Datasets:

ymoslem

/

Law-StackExchange

like 14

[ { "answer_id": 429, "body": "<p>The Stack Exchange \"requirement\" of a particular type of attribution is unlikely to be enforceable, given the terms of the CC BY-SA license.</p>\n\n<p>The actual Creative Commons license, the part that governs the relationship between the parties, is the \"legal code\" license agreement. The CC BY-SA agreement contains two clauses relevant to the form of attribution.</p>\n\n<p>One, as the question points out, is paragraph 4(c), which states that \"credit may be implemented in any reasonable manner.\" This language is much less restrictive than the StackExchange blog post.</p>\n\n<p>The other relevant clause is the last clause of the agreement, paragraph 8(e), which is a standard integration clause:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>This License constitutes the entire agreement between the parties with respect to the Work licensed here. There are no understandings, agreements or representations with respect to the Work not specified here. Licensor shall not be bound by any additional provisions that may appear in any communication from You. This License may not be modified without the mutual written agreement of the Licensor and You.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>In other words, any changes to the license, which would include any additional restrictions on the nature of the attribution that may be given (besides the \"reasonable manner\" specified in the license) are effective only if both parties agree to do so in writing.</p>\n\n<p>The specific law applied from jurisdiction to jurisdiction is going to vary, but in general, in the United States, when you have a fully integrated agreement such as this license, a court will not look at anything outside the four corners of the agreement to determine the parties' rights and duties.</p>\n\n<p>If a court finds this to be a fully integrated agreement, and refuses to consider \"parol evidence,\" meaning statements outside of the contract, then StackExchange can post a page asking people to attribute content in a particular way, but no, they cannot require it.</p>\n", "score": 30 }, { "answer_id": 6133, "body": "<p>You mention specifically the following stipulations as being perhaps beyond the scope of <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode\" rel=\"nofollow\">CC-BY-SA 3.0</a>:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>To hyperlink each author, in addition to the page itself</li>\n<li>To use a direct link rather than a shortener</li>\n<li>To not use nofollow</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Let's go through them in turn, in relation to 4(c).</p>\n\n<h2>To hyperlink each author, in addition to the page itself</h2>\n\n<p>According to 4(c)(i), the <em>name or pseudonym</em> of the Original Author and/or of any Licensor designated parties must be supplied, but there is no requirement in CC-BY-SA 3.0 to <em>hyperlink</em> each author. I do not know if it could plausibly be argued that the URL for the relevant SO/SE user page for the author is a valid pseudonym for that author. It seems to me that you can satisfy 4(c)(i) by giving the author's SO/SE username, with no need to additionally supply the user's profile page URL.</p>\n\n<h2>To use a direct link rather than a shortener</h2>\n\n<p>According to 4(c)(iii), you must provide \"the URI, if any, that Licensor specifies to be associated with the Work, unless such URI does not refer to the copyright notice or licensing information for the Work\".</p>\n\n<p>In the case of SO/SE, it might reasonably be argued that by submitting a contribution, the licensor <em>is</em> specifying a URI to be associated with the work, because every contribution to SO/SE is provided with its own unique URI. (For example, your question has the unique URI <code>http://law.stackexchange.com/q/419</code> , which is manifestly not the same thing as e.g. <code>http://v.gd/kuUea2</code> even though the latter points to the former.)</p>\n\n<p>So, this stipulation seems to represent a plausible interpretation of the license.</p>\n\n<h2>To not use nofollow</h2>\n\n<p>The only ground on which this is a vaguely plausible interpretation of the license is if one considers the use of nofollow to be a violation of 4(c)(iii). I think a court would be unlikely to be convinced that it is a violation, but courts are surprising and unpredictable creatures. A cautious and reasonable person might well think it prudent to avoid the use of nofollow here.</p>\n", "score": 4 }, { "answer_id": 2245, "body": "<p>Creative Commons Corp Human Readable Layer defines <strong>attribute</strong> (attribution) under SE's license type as follows:</p>\n\n<p>Under the following terms:</p>\n\n<p>Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.</p>\n\n<p>ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.\nNo additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.</p>\n\n<p>Notices:</p>\n\n<p><em>You do not have to comply with the license for elements of the material in the public domain or (if) where your use (it) is permitted by an applicable exception or limitation.</em></p>\n\n<p>No warranties are given. T<em>he license may not give you all of the permissions necessary for your intended use. For example, other rights such as publicity, privacy, or moral rights may limit how you use the material.</em></p>\n", "score": 0 } ]

