re-accede-to-un-drug-convention-while-making-exception-on-coca-leaf-chewing.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">not enough to block the country's re-accession</a>.</p>\n\n<p>According to the <a href=\"http://www.un.org/press/en/2011/110624_Bolivia.doc.htm\" rel=\"nofollow\">Global Commission on Drug Policy</a>:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>“The idea that the international drug control system is immutable, and that any amendment — however reasonable or slight — is a threat to the integrity of the entire system, is short-sighted.”</p>\n</blockquote>\n", "score": 6 } ]

[ "international" ]

[ { "answer_id": 483, "body": "<p>California has a paid leave program. In order to qualify for disbursements you must make regular contributions to a state insurance fund.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>In 2002, California became the first state in the United States to create the Paid Family Leave (PFL) program – a family leave insurance program that provides income replacement to eligible workers for family caregiving or bonding with a new child. . . . Workers who contribute to the California State Disability Insurance (SDI) fund are entitled to six weeks of partial pay each year while taking time off from work . . . (<a href=\"http://paidfamilyleave.org/ask-us/what-is-paid-family-leave\" rel=\"nofollow\">Source</a>)</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>There may also be other opportunities.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Paid Family Leave provides partial income replacement to you while you are on leave if you have paid into State Disability Insurance (SDI) and you are eligible, but it does not guarantee job protection during your leave. However, you may be eligible for job-protected leave through the federal <a href=\"http://www.dol.gov/whd/fmla/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Family and Medical Leave Act</a> (FMLA), the <a href=\"http://www.dfeh.ca.gov/Publications_CFRADefined.htm\" rel=\"nofollow\">California Family Rights Act</a> (CFRA) or the California Pregnancy Disability Leave (PDL) law. If you are a union member, you may have the right to job-protected leave through a collective bargaining agreement. (<a href=\"http://paidfamilyleave.org/ask-us/what-are-my-rights\" rel=\"nofollow\">Source</a>)</p>\n</blockquote>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "california", "employment" ]

[ { "answer_id": 302, "body": "<p>(<a href=\"https://law.stackexchange.com/users/176/christian-conkle\"><em>I am not your lawyer. I am not here to help you.</em></a> If you are reading this because someone has died, please <em>stop</em> and instead read the <a href=\"https://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/taking-action/dealing-with-a-deceased&#39;s-estate-in-scotland\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Scottish Courts and Tribunals guide to dealing with a deceased's estate in Scotland</a>, or contact a solicitor.)</p>\n\n<p>Yes, in general. Section 1 of the <a href=\"http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1963/44/contents\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Wills Act 1963</a>, which is in force in Scotland, specifies that \"[a] will shall be treated as properly executed if its execution conformed to the internal law in force in the territory where it was executed.\" Furthermore, <a href=\"http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1963/44/section/4\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Section 4</a> states that \"[t]he construction of a will shall not be altered by reason of any change in the testator’s domicile after the execution of the will.\" \"Construction\" here refers to interpreting the language and effect of the will.</p>\n\n<p>So if the will was validly executed in England, it should also be in force in Scotland, and a Scottish court will give it the same meaning it would have had under English law.</p>\n\n<p>Furthermore, the same rule of validity seems to apply in both England and Scotland: <a href=\"http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Will4and1Vict/7/26/section/9\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Wills Act 1837 section 9</a>.</p>\n\n<p>There may be other Scottish laws affecting the disposition of the estate that differ from English law. Relevant statutes include <a href=\"http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1964/41/section/21A\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Succession (Scotland) Act 1964, section 21A</a>, which seems consistent with Wills Act 1963. </p>\n\n<p>(I am trained in U.S. rather than English or Scottish law; I'm trusting the accuracy of the UK's excellent online legislation archive for the proposition that the statutes cited are in force in Scotland. I haven't checked the case law for contrary interpretations.)</p>\n", "score": 10 } ]

[ "england-and-wales", "scotland", "wills" ]

[ { "answer_id": 482, "body": "<p>The relevant question for libel under US law is \"would a reasonable person understand this to be a statement of fact about the plaintiff, or to imply a statement of fact about the plaintiff.\" It doesn't directly matter if the name was changed or not; what matters is if a reasonable person would think the statements in question are talking about an actual person (the plaintiff) and are stating (or implying) actual facts, or if a reasonable person would think the statements in question are pure fiction and don't say anything factual about the plaintiff.</p>\n\n<p>Changing the name tends to make it seem more like fiction, but that's not always enough: suppose I write a long fictional story about Theodore Bau, who is active on the Pile Market series of online Q&amp;A sites, particularly a history one and a board games one, who published an economics book in 2004 and was an econ and history double major, and <em>fills in more details from Tom's SE bios</em>, and in the book talk about how Mr. Bau stole money from clients; I then send thto potential clients of Tom Au. The fact that I changed the names and said \"this is a work of fiction and any similarities are coincidental\" isn't exactly an automatic get-off-scot-free card.</p>\n\n<p>On the other hand, if I'm telling a story about Tom Au that uses a fair bit of your backstory, with no disclaimer that any similarities are pure coincidence but Mr. Au lives a secret life as a legitimate supervillain, a reasonable person is unlikely to conclude that I'm saying that you <em>actually</em> have a volcanic lair and that you are <em>actually</em> plotting to capture a US and a Russian missile sub to provoke a nuclear war.</p>\n\n<p>In this case, the court determined that a reasonable person familiar with the context could understand the book to be talking about the plaintiff's actual behavior, instead of just talking about a fictional character. The fact that it was fiction and the names were changed suggested that it wasn't talking about the real plaintiff, but the details of the book could make it go the other way.</p>\n", "score": 6 } ]

[ "libel" ]

[ { "answer_id": 462, "body": "<p>By changing the name, the filmmakers are signaling that the character in the movie is not acting the way the real-life person acted.</p>\n\n<p>It is not uncommon for historical fiction--which is basically what the \"Moneyball\" film is--to combine historical characters for narrative purposes, or to invent new characters to drive the plot. If you see a movie where Henry V stops to talk to Joe Welshman, a common soldier, before a battle, you assume that Henry V was at that battle, but you don't assume that the soldier is a historical person whose words with the king happened to be recorded on a nearby tape recorder.</p>\n\n<p>So, if you watch a movie where some characters have real people's names, like Billy Beane, and others have invented names, like Peter Brand, you don't necessarily assume that Brand represents a one-to-one correspondence with one real person. More likely, his part represents things that were done by multiple people, or were done in a different way that is not as narratively convenient.</p>\n\n<p>As you say, if you read the book, you will recognize the character--but you will also recognize the changes, and understand why the name was changed.</p>\n", "score": 5 } ]

[ "libel" ]

[ { "answer_id": 460, "body": "<p>I'm not sure it makes sense to talk about having \"jurisdiction\" over an IP address, for the purposes you're discussing. </p>\n\n<p>If you wanted to sue the IP address itself--something that is possible under limited circumstances--then you might need to locate it for jurisdictional purposes. But I don't think that's what you're talking about. You're talking about taking civil or criminal action against the people who are using the IP address to commit crimes.</p>\n\n<p>What matters, in that case, is not a theoretical legal question about the location of an IP address. It's questions like: where do these people live? Where do the people downloading the illegal content live? Where are the physical servers located? (\"In the cloud\" is not an answer--there are physical servers somewhere making up that cloud).</p>\n\n<p>For jurisdictional purposes, the chair they're sitting in when they upload the illegal data, and the location of the AC power outlet the physical server is plugged into, are as important as, if not more important than, the metaphysical \"location\" of the IP address of the server.</p>\n", "score": 11 } ]

[ "international", "jurisdiction", "internet" ]

[ { "answer_id": 445, "body": "<p>From <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">the legal code of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license</a> (emphasis in the original):</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>1.a <strong>Adapted Material</strong> means material subject to Copyright and Similar Rights that is derived from or based upon the Licensed Material and in which the Licensed Material is translated, altered, arranged, transformed, or otherwise modified in a manner requiring permission under the Copyright and Similar Rights held by the Licensor. For purposes of this Public License, where the Licensed Material is a musical work, performance, or sound recording, Adapted Material is always produced where the Licensed Material is synched in timed relation with a moving image.</p>\n<p>1.b <strong>Adapter's License</strong> means the license You apply to Your Copyright and Similar Rights in Your contributions to Adapted Material in accordance with the terms and conditions of this Public License.</p>\n<p>1.f <strong>Licensed Material</strong> means the artistic or literary work, database, or other material to which the Licensor applied this Public License.</p>\n<p>2.a Subject to the terms and conditions of this Public License, the Licensor hereby grants You a worldwide, royalty-free, non-sublicensable, non-exclusive, irrevocable license to exercise the Licensed Rights in the Licensed Material to:</p>\n<p>2.a.1.A reproduce and Share the Licensed Material, in whole or in part; and</p>\n<p>2.a.1.B produce, reproduce, and Share Adapted Material.</p>\n<p>2.a.5.B 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.</p>\n<p>3.a.4 If You Share Adapted Material You produce, the Adapter's License You apply must not prevent recipients of the Adapted Material from complying with this Public License.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>In short, if the original is CC-BY, you can license derivative works under whatever terms you want, so long as the license of the original work is not infringed by the new terms for the derived work.</p>\n<p>In particular, ordinary copyright (aka. &quot;all rights reserved&quot;) is a perfectly acceptable copyright for a derivative of a CC-BY work (but the original credits should be included -and augmented- in order to also comply with the original CC-BY).</p>\n<p>Also note this doesn't restrict anybody's rights to use the original material under the original license.</p>\n<p>The other non-ShareAlike license that permits derivative works (<a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Attribution-Noncommmercial</a>) has a different version of clause 2.a.1.B:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>produce, reproduce, and Share Adapted Material for NonCommercial purposes only.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>so any license of a derivative work cannot permit commercial use of the original work. It may be possible to permit commercial use of those portions of the derivative that can be separated from the original; this gets into an extreme edge case of copyright law and you'll probably want to consult a lawyer if you find yourself in such a situation.</p>\n<p>Another way to consider this issue is by noting that you are only <strong>licensing your modifications</strong>. For example, if you add a mustache to a CC-BY portrait and use a CC-0 license, only your mustache is CC-0; you can't eliminate the original author's requirement of attribution this way. The derived work would still have to be used under a CC-BY license (or compatible).</p>\n", "score": 5 } ]

[ "creative-commons" ]

[ { "answer_id": 125, "body": "<p>There are three questions relevant to this issue:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Who owned the copyright in the first place?</li>\n<li>Was the copyright transferred?</li>\n<li>If not, was a license given to the site to use the content?</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n", "score": 6 }, { "answer_id": 449, "body": "<p>The <a href=\"http://www.wipo.int/portal/en/index.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">World Intellectual Property Organization</a> maintains a comprehensive database of IP laws for pretty much every country. Here is the landing page for <a href=\"http://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/profile.jsp?code=GR\" rel=\"nofollow\">Greece</a>. More particularly suited to your needs is the Greece page for copyright laws, which you can find <a href=\"http://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/details.jsp?id=15581\" rel=\"nofollow\">here</a>.</p>\n\n<p>If there really was no agreement about who would own your work you may have a shot at retaining the copyright over your work in terms of how they can distribute it beyond their site, but you may not be able to prevent them from publishing your work on their site. You really should consult with a Greek copyright lawyer. Also, since Greece is a <a href=\"http://ppp.worldbank.org/public-private-partnership/legislation-regulation/framework-assessment/legal-systems/common-vs-civil-law#sumary\" rel=\"nofollow\">civil law country</a> you may be able to find a law on this topic.</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "copyright", "european-union", "intellectual-property" ]