[ "copyright", "creative-commons" ]

[ { "answer_id": 6117, "body": "<p>Given that you do not intend on sharing the picture, which could open up other areas of law, the only applicable laws that I can personally think of would be copyright laws (assuming the content of the picture is not itself illegal).</p>\n<p>Presumably, the person who sent you the snapchat took the picture themselves, and so would hold copyright over the picture. In France, while the picture would be protected under <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authors%27_rights\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">authors' rights</a>, <strong>private copying</strong> is in general legal. Article L122-5 of the <em><a href=\"http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichCode.do?cidTexte=LEGITEXT000006069414&amp;dateTexte=20160101\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Code de la propriété intellectuelle</a></em> states:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Lorsque l'oeuvre a été divulguée, l'auteur ne peut interdire :</p>\n<p>[...] 2° Les copies ou reproductions réalisées à partir d'une source licite et strictement réservées à l'usage privé du copiste et non destinées à une utilisation collective [...]</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>My rough translation:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Once the work has been disclosed, the author may not prohibit:</p>\n<p>[...] 2) The copies or reproductions originating from a lawful source and strictly reserved for the private use of the copier and not intended for collective use [...]</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Therefore, I do not believe that any successful legal actions could be brought against you for copyright violations (but I'm also not your lawyer). For more information, the French Wikipedia has an <a href=\"https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copie_priv%C3%A9e\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">article on private copying</a> (no English wiki equivalent exists as far as I can tell).</p>\n<hr />\n<p>As a note to readers in other countries, the legality of private copying varies widely from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and would have to be researched individually for each. Where it is legal, there are often additional taxes on media where copies can typically be made, which gets redistributed to professional creators (including in France).</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "internet", "privacy", "france" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5213, "body": "<p>The creator of the software doesn't provide any warranty. If you feel confident in the quality of the software, nothing stops you from providing a warranty. If the software doesn't meet your guarantees, you will have to pay out because you provided the warranty, depending on the terms. Not the creator of the software because they explicitly didn't provide any warranty. If that's what you want to do, go ahead. I wouldn't. </p>\n\n<p>You don't have to republish under the BSD license, which you wouldn't. You <em>must</em> attach the license terms, which clarifies the role of the original creators, and that they don't give a warranty. Doing this allows you to copy the software. It doesn't mean you can't provide a warranty. </p>\n", "score": 4 }, { "answer_id": 6120, "body": "<p>As long as you are clear that YOU are providing the warranty and the original authors of the software are NOT, that should be fine. This is an important part of RedHat's business model, for example (see e.g. Open Source Assurance <a href=\"http://www.redhat.com/software/assurance/faq.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">warranty</a>) and is essentially a transfer of risk (&amp; maybe also money) from the person purchasing the warranty to you, which might be a good business model if you're going to invest a lot more time and energy into understanding, managing, and mitigating the risk than your customers want to. </p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "licensing", "software", "open-source-software", "disclaimers", "warranties" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5217, "body": "<p>Similar to <a href=\"https://law.stackexchange.com/a/1003/58\">this question</a> and <a href=\"https://law.stackexchange.com/q/743/58\">this one</a>, the <a href=\"https://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/2/2-316\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Uniform Commercial Code</a> requires that exclusion of warranty be conspicuous. While it does not specify the manner in which text should be made conspicuous, putting it in all caps certainly has that effect if the surrounding text is in sentence case.</p>\n\n<p>The meaning is that all products come with implied warranties of merchantability (it is good enough to be sold to you) and fitness for purpose (it will do what it's meant to, and what you've been told it will do). This text excludes this product from those warranties (that is, those warranties do not apply).</p>\n\n<p>It also disclaims liability for claims and damages, which means that if this software causes you harm or damage, you can't file a suit to recover any loss. Whether this is enforceable would be decided by a court.</p>\n", "score": 8 } ]