[ { "answer_id": 154, "body": "<p><em>In general</em>, TV shows or other fictional works will use <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictional_brand\">fictional brands</a> to avoid infringing the brand's trademark. According to <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictional_brand\">Wikipedia</a>, this occurs more often when the brand is used in a potentially negative way.</p>\n\n<p>In your specific example, however, it's clear that (as commenters pointed out) the brand \"Sprawlmart\" was a parody intended to be humorous and was not for legal reasons.</p>\n", "score": 11 }, { "answer_id": 358, "body": "<p><em>Don't know if this adds much to discussion, please comment if not and I will remove this post.</em></p>\n\n<p>In some (European) countries (like Belgium), national television and especially children television networks are not allowed to broadcast (a significant amount of) advertisement. Product placement and mentioning brands is seen as a sort of advertisement, even if the company promoted did not asked for this. The idea is that children cannot properly \"defend\" themselves against advertisement and furthermore it is debatable whether a publicly funded television network should broadcast advertisements.</p>\n\n<p>If television networks would do so, they have to pay a fine (there are even some hilarious cases where for instance the TV station had to pay a fine because a person they interviewed for the News was wearing a T-shirt of a specific brand).</p>\n\n<p>I can imagine that some fictional shows that target an international audience - like <em>The Simpsons</em> - are aware of such laws and thus make a parody on these brands in order to increase the number of potential television networks broadcasting the show.</p>\n", "score": 9 } ]

[ "intellectual-property" ]

[ { "answer_id": 435, "body": "<p>In England and Wales, theft is defined by <a href=\"http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/section/1\" rel=\"noreferrer\">s1 Theft Act 1968</a>:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>A person is guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>It does not matter if the victim is not the rightful owner of the property, as the law only requires that the property belongs to <em>another</em>: the victim and owner can be two different people. As long as the other elements are present, the offence is committed. It's important when considering theft to look for dishonesty and intention to permanently deprive: borrowing something without permission with the intention to return it isn't theft, and nor is taking something by mistake.</p>\n\n<p>Theft is an 'either-way' offence (i.e. it can be tried summarily or by a jury), and in the latter case carries a maximum penalty of seven years in prison (<a href=\"http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/section/7\" rel=\"noreferrer\">s7 TA 1968</a>).</p>\n", "score": 5 } ]

[ "definition", "theft" ]

[ { "answer_id": 433, "body": "<p><a href=\"http://history.nih.gov/about/timelines_laws_human.html\" rel=\"noreferrer\">According to the NIH</a>, there are in fact a number of laws in the US regulating human research, as opposed to codes and conventions (although the majority does consist of the latter). </p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>1962 - Milestone: <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kefauver_Harris_Amendment\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Kefauver-Harris amendments</a> to the 1938 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic (FD&amp;C) Act, [Public Law 87-781; 76 Stat. 788-89]</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>This amendment was important in establishing that human testing was necessary in drugs and therefore provided for the regulation of human testing, after the <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide\" rel=\"noreferrer\">thalidomide scandal</a> caused a number of preventable birth defects due to insufficient human testing. </p>\n\n<p>The <a href=\"http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/WhatWeDo/History/CentennialofFDA/CentennialEditionofFDAConsumer/ucm093787.htm\" rel=\"noreferrer\">FDA describes</a> the law as (emphasis mine):</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>... The Kefauver-Harris Drug Amendments also asked the Secretary\n to establish rules of investigation of new drugs, including a\n <strong>requirement for the informed consent of study subjects</strong>. The amendments\n also formalized good manufacturing practices, required that adverse\n events be reported, and transferred the regulation of prescription\n drug advertising from the Federal Trade Commission to the FDA.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<ol start=\"2\">\n<li>1974 - Milestone: <a href=\"http://history.nih.gov/research/downloads/PL93-348.pdf\" rel=\"noreferrer\">National Research Act</a></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>The National Research Act legally justifies and grants the NIH the power to set up boards to regulate human medical research: </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>SEC. 102. (a) Congress finds and declares that (1) the success and\n continued viability of the Federal biomedical and behavioral\n research effort depends on the availability of excellent scientists\n and a network of institutions of excellence capable of producing\n superior research personnel ; (2) direct support of the training of\n scientists for careers in biomedical and behavioral research is an\n appropriate and necessary role for the Federal Government ; and (3)\n graduate research assistance programs should be the key elements in\n the training programs of the institutes of the National Institutes of\n Health and the Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration.\n (b) It is the purpose of this title to increase the capability of the\n institutes of the National Institutes of Health and the Alcohol, Drug\n Abuse, and Mental Health Administration to carry out their\n responsibility of maintaining a superior national program of research\n into the physical and mental diseases and impairments of man.</p>\n</blockquote>\n", "score": 5 } ]

[ "united-states", "research" ]

[ { "answer_id": 431, "body": "<ol>\n<li><p>Generally, yes, but these policies are not written in a vacuum. The provider knows the operator in working in NP and knows that the NP prohibits waivers so the policy may state that the insured cannot require waivers but it will certainly build into the premiums the fact that the insured can't require waivers (ie more claims than if waivers were allowed). I think your question is - could an injured person, who signed a waiver, use the NPS policy alone to invalidate the waiver. It seems no bc there is no privity of contract but there also seems to be a lot of overlap so it's hard to say.</p></li>\n<li><p>They are subject to challenge no matter what; it's the success of the challenge that matters. And a judge (or jury!) would look very unkindly upon a waiver which was provided by an operator in clear conflict with the operator's commitment to the NPS. There is a bit of your first question in here because if the judge allows the suit against the operator the operator is going to bring the insurance company in if they haven't already been named. If the insurance company tries to get out by pointing to a clause requiring waivers, again, the judge will know that the insurer knew that the insured was operating in a NP and... You get it.</p></li>\n<li><p>Discipline = getting kicked out = out of business. But the other effect is if a suit is brought and the operator broke the NPS rules and broke the insurers rules the operator could be personally liable for all damages.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>I'd like to take a look at some of these policies. I'll look for cases on point but I'm not optimistic. </p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "united-states", "contract-law", "litigation", "liability", "waivers" ]

[ { "answer_id": 425, "body": "<p>No. The law would be void for vagueness.</p>\n\n<p>Connally v. General Construction Co., 269 U.S. 385, 391 (1926):</p>\n\n<p>[T]he terms of a penal statute [...] must be sufficiently explicit to inform those who are subject to it what conduct on their part will render them liable to its penalties… and a statute which either forbids or requires the doing of an act in terms so vague that men of <strong>common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application</strong> violates the first essential of due process of law.</p>\n\n<p>The example of the \"well known but hidden stop sign\" appears to allow for arbitrary prosecution and should also be void. </p>\n", "score": 6 }, { "answer_id": 415, "body": "<p>It depends, but you should do it, just to be safe.</p>\n\n<p>Let's say you live in a town with one main road. The town council has decided that every road that has an intersection with this main road must have a stop sign placed on it. The idea catches on among the townspeople, and after the signs are placed accordingly, the accident rate goes down, and everyone is satisfied. Even out-of-towners catch to the pattern pretty quickly.</p>\n\n<p>One day, you - a law-abiding citizen of the town - drive down a side street towards the main road. The stop sign is no longer visible because of all of the kudzu on it. It's nearly impossible to tell that there's anything there besides a lot of kudzu.</p>\n\n<p>You ignore the stop sign and go out into the main road, in full sight of everyone, including a police officer. The officer charges you with a moving violation for not stopping at the stop sign. You argue against this, saying that the sign could not be seen.</p>\n\n<p>The case - assuming you challenge the officer's decision - could rest on <a href=\"http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/mistakes-of-fact-and-law.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">mistake of fact</a>. Basically, if you had reasonable cause to not think that there was a stop sign there, the charges could be dropped, because there was nothing there alluding to the sign's existence. <em>However</em>, in this situation, such a defense would not be legitimate, because given how obvious and widely-known the policy is, there's no reason why you would think that a stop sign would <em>not</em> be there.</p>\n\n<p>Each situation differs. A solid defense uses the concept of mistake of fact. If a sign was placed somewhere designating that cars have to slow down within that area (for some unclear reason), and the sign was not easily visible - or recognizable at all - then perhaps the defense could be used, because there would be no reason to think that there would be a sign there.</p>\n\n<p>In short, it varies. The scenarios differ in each case, so there's no overarching policy.</p>\n", "score": 5 } ]

[ "united-states", "traffic" ]

[ { "answer_id": 416, "body": "<p>Is an article licensed under an Open Access license equivalent to a public domain work? No.</p>\n\n<p>Intellectual property practitioners and professors often describe copyright as \"a bundle of sticks.\" This means that intellectual property laws grant the creator of a copyrightable work a large number of rights, and the creator can grant or deny others each of those rights individually. So, for instance, an author can grant a publisher the right to publish his or her book in one country, but not in another, or to copy it verbatim but not to alter it.</p>\n\n<p>The purpose of a license, any license, is to specify which of those rights pass to the licensee (the end user) and which stay with the licensor (the creator).</p>\n\n<p>This is true of creative commons just as it is for any other license. For example, many open access publishers publish under the Creative Commons CC-BY journal. This is an attribution license; it requires as a term of the license that you give credit to the original creator. This is something you would not have to do with a public domain work. </p>\n\n<p>In addition, under CC-BY, you have to include a copy of the license with each copy you distribute, and you cannot add your own copy protection to any copies you distribute. Again, these sort of restrictions do not apply to a public domain work.</p>\n\n<p>In short: the purpose of a license--any license--is to define the ways in which you can, or can not, use the licensed materials. Any license that contains any provisions restricting the licensee's use is going to be more restrictive, by definition, than the use of something in the public domain.</p>\n", "score": 6 } ]

[ "public-domain", "academia", "definition" ]

[ { "answer_id": 413, "body": "<p>Destruction of evidence always has to be weighed against dealing with an active situation. Taking a surviving victim to a hospital and treating them also destroys evidence; so does putting out an arson fire by knocking out walls. In all cases, there's an emergency situation and dealing with it is more important than preserving evidence. Flashbangs aren't used once the scene is secure, but rather when the need to end an active situation justifies their use. </p>\n", "score": 6 } ]

[ "police", "evidence" ]

[ { "answer_id": 407, "body": "<p>One possible reading of this clause is:</p>\n\n<p>The tenant is required to pay for the preparation of a forfeiture notice, even if (\"notwithstanding that\") the forfeiture doesn't actually happen (\"forfeiture is avoided\")--but the tenant doesn't have to pay for the notice if the forfeiture doesn't happen for the following reason (\"avoided otherwise than by\"): because the court said so (\"by relief granted by the court\").</p>\n\n<p>In other words: if the Court says the forfeiture notice is bogus, the tenant doesn't have to pay for it. Otherwise, he or she does.</p>\n", "score": 4 } ]

[ "legal-terms", "legal-writing" ]

[ { "answer_id": 404, "body": "<p><em>What steps do lawyers need to take to protect client's confidentiality?</em>\nReasonable steps</p>\n\n<p><em>Are lawyers only required to inform clients that email, text, phone is unsafe communication with risks?</em>\nYes. Sort of. It's not a problem that these channels are unsafe, it's just the risk part. As was stated, US mail carries risk.</p>\n\n<p><em>Or are they in some cases risking a breach of client confidentiality even if they do?</em> If they do... what? inform clients of risks?</p>\n\n<p>It is up to the lawyer to inform the client of the danger of using email. Certain cases warrant more precaution than others. The lawyer will need to weigh all of this. It is also possible that a heightened level of security makes communication too cumbersome or expensive. What if the client does not want to pay for the extra time it takes you to encrypt/decrypt? What if the client cannot figure out the software? No matter how sloppy the client is, it is incumbent upon the lawyer to protect communication.</p>\n\n<p>It's ABA Model Rule of Professional Conduct 1.6(a) that explains this for us. \n<em>A lawyer shall not reveal information relating to the representation of a client unless the client gives informed consent</em>...</p>\n\n<p>continuing to paragraph (c):</p>\n\n<p><em>(c) A lawyer shall make <strong>reasonable efforts</strong> to prevent the inadvertent or unauthorized disclosure of, or unauthorized access to, information relating to the representation of a client.</em></p>\n\n<p>Comment 18 in part (relating to safeguarding information): <em>unauthorized access...does not constitute a violation of paragraph (c) if the lawyer has made <strong>reasonable efforts</strong> to prevent the access or disclosure.</em></p>\n\n<p>continuing:</p>\n\n<p><em>Factors to be considered in <strong>determining the reasonableness</strong> of the lawyer’s efforts include, but are not limited to, the sensitivity of the information, the likelihood of disclosure if additional safeguards are not employed, the <strong>cost</strong> of employing additional safeguards, the <strong>difficulty</strong> of implementing the safeguards, and the extent to which the safeguards adversely affect the lawyer’s ability to represent clients (e.g., by making a device or important piece of <strong>software excessively difficult to use</strong>).</em></p>\n\n<p>Comment 19 in part:\n*When transmitting a communication that includes information relating to the representation of a client, the lawyer must take <strong>reasonable precautions</strong> to prevent the information from coming into the hands of unintended recipients. This duty, however, does not require that the lawyer use special security measures if the method of communication affords a reasonable expectation of privacy. <strong>Special circumstances, however, may warrant special precautions</strong>. Factors to be considered in determining the reasonableness of the lawyer's expectation of confidentiality include the sensitivity of the information and the extent to which the privacy of the communication is protected by law or by a confidentiality agreement.</p>\n\n<p>Both instances require reasonable efforts - those an ordinary person would use.</p>\n\n<p>ABA Formal Opinion 1-459 tells us that\n<em>A lawyer sending or receiving substantive communications with a client via e-mail or other electronic means ordinarily must warn the client about the risk of sending or receiving electronic communications using a computer or other device, or e-mail account, where there is a significant risk that a third party may gain access.</em></p>\n\n<p>This comment pertains to specific situations, like a client emailing a lawyer from the client's work-computer. It does not specifically apply to hacker-threat.</p>\n\n<p>And to muddy all of this up, it's not only communication and information that is at risk. Property is also at risk and the duty to protect property is higher than the duty over communication. Secret recipes, customer lists, strategic plans - these are all forms of property and lawyers have special duties to safeguard client property. Comment (1) to Rule 1.15 says that <em>a lawyer should hold property of others with the care required of a professional fiduciary.</em> This is <strong>higher than the reasonableness requirement for protecting information</strong>. The fiduciary duty is the highest standard of care recognized by our legal system (the California rule calls on the lawyer to protect client secrets “at every peril to himself or herself” Cal. Rules of Prof. Conduct R. 3-100(A) (2013); see also Cal. Bus. &amp; Prof. Code §6068(e)(1) (2013)).</p>\n", "score": 4 } ]

[ "attorney-client-privilege" ]

[ { "answer_id": 398, "body": "<p>From the <a href=\"http://www.uspto.gov/patents-getting-started/general-information-concerning-patents#heading-2\" rel=\"nofollow\">USPTO</a>, by law, a patent is:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or\n selling the invention in the United States or importing the invention\n into the United States.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>If you want to make, use, or sell something covered by an active patent then you have to secure the patent owner's approval or else they can use the courts to stop and/or fine you for violating their right. A patent owner can grant a license to use an active patent on any terms he desires, or not at all.</p>\n\n<p>However it is unlikely that anyone will volunteer to conduct a search to look for active patents your specific application may infringe. There are paid specialists who do that for those who don't feel confident doing it themselves.</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "united-states", "branding", "patents" ]

[ { "answer_id": 384, "body": "<p>The particulars of \"actual knowledge\" are addressed in <em>Viacom v. YouTube</em>. The <a href=\"http://www.ca2.uscourts.gov/decisions/isysquery/ad840309-cbc2-47e1-95bb-73e8784e413c/1/doc/10-3270_10-3342_opn.pdf#xml=http://www.ca2.uscourts.gov/decisions/isysquery/ad840309-cbc2-47e1-95bb-73e8784e413c/1/hilite/\">ruling from the appeals court</a> states (emphasis mine):</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Under § 512(c)(1)(A), knowledge or awareness alone does not disqualify the service provider; rather, the provider that gains knowledge or awareness of infringing activity retains safe-harbor protection if it “acts expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material.” 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(1)(A)(iii). Thus, the nature of the removal obligation itself contemplates knowledge or awareness of <strong>specific infringing material</strong>, because <strong>expeditious removal is possible only if the service provider knows with particularity which items to remove</strong>...</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Thus, <em>actual knowledge</em> must be knowledge that is specific enough to allow a service provider to take action against specific infringing content. \"General\" knowledge of infringement is not specific enough to be actionable, so it cannot qualify as \"actual knowledge\". (e.g., The general knowledge, \"In the past, about 5% of the videos uploaded to our site were infringing, and we expect that trend continues into the present, so some of our videos right now are probably infringing,\" is not actionable to specific videos, so it does not quality as \"actual knowledge\".)</p>\n\n<p>That ruling also clarifies the distinction between <em>(i)</em> and <em>(ii)</em>, which are respectively termed the \"actual knowledge\" provision and \"red flag\" provision:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>In other words, the actual knowledge provision turns on whether the provider actually or “subjectively” knew of specific infringement, while the red flag provision turns on whether the provider was subjectively aware of facts that would have made the specific infringement “objectively” obvious to a reasonable person.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>Actual knowledge is different from a notification, which the service operator must respond to according to section (c)(1)(C) (whereas your quote is from (c)(1)(A)):</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>(C) upon notification of claimed infringement as described in paragraph (3), responds expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Expeditious removal is required in <em>either</em> event: the operator has actual knowledge of infringement, per (c)(1)(A)(i), <strong><em>or</em></strong> the operator gets a notification, per (c)(1)(C). Actual knowledge and notifications are different, but they impose similar responsibilities for the operator.</p>\n", "score": 8 } ]

[ "united-states", "dmca" ]

[ { "answer_id": 378, "body": "<p>The author of the passage is telling you where the quotation comes from, using a formal case citation. Lawyers usually don't use footnotes, endnotes, or parentheses to set off these citations.</p>\n\n<p>Case citations are a sort of shorthand developed by lawyers and judges over the past few centuries. The goal is generally to identify the <em>name</em> of the case, where to <em>locate</em> it, <em>when</em> it was decided, and <em>what court</em> decided it. Although there are a few different styles for formal citations to cases, you don't need to learn much to cover the basics for common types of cases.</p>\n\n<h1>How to Read It</h1>\n\n<h2>Case name</h2>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p><em>Brown v. Bd. of Educ.</em></p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Case names usually have a \"v.\" in the middle. Most of the time, the plaintiff goes on the left and the defendant goes on the right. But United States Supreme Court cases are different. Almost always, the Supreme Court reviews decisions of lower courts. They do so in an unusual way: the <em>loser</em> in the lower court asks the Supreme Court to change the outcome. Because the loser, more formally called the \"appellant,\" is the one initiating proceedings in the Supreme Court, they go on the left. (To learn more, look into \"writ of certiorari.\") Since <em>Brown</em> is a Supreme Court case, we can guess that Brown lost in the lower court; and indeed that's what happened in this case.</p>\n\n<p>There are some arcane rules about abbreviating case names. The full name of this case is \"Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka.\" If you're a law student, especially if you're on the law review, you get to learn all about these rules. If you're not, thank your lucky stars and try not to worry about it.</p>\n\n<h2>Volume, reporter, and page number</h2>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>347 U.S. 483</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This is the bit you want to copy and paste to find the case. It's a lot like a URL: the idea is to clearly identify and locate a case. If you just want to find the case on the Internet, you don't need to understand how it works, and you can skip to the next section. </p>\n\n<p>These three parts tell you where to find the <em>beginning</em> of the case in a good old-fashioned printed book. You know those yellow books in the background of lawyer advertisements? That's what we're talking about. They're called \"reporters,\" because they originally contained somebody else's <em>reports</em> of what judges said in court. Now, of course, the judges write down their own decisions; but the name stuck.</p>\n\n<p>The middle part, here \"U.S.\", identifies what set of books the case is in. You can learn something about the court from this:</p>\n\n<pre><code>U.S. -- United States Reports -- United States Supreme Court\nF., F.2d, F.3d -- Federal Reporter -- Federal Courts of Appeal\nF. Supp -- Federal Supplement -- Federal District Courts (trial courts)\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>The first number is what <em>volume</em> the case is in. This is the number printed on the spine of the book. The second number is what page the case begins on.</p>\n\n<h2>Pinpoint citation</h2>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>, 495</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>When somebody wants to refer to a <em>specific place</em> in a case, they just put the page number or range right after the case page number. Remember, \"483\" was the page the case <em>starts</em> on; \"495\" is the page where the court actually say what we're talking about. If you flip to page 495 of volume 347 of the U.S. Reports, you'll find the quoted sentence.</p>\n\n<p>Remember: usually when you see two numbers separated by a comma, like \"483, 495\", the first one is part of the citation to the case as a whole, and the second one says what page to look at.</p>\n\n<h2>Date and court name</h2>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>(1954)</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This part varies a lot between the different formal styles. In \"Bluebook\" style, which most law journals use, the year the case was decided is enclosed in parentheses, along with anything necessary to identify the court. Here, there's no court name, because we already know from the \"U.S.\" that it's a Supreme Court case. For lower appellate cases, this might be \"(9th Cir. 2005)\", meaning that it's a decision of the <a href=\"http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/\">Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals</a> from 2005.</p>\n\n<h2>Dealing with short citations</h2>\n\n<p>You may also see something like \"<em>Id.</em> at 495\". This is a short citation; \"<em>Id.</em>\" means \"the last thing I cited.\" Go back to the nearest previous citation and look that up, going to the page cited.</p>\n\n<h1>How to Use It (aka \"tl;dr\")</h1>\n\n<p>The key to actually finding a case on the Internet is to copy the three numbers in the middle--the volume, reporter name, and page number. Here, \"347 U.S. 483\". <em>Don't</em> include any pincite after a comma; Google and many search engines may be clever enough to figure out what you mean, but they may not.</p>\n\n<p>There are a bunch of free online services providing case texts. I prefer <a href=\"https://scholar.google.com/\">Google Scholar</a>; just paste the citation in, being sure to select \"case law\". Other people like CourtListener, FindLaw, and Justia.com. Commercial databases like Westlaw or LexisNexis have a lot more than just the case; most importantly, they list citations <em>to</em> the case. Your local public law library might have a terminal for one of the services that you can walk in and use.</p>\n\n<p><em>Be sure you're reading the actual case, not a summary or \"annotation.\"</em> This is especially true if you're writing an answer here on Law.SE. Many case summaries, especially for famous cases, are written for first-year law students; some of them are probably written <em>by</em> first-year law students! They're often <em>helpful</em>, but they focus on what the student needs to know for class, which often <em>isn't</em> what the case actually said. If I find you quoting a case summary as if it's \"the law,\" I will not be very nice to you.</p>\n", "score": 11 }, { "answer_id": 385, "body": "<p>The cryptic bit is a citation to a court judgement. A good online resource on the form of citation for U.S. legal materials is <a href=\"https://www.law.cornell.edu/citation/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Basic Legal Citation</a>, written and maintained by Professor Peter Martin and hosted by the Legal Information Institute at Cornell University. Under the link, you'll find a set of helpful screencasts, as well as a complete citation guide.</p>\n\n<p>Good freely available sources for court judgements include the excellent <a href=\"https://www.courtlistener.com/\" rel=\"nofollow\">CourtListener</a> service (for both judgements and the audio of oral arguments), <a href=\"https://www.justia.com/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Justia</a>, and the \"Case law\" area of <a href=\"https://scholar.google.com/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Google Scholar</a>. For U.S. statutory law, the first port of call would be the Cornell <a href=\"https://www.law.cornell.edu/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Legal Information Institute</a> (LII), which has been publishing the U.S. Code since before the Internet.</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "united-states", "case-law" ]

[ { "answer_id": 359, "body": "<p>If you are worried that some secret will become public, you should find and meet with an <em>attorney</em>, not a financial adviser or other nonlawyer. <em>Your</em> attorney is able to shield your secret information from disclosure in ways other professionals cannot. Raise any credit score issues you're concerned about.</p>\n\n<p>In general, the public has a right to access judicial records. <em>See</em> <a href=\"https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=355909589853635487&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=6&amp;as_vis=1&amp;oi=scholarr#p597\"><em>Nixon v. Warner Communications, Inc.</em>, 435 US 589, 597 (1978)</a> (noting that the right is rarely litigated and not clearly defined). That right is not absolute; some records can be sealed, which means that the public can't read them. Local rules govern when that happens. I don't think the <em>existence</em> of a civil lawsuit could be made secretly except in special circumstances. Likewise, the plaintiff usually must identify herself, except in special circumstances.</p>\n\n<p>A plaintiff should assume that everything about the lawsuit--who filed it, against whom, what evidence arises, the trial, and who wins and loses--will be public.</p>\n", "score": 7 } ]

[ "united-states", "court-records" ]

[ { "answer_id": 331, "body": "<p>In the UK, the <a href=\"http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1995/50/contents\">Disability Discrimination Act 1995</a> includes <a href=\"http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1995/50/part/III/crossheading/goods-facilities-and-services\">provisions which are thought to apply to websites</a>, although as far as I know there is no case law on the matter. </p>\n\n<p>If a website's use of JavaScript makes it inaccessible to users with some disability, it may fall foul of the DDA. However, there is no law specifically requiring JavaScript-free versions of web pages. </p>\n", "score": 6 }, { "answer_id": 330, "body": "<p><strong>In the United States, AFAIK there is no legal requirement to provide an alternative to a JavaScript form.</strong> </p>\n\n<p>Although, from a UX perspective. If you use security extensions like <a href=\"https://noscript.net/\" rel=\"nofollow\">NoScript</a>. You would need to allow the site to run JavaScript on the client before you would be able to login. So it is best to use other methods to authenticate your user. </p>\n", "score": 4 } ]

[ "internet" ]

[ { "answer_id": 350, "body": "<p>As far as I'm aware, there are no specific laws relating to the copyright of web site templates, at least in the United States. </p>\n\n<p>That being the case, to the extent they constitute copyrightable material, exactly the same copyright laws apply to them as would apply to a song, a painting, or a novel.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "united-states", "intellectual-property" ]

[ { "answer_id": 340, "body": "<p>I haven't used the extension, but here are the concerns I would have:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>Does RECAP detect and handle documents filed under seal? Under some circumstances, IIRC, Pacer gives certain attorneys access to documents sealed from the general public. If you access these sealed documents through PACER and thereby submit them to the RECAP public repository, you have violated the Court order sealing the documents and might well be found in contempt.</p></li>\n<li><p>It is not unheard of for a Court to order a document replaced by a corrected version; this is most common when a document was inadvertently filed with information not redacted that should have been. As long as nobody but the parties and their lawyers have accessed it, this can prevent that information from being public. If you log on to PACER and see your client's personal information...you can no longer keep it private by asking the Court for that remedy, because you just submitted it to a public repository. Enjoy your malpractice suit.</p></li>\n<li><p>Does the use of RECAP constitute a waiver of work product protection? Under some (admittedly limited) circumstances, your use of PACER might constitute attorney work product, which would ordinarily be protected from disclosure in a manner similar to a privilege. Revealing your research pattern to a third party could waive that protection.</p></li>\n</ol>\n", "score": 3 } ]

[ "pacer", "recap", "court-records", "free-law-project" ]

[ { "answer_id": 337, "body": "<p>The concept of \"jury nullification\" is not really applicable to civil litigation, whether it's a bench or a jury trial.</p>\n\n<p>The short answer is: generally in the United States, civil judges, and civil juries, have to follow the law. If the jury doesn't follow the law, the judge can entertain and grant a JNOV motion on the basis that no reasonable jury could have reached the verdict in question. If the judge doesn't follow the law, the aggrieved party can appeal the judgment as an abuse of discretion or on similar grounds.</p>\n\n<p>Jury nullification occurs when a criminal jury returns a verdict of \"not guilty\" although they feel the defendant was in fact guilty under the law. That is the only circumstance where no legal review can reverse the verdict. Civil \"jury nullification\" is not a particularly meaningful concept.</p>\n", "score": 8 }, { "answer_id": 338, "body": "<p><a href=\"http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2009/07/do_judges_really_have_to_follow_precedent.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">Here's one answer</a>:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>The federal system values judicial independence very highly and takes\n few steps to deter a judge from challenging existing law. Obviously, a\n judge who paid no mind to prior case law would see her decisions\n regularly reversed on appeal. But she can be removed from the bench\n only through the impeachment process, and lesser judicial-misconduct\n proceedings are largely toothless. No federal judge has ever been\n disciplined in either manner for failure to apply [binding law].</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>So yes, United States judges can ignore the law in their courts and the worst that happens in practice is that their rulings are overturned on appeal.</p>\n", "score": 4 } ]

[ "jury-nullification", "california", "judging", "judge" ]

[ { "answer_id": 334, "body": "<p>This is not really a legal question. There isn't a \"recusal register\" on file anywhere where a judge needs to set down an explanation of his or her recusal.</p>\n\n<p>The best way to find out is usually press reports from the time of the decision. Reasons for recusal are not usually secret, and press reports usually explain recusals in cases that matter. If they don't, though, the justices aren't required to explain themselves.</p>\n\n<p>For the record: Justice Brewer recused himself from <em>Plessy</em> because of the death of his daughter. And it's generally accepted, although I don't believe any of them ever stated it publicly, that the three justices who recused themselves from <em>Shelley v. Kramer</em> did so because they owned property governed by restricted covenants prohibiting them from selling it to African-Americans (the subject of that case).</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "united-states", "judging" ]

[ { "answer_id": 60, "body": "<p>You can file a federal criminal complaint under <a href=\"https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/242\">18 USC 242 - Deprivation of rights under color of law</a>, or (most commonly) a civil claim under <a href=\"http://www.constitution.org/brief/forsythe_42-1983.htm\">42 USC 1983</a> for the violation of your civil rights.</p>\n\n<p>There are usually state laws, from some form of harassment (usually a summary offense) to misdemeanors like the <a href=\"http://law.justia.com/codes/pennsylvania/2014/title-18/chapter-53/section-5301\">Official Oppression</a> we have in Pennsylvania.</p>\n\n<p>Note that you can file these complaints even if they <em>do</em> find something incriminating. An illegal search is illegal regardless of its fruits.</p>\n", "score": 36 }, { "answer_id": 326, "body": "<p>In the United States, the general way to challenge violations of your constitutional rights is a civil action under <a href=\"https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/1983\" rel=\"noreferrer\">42 U.S.C. § 1983</a>. This broad statute allows anyone injured by such a violation to obtain damages and an injunction against future conduct.</p>\n<p>Police officers are entitled to qualified immunity from suit; a plaintiff must show that the officers' conduct violated &quot;clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.&quot; <em>Messerschmidt v. Millender</em>, 132 S. Ct. 1235, 1244 (2012). In other words, the search must not only have been unconstitutional; it must have been clearly so, under established law. This is a heavy burden.</p>\n<p>Suing the police department involves some other hurdles; generally, one would claim that police policy was unconstitutional or that the department negligently hired or supervised the officers.</p>\n<p>It's possible to prevail on facts similar to your hypothetical, however, so long as the search was clearly unconstitutional. I wasn't able to find any cases involving <em>just</em> an unlawful search; the closest I found was <a href=\"http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2006/11/13/0535302.pdf\" rel=\"noreferrer\"><em>Frunz v. City of Tacoma</em>, 468 F.3d 1141 (9th Cir. 2006)</a>, which also involved a seizure:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The facts are remarkable. Plaintiff, Susan Frunz, and her two guests\nwere in Frunz’s home in Tacoma, Washington, when police surrounded the\nhouse, broke down the back door and entered. The police had no warrant\nand had not announced their presence. Frunz first became aware of them\nwhen an officer accosted her in the kitchen and pointed his gun,\nbringing the barrel within two inches of her forehead. The police\nordered or slammed the occupants to the floor and cuffed their hands\nbehind their backs—Frunz for about an hour, until she proved to their\nsatisfaction that she owned the house, at which time they said “never\nmind” and left.</p>\n<p>As the officers doubtless knew, physical entry into\nthe home is the “chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth\nAmendment is directed.” United States v. United States District Court,\n407 U.S. 297, 313 (1972); see also Murdock v. Stout, 54 F.3d 1437,\n1440 (9th Cir. 1995) (“[P]rotection of individuals from unreasonable\ngovernment intrusion into their houses remains at the very core of the\nFourth Amendment.”). To safeguard the home, we normally require a\nwarrant before the police may enter. “The right of privacy was deemed\ntoo precious to entrust to the discretion of those whose job is the\ndetection of crime and the arrest of criminals . . . . And so the\nConstitution requires a magistrate to pass on the desires of the\npolice before they violate the privacy of the home.” McDonald v.\nUnited States, 335 U.S. 451, 455-56 (1948); see also Groh v. Ramirez,\n540 U.S. 551, 560 (2004). What extraordinary circumstances justified\nsundering the privacy and protection of Frunz’s home without a\nwarrant?</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p><em>Id.</em> at 1142–43. Read the rest of the opinion; it's short, understandable, and relevant to this question. Spoiler alert: the circumstances were not sufficiently extraordinary.</p>\n<p>(By the way, the Ninth Circuit later <a href=\"http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2007/01/16/0535302o.pdf\" rel=\"noreferrer\">imposed sanctions on the defendants for raising a frivolous appeal</a>.)</p>\n", "score": 22 } ]

[ "united-states", "search-and-seizure", "police" ]

[ { "answer_id": 318, "body": "<p>There are two separately copyrightable elements to a sound recording, as you point out: the musical work, and the performance.</p>\n\n<p>If you want to record a cover version of a song, what matters is the license you hold, if any, to the underlying musical work. The license to the recording is not relevant unless you are sampling or duplicating the recording.</p>\n\n<p>The key, however, is that whoever you got the song from has the same issue. With this in mind, there are three basic scenarios:</p>\n\n<p>1) The recording is released under a cc license, but the song is in the public domain. If the song is in the public domain, the recording license is irrelevant; you have the right to cover it.</p>\n\n<p>2) The recording is released under a cc license, but someone other than the recording artist holds the rights to the musical work. In this case, the recording artist almost certainly does not have the right to distribute the recording under a cc license. Musical works are subject to a \"mechanical license;\" this means that you can record a cover version without permission, but only if you pay royalties to the composer. If you record a cover under these circumstances, both you and the person who attempted to release the item under a cc license will be liable.</p>\n\n<p>3) The recording is released under a cc license by a recording artist who also holds the rights to the musical work--in other words, an original composition. In this case, the answer to your question will depend on the specific license language, and a court's interpretation of it. </p>\n\n<p>The CC license defines \"Licensed Material\" as \"the artistic or literary work, database, or other material to which the Licensor applied this Public License.\" Some CC licenses permit the Licensed Material to be \"translated, altered, arranged, transformed, or otherwise modified in a manner requiring permission under the Copyright and Similar Rights held by the Licensor.\" Some don't.</p>\n\n<p>The CC web site <a href=\"https://wiki.creativecommons.org/Case_Law\" rel=\"nofollow\">lists litigation involving their licenses</a>, and no litigation listed there seems to address the question of whether, when a CC license is applied to a sound recording, the \"Licensed Material\" includes the underlying musical work. It is therefore hard to predict what a court would do; you would need an opinion from an experienced intellectual property attorney licensed to practice in your jurisdiction.</p>\n\n<p>Or, on a more practical note: if you aren't sure, ask the license holder. If they give you permission, that resolves the issue.</p>\n", "score": 4 } ]

[ "united-states", "copyright", "creative-commons" ]

[ { "answer_id": 297, "body": "<p>No, for two reasons. </p>\n\n<p>First, your question seems to assume that the current level of (1) vacancy, and (2) rent, will continue unchanged for the indefinite future. A lot of people thought that in 1989, and 2000, and 2007, just before the last three Bay Area housing crashes.</p>\n\n<p>The purpose of a long-term lease is to create certainty for the lessor. As the lessee, you are on the hook for whatever damages you cause by breaking the lease. As you say, right now, the complex will probably be able to mitigate fairly easily. That will change next time the market crashes. If you break the lease, you're gambling that it's still 1987...but there's a chance it's 1989 instead. If it is, you are on the hook, because the landlord exchanged a lower rent for certainty.</p>\n\n<p>Second, you're thinking about what the landlord will be able to prove in court. This is almost never the most helpful thing to be thinking in a situation like this. If you get to the point where your lawyer is having to stand up in court and argue about the reasonableness of the landlord's efforts, you've already spent more than two weeks' rent (even at Bay Area prices) paying the lawyer. Realistically, if the landlord says it took six weeks to rent, and sends you a bill for six weeks, the cheapest thing for you to do will, probably, be to pay it.</p>\n", "score": 7 } ]

[ "united-states", "california", "residential-lease", "damage-mitigation", "breaking-the-lease" ]

[ { "answer_id": 294, "body": "<p>By default, the tenant is liable for all rent until the end of the lease. E.g. if neither the tenant nor the landlord can find a suitable and credit-worthy replacement tenant (e.g. if the market has crashed), then the whole lease must still be accounted for by the original tenant, and the lost \"rent\" becomes \"damages\".</p>\n\n<p>However, there is also a concept of <em>damage mitigation</em>, and California Civil Code 1951.2 explicitly defines that it's the landlord's duty to mitigate damages. This means that the landlord cannot simply sit still and collect the rent on an empty apartment. Because of this, some smaller landlords in California outright have a policy that you can cleanly break the lease by paying for 2 months of rent as a penalty.</p>\n\n<p>(It appears that a good summary of various examples about landlord/tenant damage mitigation is available at <a href=\"http://www.uniformlaws.org/shared/docs/residential%20landlord%20and%20tenant/urlta_memo_dutytomitigate_021212.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">UniformLaws.org</a>.)</p>\n\n<p>However, when it comes down specifically to the SF Bay Area with the ever increasing rents and the lowest residential vacancy rates in the nation, and also especially with the corporate landlords that already have sufficient resources in place to readily advertise and promote an abandoned unit, it can probably be argued that, in practicality, requesting more than one month of rent (in damages) as a penalty for breaking the lease is simply unreasonable.</p>\n", "score": 3 } ]

[ "united-states", "california", "residential-lease", "damage-mitigation", "breaking-the-lease" ]

[ { "answer_id": 280, "body": "<p>(Standard disclaimer: <a href=\"https://law.stackexchange.com/users/176/christian-conkle\"><em>I am not your lawyer; I am not here to help you.</em></a>)</p>\n\n<p>Under American common law, the distinction here would relate to the harm to B: either a damages issue or a \"special harm\" issue.</p>\n\n<p>The Restatement elements of defamation are falsity, publication, fault, and inherent actionability or special harm. <em>See</em> Rest. 2d Torts § 558. The last element captures the traditional doctrine that slander (not libel) is only actionable if it falls into one of four or five specific categories (\"slander per se\"), or if it actually causes economic injury. Your example doesn't seem to fit into any of the special categories. <em>But see</em> Rest. 2d Torts § 573 (imputations affecting business or office).</p>\n\n<p>If the statement to C is oral rather than written, and C doesn't believe it or otherwise nothing comes of the statement, B may not be able to prove special harm and therefore fail to recover anything. If D, on the contrary, avoided doing business with B, B may be able to show special harm supporting a claim.</p>\n\n<p>Similarly, C's disbelief or D's belief may be relevant to determining the actual damages B suffered and is therefore entitled to recover from A.</p>\n", "score": 4 } ]

[ "united-states", "defamation" ]

[ { "answer_id": 225, "body": "<p>The process you describe is an exceedingly common method of proving a point when there is not factually analogous precedent for that particular point. By way of over-simplified example, there may be precedent for the proposition 1 + 2 = 3, but there may not be equivalent precedent for the proposition that 6 - 4 = 2. An advocate might cite the former to support the latter, even though they are not entirely analogous. In the world of legal citation, this type of citation is usually indicated with <em>cf</em>.</p>\n\n<p>Similarly, there may be a principle of law that is announced in a case that \"goes the wrong way\" that is nonetheless helpful to support the case of the person who, in <em>this</em> case is on the opposite side. So, again, in an over-simplified example, a court might announce that \"the sky is green,\" and conclude that under the facts of the particular case, a particular result is warranted. Someone on the other side of the same issue might nonetheless argue that this case supports their position, based upon the facts of their case, citing to the conclusion that the sky is green.</p>\n\n<p>This type of argument is much more effective when the opinion announcing the proposition is of significant precedential value -- e.g., an announcement of legal principles by a higher (or highest) court.</p>\n", "score": 2 }, { "answer_id": 267, "body": "<p>In reaching any opinion, courts generally examine an area of law, looking at all elements of a cause of action which will naturally contain some points that can be argued in favor of either side. After a general discussion of what the law is, courts then apply the law to the facts of that case in reaching a final \"who wins\" decision in the case. A specific case may turn on a strict meeting of each of the elements in the case, or the court's reasoning may apply a broader brush basing their decision on the \"totality of the circumstances\" surrounding a case. (that is the way courts \"fudge\" a little bit in reaching a decision)</p>\n\n<p>Even though a given decision may have gone in favor of the other side, adverse authority with a good statement of the law is every bit as good as favorable authority that contains only a cursory treatment of the law. When handling adverse authority, it is then up to you to show why the unfavorable decision is <strong>distinguishable</strong> from the facts of the current case and why the outcome should be different this time.</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "case-law" ]

[ { "answer_id": 61, "body": "<p>You aren't required to include the attribution <strong>on</strong> the image, you can include it somewhere else on the page, placing it directly below the image is preferred, but providing it at the end of a post is acceptable.</p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/b2N7E.png\" alt=\"enter image description here\">\n^{Image Capture: <a href=\"http://creativecommons.org.au/materials/attribution.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Attributing Creative Commons Materials</a>. <a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/au\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">CC BY 2.5 Australia</a>.}</p>\n\n<p>(↑ <em>See what I did there?</em>)</p>\n\n<p>For best practices for providing attribution, see the Wiki: <a href=\"https://wiki.creativecommons.org/Best_practices_for_attribution\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Best practices for attribution</a>.</p>\n", "score": 6 } ]

[ "creative-commons" ]

[ { "answer_id": 254, "body": "<p>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.). </p>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n", "score": 6 } ]

[ "jurisdiction", "international" ]

[ { "answer_id": 159, "body": "<h1>Virtually nothing.</h1>\n<p>Just before posting the question, I found <a href=\"http://www.smh.com.au/world/bali-nine-executions-constitutional-court-has-no-power-to-alter-death-sentences-20150407-1mg4tz.html\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">this article</a> and became intrigued.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Jakarta: Indonesia's Constitutional Court has no power to alter the death sentences of Bali nine organisers Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan or make any ruling on their case, says Indonesian law expert Tim Lindsey.</p>\n<p>Instead, lawyers for the two men hope Indonesian President Joko Widodo will come under political pressure to reassess their pleas for mercy if the court rules that the constitution requires the president to properly consider clemency submissions.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>In other words, the only person who could make a difference was Widodo¹. The only thing the lawyers could have gained would have been a delay in the executions, prompting time for further pleas to the president.</p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/2015-04-09/bali-nine-legal-team-files-constitutional-challenge-questioning-presidents-refusal-to-pardon-myuran-/1435160\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">This article</a> makes things clearer: The case <em>could</em> have had an impact because it challenged the clemency procedures of the president, specifically in regard to foreigners, but the court could not have overturned the death sentences. Normally, its rulings are binding, but this was not so in this case.</p>\n<hr />\n<p>^{¹I don't mean to imply that this was all his fault; I apologize if it seems that I do.}</p>\n", "score": 7 } ]

[ "criminal-law", "indonesia", "capital-punishment" ]

[ { "answer_id": 255, "body": "<p>We have all see on TV the judge instruct jurors that during trial they are not to speak about the case with anyone, even other jurors, unless all jurors are present and they are deliberating. However, contrary to the example given about England, in the U.S., those restrictions evaporate at the end of the trial. After a trial concludes, the court has no continuing control over the jurors and could not impose lasting restrictions without it. </p>\n\n<p>The Constitution provides the guarantee of trial by a jury of ones peers. In the U.S. for all general civil cases and all criminal cases, we have public trials. (special courts and tribunals are created to deal with cases involving classified information and issues of national security, and the courts have mechanisms for handling trade secrets, etc. to insure that information is not presented to jurors) So in that sense, there is nothing a juror could be exposed to in during their service as jurors that would require any type of continuing restriction.</p>\n", "score": 10 } ]

[ "united-states", "jury" ]

[ { "answer_id": 239, "body": "<p>Courts look to <strong>primary authority</strong> first, and then to <strong>secondary authority</strong> if ambiguity remains. </p>\n\n<p><strong>Primary Authority</strong> providing definition for the legal use of a word would be previous case opinions that give meaning to a word in a given context, how the word is actually defined in the statutes for the state, or, in the case of federal law, the federal statutes or Code of Federal Regulations. Within primary sources, you also consider whether a prior definition is <strong>binding</strong> on the court (i.e., the court has to follow it) or whether it is merely persuasive authority (that the court can choose to follow, but is not required to follow based on <strong>precedent</strong> &ndash; sometimes call <strong>Stare Decisis</strong>). Primary authority is binding on a court if the definition comes from a higher court in the direct appellate chain of the deciding court, it is <strong>persuasive</strong> otherwise.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Secondary Authority</strong> is everything else. For example, Black's Law Dictionary, Whigmore on Evidence, or any other legal treatise would also be a secondary source. (All secondary authority is persuasive authority.)</p>\n\n<p>Courts, in absence of either, will look to how a word is commonly used in the context in which it is applied. All seek to give the proper meaning to a word or phrase in light of how it is being used.</p>\n", "score": 7 }, { "answer_id": 235, "body": "<p>In my experience, I have seen such definitions in the preambles to legal agreements and contracts. For example, in a rental agreement, it defines words like dwelling, tenants, landlord, handyman, etc. If the word was defined in the legal document you signed on, then it suppresses the dictionary definition. I highly doubt that dictionaries offer significantly different definitions of the same words. That is where you can find loopholes. If the word was not defined in the contract, and there is an established difference between the local lingo definition and the dictionary definition. So it is up to the lawyers to convince the court/judge/jury to take the “right” definition into account. </p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_United_States#Sources_of_law\" rel=\"nofollow\">Wiki</a>: “In the United States, the law is derived from five sources: constitutional law, statutory law, treaties, administrative regulations, and the common law (which includes case law)”. Therefore, if you read those legal documents, you will notice at the start of each law a definition of each “legal word”. For example, The <a href=\"https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws\" rel=\"nofollow\">Massachusetts General Law</a> is divided into Parts, Titles, Chapters, and Sections. Once you start diving into each layer, you will notice that some of the Sections have a “<a href=\"https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleI/Chapter4/Section7\" rel=\"nofollow\">Definitions</a>” section for words and phrases. </p>\n\n<p><strong>UPDATE</strong></p>\n\n<p>As the Wiki entry says, the Black's Law Dictionary is only one of the so called <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_authority\" rel=\"nofollow\">secondary authorities</a>. A Secondary Authority comes to <code>\"explain the meaning or applicability of the actual verbatim texts of</code><a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_authority\" rel=\"nofollow\">primary authorities</a>\". A <code>Primary Authority is usually in the form of a document that establishes the law, and if no document exists, is a legal opinion of a court.</code></p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_dictionary\" rel=\"nofollow\">From Wiki</a>: The traditional law dictionary with definitions of legal terms serves to help users understand the legal texts they read (a communicative function) or to acquire knowledge about legal matters independent of any text (a cognitive function). </p>\n\n<p>So, the legal definition of words and phrases should be defined as clear as possible in the law itself (e.g., the definition sections of the MGL noted above). If not defined, the Secondary Authority can be used to explain what they supposedly meant. But, I am sure that different resources can have different opinions on what is what. That's where the lawyers come in handy if they can convince the court to accept one meaning over another. </p>\n", "score": 3 } ]

[ "united-states", "criminal-law", "common-law", "contract-law", "corporate-law" ]

[ { "answer_id": 246, "body": "<h1>There's really no difference.</h1>\n<p>Quoting from <a href=\"http://www.eff.org/issues/bloggers/legal/liability/defamation\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">here</a>,</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><strong>What if I change the person's name?</strong></p>\n<p>To state a defamation claim, the person claiming defamation need not be mentioned by name—the plaintiff only needs to be reasonably identifiable. So if you defame the &quot;government executive who makes his home at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,&quot; it is still reasonably identifiable as the president.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>What does the whole thing depend on? It depends on how easy it is to identify the pseudonym-using plaintiff. They don't have more recourse, <em>per se</em> - nor do they have more protection under the law - but it may be harder for them to win the case. On the upside, the statement might not cause them as much harm when compared to a person using their actual name.</p>\n", "score": 4 } ]

[ "libel", "internet" ]

[ { "answer_id": 147, "body": "<p>An LLC is a legally distinct entity from your person. Basically, if your LLC is sued, and you lose, you can lose only what you put into your LLC. Your personal assets are untouched.</p>\n\n<p>A very sophisticated plaintiff may try to get around this suing both your LLC and you personally. (I've done this myself.) Even so, if you are careful to keep the business of your LLC separate from your personal business (no commingling of assets, no use of your LLC to pay your bills, but only a salary), then the law will often absolve you of personal liability for the \"actions\" of your LLC.</p>\n\n<p>The reason I warn against \"commingling\" is because if you do this, you can lose the protection of the LLC as a separate entity, and become personally liable for what the LLC does. This is known as <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piercing_the_corporate_veil\" rel=\"nofollow\">\"piercing the corporate veil.\"</a></p>\n\n<p>If you have home rental operations in more than one state, you may want to establish LLC's for each state. That's because some states are more tenant- and other states are more landlord- friendly than others, meaning that you may want to defend yourself differently in one state versus another.</p>\n", "score": 6 }, { "answer_id": 148, "body": "<p>Note, further, that it's not only a question of whether or not to use an LLC, but also where to form that LLC. For example, Delaware is a very popular home for LLCs that are owned and operated elsewhere due to <a href=\"http://www.bizfilings.com/learn/incorporate-delaware-nevada.aspx\" rel=\"nofollow\">relatively unique protections</a>, including <a href=\"https://www.delawareinc.com/llc/advantages-of-llc/\" rel=\"nofollow\">exceptional confidentiality provisions</a>.</p>\n\n<p>Savvy operators often layer LLCs to add additional protections, typically by having the initial owner invest through a \"holding company\" which in turn is the only legal owner of one or more \"operating companies.\"</p>\n", "score": 2 }, { "answer_id": 226, "body": "<p>This response reflects no knowledge of Pennsylvania law. The general rule in most states is that a creditor of an LLC may not pursue the members of the LLC directly. In other words, provided that you follow appropriate corporate formalities, the capitalization of the LLC is the limit of liability. The same would be true of a corporation, although LLCs have the additional benefit of being creatures of contract that do not necessarily require all of the formalities of the laws governing corporations. In the situation you describe, I would be primarily concerned about maintaining corporate formalities. If you do so, the corporate form has significant benefit; if you don't, it is a minor roadblock.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "united-states", "pennsylvania", "landlord", "rental-property", "corporate-law" ]

[ { "answer_id": 185, "body": "<p>No.</p>\n\n<p>You are correct in that this is not related to Copyright. Copyright is meant to protect <em>expressions of an idea</em>.</p>\n\n<p>An URL is simply an address, like a street address. Can you legally stop people referring to your home address? No. Can you legally stop people from passing by and looking at your house on the street? Also no.</p>\n\n<p>A famous case related to hyperlink is <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticketmaster_Corp._v._Tickets.com,_Inc.\">Ticketmaster v Tickets.com (2000)</a>. Tickets.com used information Ticketmaster's website and deep-linked to there. The ruling established that:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>use of <em>information</em> is not infringing</li>\n<li>hyperlinking cannot be copyright infringement because no <em>copying</em> is involved.</li>\n<li>deep linking is not unfair competition</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>If you feel that it is necessary to avoid people linking to specific pages of your site, you may consider accomplishing this technically.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p><strong>UPDATE</strong></p>\n\n<p>It does not matter whether your site is meant to be public or not. For example, an knowledge base meant to be shared internally in an organization, but accessible on the internet since staff are geographically distributed.</p>\n\n<p>Again, you may think of it like a street address. A private corporate building meant for employees only. An address, like <em>Room C, 16/F, Example Corporate Complex, 4321 Lucky Avenue</em> can be shared like any other address. You cannot demand people to never refer to your office address. You can, however, setup a security post at the entrance and only allow certain guests to visit you.</p>\n\n<p>In the case of a website, you may state in your terms that one cannot <em>share access information to any external parties</em>. This will include the sharing of any authentication data (e.g. password) which can be used to access content.</p>\n", "score": 10 } ]

[ "copyright", "contract-law" ]

[ { "answer_id": 132, "body": "<p><a href=\"http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/defamation\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">There are four criteria used today</a> in the United States:</p>\n<ol>\n<li>The statement was false, but was claimed as true.</li>\n<li>The statement must have been made to a third, previously uninvolved party.</li>\n<li>The statement must have been made by the accused party.</li>\n<li>The statement caused harm.</li>\n</ol>\n<p>The first (and very important) criterion was discussed in <em><a href=\"http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/376/254\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">New York Times v. Sullivan</a></em>, where it was ruled that</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>A State cannot, under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, award damages to a public official for defamatory falsehood relating to his official conduct unless he proves &quot;actual malice&quot; -- that the statement was made with knowledge of its falsity or with reckless disregard of whether it was true or false. Pp. 265-292.</p>\n<p>(c) Factual error, content defamatory of official reputation, or both, are insufficient to warrant an award of damages for false statements unless &quot;actual malice&quot; -- knowledge that statements are false or in reckless disregard of the truth -- is alleged and proved. Pp. 279-283.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Quoting <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._Sullivan\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Wikipedia</a> and Justice Black,</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The Court held that a public official suing for defamation must prove that the statement in question was made with actual malice. In this context, the phrase refers to knowledge or reckless lack of investigation, rather than its ordinary meaning of malicious intent. In his concurring opinion, Justice Black explained that &quot;'[m]alice,' even as defined by the Court, is an elusive, abstract concept, hard to prove and hard to disprove. The requirement that malice be proved provides at best an evanescent protection for the right critically to discuss public affairs and certainly does not measure up to the sturdy safeguard embodied in the First Amendment.&quot;</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p><em>New York Times v. Sullivan</em> is regarded as one of the most - of not <em>the</em> most - important defamation cases of the century. It was argued in 1964. If the case you discuss - which I haven't been able to find - occurred after to the ruling, then it could have been dismissed, because A did not intend it as malicious in the sense of defamation (and did not claim it was true), though it was almost certainly meant as an insult. Had this case occurred prior to <em>New York Times v. Sullivan</em>, things might have been different.</p>\n<h1>Non-public officials</h1>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/proving-fault-actual-malice-and-negligence\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Things are different for private officials</a>.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Those who are not classified as public figures are considered private figures. To support a claim for defamation, in most states a private figure need only show negligence by the publisher, a much lower standard than &quot;actual malice.&quot; Some states, however, impose a higher standard on private figures, especially if the statement concerns a matter of public importance. You should review your state's specific law in the State Law: Defamation section of this guide for more information.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<hr />\n<p>^{Note: There are differences between defamation, libel, and slander; a quick overview is given <a href=\"http://www.expertlaw.com/library/personal_injury/defamation.html\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">here</a>: &quot;Generally speaking, defamation is the issuance of a false statement about another person, which causes that person to suffer harm. Slander involves the making of defamatory statements by a transitory (non-fixed) representation, usually an oral (spoken) representation. Libel involves the making of defamatory statements in a printed or fixed medium, such as a magazine or newspaper.&quot;}</p>\n", "score": 5 } ]

[ "united-states", "libel", "defamation" ]

[ { "answer_id": 222, "body": "<p>The following information refers to general searches as well as those of motor vehicles, because regulations are generally similar, if not identical.</p>\n<h1>United Kingdom (England and Wales)</h1>\n<p><a href=\"http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06627/SN06627.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">This</a> gives a short overview of the compensation rights of people who feel that their property (in general, not just a motor vehicle) has been unfairly damaged in a search.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Constituents sometimes ask whether they can get compensation for damage (for example to a front door) following forced entry by the police. Police forces do sometimes make ex gratia payments or pay compensation following such damage, for example where the raid was at the wrong premises. However, statutory guidance states that compensation for such damage is “unlikely to be appropriate if the search was lawful, and the force used can be shown to be reasonable, proportionate and necessary to effect entry.” Where a police force refuses to make such a payment, then a constituent wishing to pursue the matter further would need to obtain specialist legal advice.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>However, if a person wishes to press the issue, s/he can always sue the police.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The Police Powers page on the Citizen’s Advice website gives the following very general information about suing the police:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>If your complaint is serious, you may wish to sue the police. You can sue the police in the same way that you can sue members of the public. If you want to sue the police, you should talk to a specialist solicitor.</p>\n</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<h1>United States</h1>\n<p><a href=\"http://defensewiki.ibj.org/index.php/42_U.S.C._%C2%A7_1983\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">42 U.S.C. § 1983</a> sets forth some parameters for suing law enforcement officials.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Under Section 1983 damages can take the form of nominal damages, compensatory damages and punitive damages.</p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Compensatory Damages</strong> may include lost earnings, loss of earning capacity, out of pocket expenses, pain/suffering, mental anguish and emotional distress suffered. There is no inherent “value” in constitutional rights. Damage awards for 1983 actions, separate and aside from normal tort standards, may not be based on the abstract “value” or “importance of constitutional rights&quot; There may, however, be inferred damages, which arise in situations where the circumstances themselves surrounding the violation imply actual damages.</li>\n<li><strong>Punitive Damages</strong> may be assessed when the defendant’s conduct is shown to be motivated by evil motive or intent, or when it involves reckless or callous indifference to the federally protected right. Punitive damages may be found even when the underlying threshold for liability is recklessness. Municipalities are immune from punitive damages.</li>\n<li><strong>Injunctive Relief</strong> may be awarded.</li>\n<li><strong>Nominal Damages</strong> may be awarded by the jury if they determine that the plaintiff's Constitutional rights were violated but they do not believe that they suffered substantive damages.</li>\n</ul>\n</blockquote>\n<p><em>However</em>, the person must prove that their rights have been explicitly violated. This is often difficult to do.</p>\n<p>Two cases of interest are <em><a href=\"http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-2nd-circuit/1198803.html\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Cody v. Mello</a></em> and <em><a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bivens_v._Six_Unknown_Named_Agents\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents</a></em>. The latter has been widely used alongside 42 U.S.C. § 1983 to support the idea that people can be compensated for damages.</p>\n<p>In any case, to gain damages, a person must bring a civil suit to court. It may or may not be successful, depending on the circumstances.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "perimeter-search", "k9" ]

[ { "answer_id": 187, "body": "<p>The Fifth Amendment always protects someone from being forced to testify against themselves if it would implicate them in a crime (see, among others, Ohio v. Reiner, 532 U.S. 17). Any person can assert the privilege, regardless of their role in the trial, with the possible exception of the plaintiff (who is the one person who <em>wanted</em> to go to court). Like always with the Fifth Amendment, they can answer some questions but not others (but if they do answer a question, they need to fully answer it).</p>\n\n<p>In civil cases, the Fifth Amendment itself does not keep the jury from making adverse inferences against whoever invoked the privilege; if you refuse to testify, they can assume that it's because testifying would be extremely damaging in that particular case. However, most states have rules against that, and so invoking the privilege in state courts generally works like it does in a criminal case (where the jury basically ignores that the question was even asked). In federal courts, if a case is being heard under diversity jurisdiction (plaintiff and defendant are from different states but the claim is not a federal claim) the state rule is supposed to apply; if the claim is a federal claim, the federal rule applies and adverse inferences are allowed.</p>\n\n<p>While the Fifth Amendment can be invoked by anyone, there may be consequences. In many states (where adverse inference isn't allowed), a witness who will just invoke the Fifth and answer no questions can't be called, because it's a complete waste of time. If the <em>plaintiff</em> invokes the Fifth to not answer key questions, then the court can potentially dismiss the case; they have the right to assert the privilege, but their lawsuit might suffer for it. In federal court, another possibility that's been done several times before is that the civil case is just put on hold until the criminal matter is resolved.</p>\n\n<p>Sources:<br>\n<a href=\"http://www.gibsondunn.com/publications/Documents/Battaglia-Adriance-FifthAmendmentCanAndWillBeUsedAgainstYou.pdf\">“The Fifth Amendment Can &amp; Will Be Used Against You In a (Federal) Court of Law”</a><br>\n<a href=\"http://apps.americanbar.org/buslaw/blt/blt00may-shield.html\">Taking the 5th: How to pierce the testimonial shield</a><br>\n<a href=\"http://www.jstor.org/stable/1599355\">Plaintiff as Deponent: Invoking the Fifth Amendment</a></p>\n", "score": 16 } ]

[ "united-states", "us-constitution", "fifth-amendment" ]

[ { "answer_id": 204, "body": "<p>Your question assumes that there is a universal, legal definition of \"criminal.\" Since there is not, it can't be answered.</p>\n\n<p>Infractions, misdemeanors, and felonies are all criminal offenses defined by criminal law. There may be different implications involved in being found guilty of an infraction rather than a misdemeanor, but it's not the case that one of them makes you a \"criminal\" and the other does not.</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "united-states", "traffic" ]

[ { "answer_id": 180, "body": "<p>According to the California Vehicle Code, the thresholds for driving under the influence are:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>0.04% BAC if <a href=\"http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=VEH&amp;sectionNum=23152.\">driving a commercial vehicle</a></li>\n<li>0.01% BAC if <a href=\"http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=VEH&amp;sectionNum=23154.\">under a DUI probation</a></li>\n<li>0.01% BAC if <a href=\"http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=VEH&amp;sectionNum=23136.\">the driver is under the age of 21</a></li>\n<li>0.08% BAC if <a href=\"http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=VEH&amp;sectionNum=23152.\">none of the above cases apply</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>California law permits the blood-alcohol content to be determined through <a href=\"https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/?1dmy&amp;urile=wcm:path:/dmv_content_en/dmv/pubs/brochures/fast_facts/ffdl35\">a breath test, a blood test, or in limited circumstances, urinalysis</a>.</p>\n", "score": 7 } ]

[ "united-states", "driving", "california" ]

[ { "answer_id": 195, "body": "<p>Since licensing can only be done by the copyright holder, you generally need individual permission from each copyright holder to change the license of their code. (If the project is being re-licensed to the GPL from a <a href=\"http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#WhatDoesCompatMean\" rel=\"noreferrer\">compatible license</a>, then no re-licensing from the copyright holder is necessary; however, versions 2 and 3 of the GPL are not compatible with one another.)</p>\n<p>Ways around this are:</p>\n<ul>\n<li><p>Remove or replace all code written by the unreachable contributors.</p>\n</li>\n<li><p>Have contributors assign copyright to a person or legal entity that controls the project, so that there is exactly one copyright holder. (This is a <em>preventive</em> measure. If you have not done this already, it's too late when you cannot track down a contributor.)</p>\n</li>\n</ul>\n<p>But if you can't do either of those things, what do you do?</p>\n<p>Historically, re-licensing of software without explicit approval from all contributors <em>has</em> been done before, under the advice of legal professionals. However, the legal mechanics of it are unclear and have never been tested in court. The two prominent examples appear to be:</p>\n<ul>\n<li><p><a href=\"http://www-archive.mozilla.org/MPL/relicensing-faq.html\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Mozilla relicensed</a> from the MPL to a triple-licensed MPL/GPL/LGPL scheme</p>\n</li>\n<li><p>The <a href=\"https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2015/05/25/relicensing-dolphin/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Dolphin emulator relicensed</a> from GPLv2 to GPLv2+.</p>\n</li>\n</ul>\n<p>The Dolphin project <a href=\"https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2015/05/25/relicensing-dolphin/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">produced a report about the process</a>, but it lacks any specifics about <em>how</em> the legal mechanics of the switch work. They say (emphasis mine):</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Out of all [200 contributors], we managed to contact all or take care of the code of all but 10 of those developers. Considering that many of those accounts are now dead and the people seemingly vanished from the Internet, finding the rest is akin to squeezing blood out of a stone.</p>\n<p>That's when research provided us some much needed relief when it seemed as though relicensing was an impossibility. In 2003, <strong>Free Software lawyers consulted for Mozilla's relicensing project and stated that relicensing with the permission of just 95% of contributors was fine, as long as there were no objections in the remaining 5%</strong>.</p>\n<p>[...]</p>\n<p>[...] Instead of simply asking all of our active developers and relicensing, we made a very strong effort to get a hold of every single developer. Despite this, it simply wasn't feasible to make contact with every single person who worked on Dolphin.</p>\n<p>[...] We definitely would love to hear support from those that we were unable to contact, and if there are any concerns we will gladly address them in a prompt fashion.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>That posts links to a <a href=\"http://blogs.fsfe.org/ciaran/?p=58\" rel=\"noreferrer\">post from Ciaran O'Riordan</a>:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Someone who works with many lawyers on free software copyright issues later told me that it is not necessary to get permission from 100% of the copyright holders. It would suffice if there was permission from the copyright holders of 95% of the source code and no objections from the holders of the other 5%. This, I’m told, is how Mozilla was able to relicense to the GPL in 2003 despite years of community contributions.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>There is no information available about <em>why</em> Mozilla's lawyers believed it was acceptable to re-license without each copyright holder's permission. It's also unclear if any factors apply to Mozilla specifically that might apply less strongly to anyone else in a similar situation.</p>\n<p>In sum, we know only that:</p>\n<ul>\n<li><p>You need the permission of every contributing copyright holder to re-license a work</p>\n</li>\n<li><p>Mozilla's lawyers believed (for unspecified reasons) it would be acceptable for Mozilla to make a good-faith effort to contract all contributors and then re-license, even if 5% of the contributors were unreachable (and none of the contributors disapproved).</p>\n</li>\n</ul>\n", "score": 13 }, { "answer_id": 192, "body": "<p>As far as I know, you are stuck unless you can somehow track the pieces of code written by every single developer, and remove those written by those you can't reach.</p>\n\n<p>For obvious reasons, this is seldom doable.</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "copyright", "licensing", "gpl" ]

[ { "answer_id": 59, "body": "<p><strong>Edit:</strong></p>\n\n<p>There is a <a href=\"http://www.ontariohighwaytrafficact.com/topic1061.html\" rel=\"noreferrer\">forum</a> that discusses the Ontario Highway Traffic Act, and this is apparently a question that gets asked a lot. To sum up the discussion, because of O.Reg 615 of the French Language Services Act, there is a possibility that you can challenge uniligual signs in French service regions like Toronto. The reality is, Toronto never adopted the option to make all traffic signs bilingual. Quoting someone who posted in the forum who tried to challenge a sign without french and lost the case:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>\"...the prosecutor argued that City of Toronto never approval or adopted\n this bilingual option. He further mentioned that the City has appealed\n and won the case from the superior court.\"</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>From the Highway Traffic Act:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p><a href=\"http://www.ontario.ca/laws/regulation/900615/v1\" rel=\"noreferrer\">HTA OREG 615</a> <br>\n 52. A municipality situated in an area designated by the French Language Services Act is not required to comply with the sign\n requirements for such areas unless it (Municipality) has passed a\n by-law under section 14 of that Act. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>So the answer appears to be <strong>yes, you have to obey English-only signs in Toronto</strong>. You may be able to challenge signs in other areas of Ontario, but only if a municipality has passed a by-law under section 14 of the French Language Services Act.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>Yes, you have to obey all posted signs. Depending on the region, you could make an argument that the sign must be updated to include french, but it is unlikely you could argue that you were not required to obey it in most places. </p>\n\n<p>Canada is bilingual at the federal level, so all <em>federal</em> services must make their signs bilingual, but <strong>the provinces of Canada are <em>not</em> all bilingual</strong>. The laws will change from province to province, Quebec for example is technically unilingual French, so they are not required to put english on their signs, but regardless of which province you are in, you must obey all posted signs.</p>\n\n<p>There are a number of provinces that are unilingual English, I grew up in British Columbia, there aren't any French or bilingual signs out here except for in National Parks and on government buildings. I couldn't carry a conversation in French if my life depended on it, not many people out here could, and the ones that can mostly moved here from Quebec.</p>\n\n<p>Ontario has the <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Language_Services_Act\" rel=\"noreferrer\">French Language Services Act</a>, which requires all government services (not just federal) to be offered in french if the francophone population meets a certain threshold. The areas in blue in the image below represent areas that provide french services, the dark blue indicates that the entire region is required to offer french services, the light blue indicate areas that have communities that offer french services.</p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/msdfq.png\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></p>\n\n<p>Toronto is a designated french services municipality, <s>so technically, the sign probably <em>should</em> be bilingual,</s> but the fact that it is not <em>does not</em> give you justification to break the law. Like I already said, you could file a complaint and have the city update the sign, but you're not likely to get away with a traffic violation based on the fact that the sign wasn't bilingual. </p>\n", "score": 12 }, { "answer_id": 57, "body": "<p>Yes, you pretty much have to. While one person convinced one Justice of the Peace that the English-only signs were invalid in 2004 (and then pled guilty on appeal), in 2011 an attempt to argue that the signs were invalid was rejected by lower courts, and the Ontario Court of Appeal refused to hear that case while commenting that they considered the 2004 decision to be incorrect (<a href=\"http://www.canlii.org/en/on/onca/doc/2011/2011onca386/2011onca386.html\">R. v. Petruzzo</a>). While refusing to hear an appeal doesn't create binding precedent that the English-only signs are OK, it means that you're unlikely to succeed in your argument that they aren't allowed.</p>\n", "score": 7 } ]

[ "canada", "traffic" ]

[ { "answer_id": 169, "body": "<p><a href=\"http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Law+Review\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">The first student-edited law review</a> was <em>The Albany Law School Journal</em> - of Albany Law School - which was published for only one year, in 1875.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The first student-edited law review was the Albany Law School Journal, which lasted only one year, through 1875. This law review contained articles, Moot Court arguments, and a calendar of law school events. The first issue included a student commentary that questioned whether after a lecture it was better for a student to read the cases discussed in the lecture or to read treatises on the topic discussed.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>The journal was eventually succeeded by <em>The Albany Law Review</em> (in 1936), which proudly <a href=\"http://www.albanylawreview.org/about/Pages/History.aspx\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">trumpets its heritage</a>:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Albany Law School was the first institution to produce a student edited legal periodical. During the academic year of 1875—1876, a student run group, lead by then Editor-in-Chief Isaac Grant Thompson, published the Albany Law School Journal. Although closer to a legal newspaper than a traditional academic law review, the Albany Law School Journal has been hailed as a precursor to the first academic law review published by Harvard Law School in 1887. Editor-in-Chief Thompson described the journal as a “medium of conveying to the profession of the country the latest intelligence of interest on all subjects pertaining to the law,” and he solicited “brief contributions on legal topics, notes of decisions, and items of general legal news.”</p>\n<p>The Albany Law School Journal was published weekly and mainly consisted of law school updates, announcements, and news. There was, however, a substantive component to the Albany Law School Journal. Each publication contained brief summaries of important recent decisions of the New York courts. Also, the journal contained primitive versions of the student note, a major component of many modern law review publications. For example, one student discusses in detail recent arguments on the power of the states under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments “to cut off the right of suffrage of any person for certain reasons.”</p>\n</blockquote>\n", "score": 3 } ]

[ "legal-education", "legal-history", "law-review" ]

[ { "answer_id": 150, "body": "<p>For the first question, assuming EU legislation being applicable here, <a href=\"http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32006R1896\" rel=\"nofollow\">EU regulation No 1896/2006 of 12 December 2006 on creating a European order for payment procedure</a> may be relevant, foreseeing a unified procedure for payment claims. </p>\n\n<p>On the second one, the answer is likely to be found in <a href=\"http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:32012R1215\" rel=\"nofollow\">EU regulation No 1215/2012 of 12 December 2012 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters</a>. This regulation has in its Article 4 a general rule (persons domiciled in a Member State shall [..] be sued in the courts of that Member State) but of course also several exceptions to this rule. A relevant exception here is contained in Article 7: In matters relating to a contract, the courts for the place of performance of the obligation in question are competent.</p>\n", "score": 4 }, { "answer_id": 93, "body": "<p>Not knowing EU law, I can only answer the second question (though I would guess that the answer to the first is yes).<br>\nThe general rules of jurisdiction people to sue others in a range of courts, based on various questions. In this case, the plaintiff would be able to sue in the state where the contract was signed; the state in which the plaintiff lives (though he may have to get the defendant to be in the state, if only for a short time, before he can actually submit the lawsuit); the state in which the defendant lives; and, if the effects of the breach of contract somehow resonate in a third state, the plaintiff would generally be able to sue there too.<br>\nIt's worth noting that as we become a more globalized world, and it becomes easier for people to participate in lawsuits even if they're taking place far away, judges value less complaints regarding the choice of venue, and tend to relax standards regarding where one has to file a lawsuit.</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "european-union", "civil-procedure" ]

[ { "answer_id": 142, "body": "<p>From <a href=\"http://grammarist.com/usage/libel-slander/\">http://grammarist.com/usage/libel-slander/</a>:</p>\n\n<p>(emphasis mine)</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p><strong>Libel</strong> is the use of false, defamatory claims about someone in <strong>written or printed form</strong>. <strong>Slander</strong> likewise denotes false statements that damage a person’s reputation, but it is committed <strong>orally or in any other transient form</strong></p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>So a false claim satisfying the definition of defamation would be libel if written (including on the Internet, per <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varian_v._Delfino\">Varian Medical Systems, Inc. v. Delfino</a>), and slander if made in a transient form.</p>\n", "score": 11 } ]

[ "libel", "slander" ]

[ { "answer_id": 122, "body": "<p>Legally, the answer will differ by jurisdiction. Practically, the answer is summed up in the old proverb: \"The man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client.\"</p>\n\n<p>Even experienced lawyers rarely represent themselves, especially when outside their area of professional expertise. There are two reasons people hire lawyers: technical expertise, and objective advice. You need both.</p>\n\n<p>I have never represented myself, but I have acted for clients against self-represented (in the U.S., \"pro se\") litigants. I have never seen one who ever had a hope of succeeding. Usually all of the lawyers involved, and the judge, knew their case was doomed from the first hapless pleading. Usually, the pro se litigant was convinced that he was sure to prevail.</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "indian-penal-code", "india" ]

[ { "answer_id": 75, "body": "<p>Foreign citizens are just as entitled to Fourth Amendment protections against search and seizure as American citizens are. The case you cited was, in fact, a South Korean citizen who successfully had evidence suppressed from an unjustified border search.</p>\n", "score": 5 } ]

[ "united-states", "search-and-seizure", "fourth-amendment" ]

[ { "answer_id": 80, "body": "<p>People in the UK (who are not subject to immigration control or other restrictions) do not have to carry any form of identification.</p>\n\n<p>This doesn't answer all parts of your question, but <a href=\"http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/part/VII/crossheading/powers-of-constables-and-other-authorised-persons\">s164 Road Traffic Act 1988</a> is appropriate to the part about driving.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>a person driving a motor vehicle on a road ... must, on being so required by a constable or vehicle examiner, produce his licence and its counterpart<a href=\"http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/part/VII/crossheading/powers-of-constables-and-other-authorised-persons\">1</a> for examination, so as to enable the constable or vehicle examiner to ascertain the name and address of the holder of the licence, the date of issue, and the authority by which they were issued. (s164(1))</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>So it makes no difference why you were stopped: a constable or traffic offiver can demand production of your licence if you were driving. The same power exists if you're suspected of having caused an accident or committed an offence, even if you're not driving at the time of the production demand.</p>\n\n<p>Non-production is an offence:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>If a person required under the preceding provisions of this section to produce a licence and its counterpart ... fails to do so he is, subject to subsections (7) to (8A) below, guilty of an offence. (s164(6))</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>However, it is a defence to produce the licence (or a receipt for a licence) within seven days of the demand (s164(7-8)). In practice, the officer will give you a 'producer' requiring you to present your licence at a police station within seven days, after which you will be guilty of the non-production offence. The implication of this is that it is <strong>not</strong> required that you carry your licence; merely that you have it available to produce within seven days.</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/part/VII/crossheading/powers-of-constables-and-other-authorised-persons\">1</a> Presumably the reference to 'counterpart' will go away when the counterpart is abolished on 8th June 2015.</p>\n", "score": 16 } ]

[ "united-kingdom", "police" ]

[ { "answer_id": 33, "body": "<p>To answer the first question, the answer seems to be \"generally not.\" In federal courts, this is explicitly not allowed -- rule 6(d) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure states that the only people who can be present before a grand jury are <em>government</em> lawyers, the witness being questioned, interpreters, and a court reporter</p>\n\n<p>In state courts, the rules vary by state. However, again, private citizens are generally either completely not allowed to act as prosecutors, or are only allowed to act as prosecutors in a restricted set of situations and subject to the ultimate control of public prosecutors. For instance, in Virginia (which allows private prosecutors), the private prosecutor can't speak in front of a grand jury, initiate a criminal case, or participate in a decision to dismiss charges (<a href=\"http://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1444&amp;context=wlucdj\">page 23</a>). In New Hampshire, private prosecution is limited to misdemeanors with no possibility of jail time, and again the state can dismiss charges (<a href=\"http://suffolklawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2004/03/McCormack.pdf\">page 8</a>). Rhode Island, like New Hampshire, allows private prosecution for misdemeanors but lets the state dismiss charges (<a href=\"https://www.courts.ri.gov/Courts/SupremeCourt/OpinionsOrders/pdf-files/99-378.pdf\">page 11</a>). The justification for allowing the state to dismiss charges is generally \"prosecution is inherently a governmental task, so the government must retain ultimate control.\"</p>\n", "score": 6 }, { "answer_id": 20, "body": "<p>I would point to a concept that I feel to some degree answers your questions, the \"runaway jury\". The idea being that the jury finds itself unsatisfied with whatever it is the prosecutor is telling them, and moves on by itself.<br>\nBecause of the investigative powers of a grand jury, the jurors could in theory investigate a matter on their own, even without the cooperation of the prosecutor.<br>\nThus for example we have the case of a New York grand jury in the 1930s, who came to the conclusion that the prosecutor was corrupt, and went to the newspapers while continuing the investigation on their own, until a new prosecutor was appointed.<br>\nSources: <a href=\"http://campus.udayton.edu/~grandjur/faq/faq8.htm\" rel=\"noreferrer\">http://campus.udayton.edu/~grandjur/faq/faq8.htm</a><br>\n<a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_C._Dodge#Runaway_grand_jury\" rel=\"noreferrer\">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_C._Dodge#Runaway_grand_jury</a></p>\n", "score": 5 } ]

[ "criminal-law", "united-states" ]

[ { "answer_id": 18, "body": "<p>Internationally, according to the Berne Convention, \"copyrights for creative works are automatically in force upon their creation without being asserted or declared\" (<a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention\">Wikipedia</a>). However, in the United States, you can register your work with the <a href=\"http://www.copyright.gov/eco/\">US Copyright Office</a> to receive <a href=\"http://www.sfwa.org/2013/02/the-benefits-of-copyright-registration/\">additional protection and benefits</a>, such as (if you promptly register) being granted statutory damages and attorney’s fees in case of infringement.</p>\n", "score": 7 } ]

[ "united-states", "copyright" ]