[ "copyright", "licensing", "damages", "open-source-software" ]

[ { "answer_id": 6118, "body": "<p>Use of copyrighted material without license is not considered infringing if it complies with the proscriptions of <a href=\"/questions/tagged/fair-use\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;fair-use&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">fair-use</a>, which are <a href=\"http://copyright.gov/fair-use/\" rel=\"nofollow\">enumerated by both statute and case law</a>. Without a specific example one couldn't guess whether or which fair-use exemption might apply.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "copyright" ]

[ { "answer_id": 6111, "body": "<p>Not everything is capable of being copyrighted. According to <a href=\"http://copyright.gov/circs/circ34.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">Circular 34</a> lists are generally not subject to copyright. In addition keep in mind that to be copyright the subject matter has to be one that is result of creative effort, ie <a href=\"http://copyright.gov/circs/circ34.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">\"...original literary, musical, pictorial, or graphic expression.\"</a> I would think that a price list does not fall under that category because a listing of numbers and items is not such an expression.</p>\n\n<p>However, keep in mind how easy it is for anybody to file a DCMA take-down notice. It looks like Best Buy did so in 2006, to prevent their \"Black Friday\" sales prices from being publicly revealed, as per the Ars Technica article, <a href=\"http://arstechnica.com/business/2006/11/8218/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Best Buy tries to copyright sales prices</a>.</p>\n\n<p>In short be prepared for a DCMA take down notice directed at your website.\nBe aware that although sales price lists may not be proper subject of copyright, this does not stop this author of the price list from bringing suit, and perhaps under other theories of recovery other than copyright infringement. See the <a href=\"https://consumermediallc.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/unitedsuit.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">Skiplagged Complaint</a> for an example of this type of litigation.</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "internet", "intellectual-property" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4177, "body": "<p>There is no upside to having someone \"open a mortgage\" in your name. </p>\n\n<p>Unless it's your rich uncle who is also paying the mortgage.</p>\n\n<p>The uncle scenario proves the point that any apparent benefit likely amounts to fraud upon any closer inspection. </p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "real-estate", "theft", "fraud" ]

[ { "answer_id": 6098, "body": "<p>No. The Fourteenth Amendment says:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The Supreme Court has determined that this clause <em>incorporates</em> much of the Bill of Rights. The logic is mildly tortured, but it's basically that \"due process of law\" means \"due process of a law that is compatible with the fundamental rights of a free society.\" This logic is known as \"substantive due process,\" because it reads in to \"due process of law\" requirements about what those laws can do (as opposed to <em>procedural</em> due process, which is about the actual procedures being used).</p>\n\n<p>It's pretty settled that the Bill of Rights, after the 14th Amendment, <em>should</em> apply to the states. There's another possible way to get there: the 14th Amendment says \"No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States,\" which Justice Thomas recently thought meant that the Second Amendment applies to the states in a concurring opinion. But as of now, substantive due process is the standard logic for it.</p>\n\n<p>Virtually all of the Bill of Rights is incorporated against the states. There are a couple things which <em>aren't</em> (like juries in lawsuits, and grand juries), but the Establisment Clause is incorporated (see <em>Everson v. Board of Education</em>, <a href=\"https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/330/1/case.html\">330 US 1</a>).</p>\n", "score": 19 }, { "answer_id": 6099, "body": "<p><a href=\"https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/330us1\">Everson v. Board of Education</a> applied the establishment clause of the 1st amendment to state law.</p>\n\n<p>Applying the Bill of Rights to state law is known as incorporation as in, incorporating the Bill of Rights to the states. It has had some controversy as reflected in U.S. Supreme Court decisions as to how, which and when specific amendments are or were incorporated. The most recent incorporation came in <a href=\"https://www.oyez.org/cases/2009/08-1521\">McDonald v. Chicago</a> in 2010. There are those who argue that the 14th amendment was designed to incorporate the first 8 amendments. Others have attempted to argue, even as late as that 2010 case, that not all amendments are incorporated against state law.</p>\n\n<p>In Everson v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court wrote:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>\"The 'establishment of religion' clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance. No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion. Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect 'a wall of separation between Church and State.'\" 330 U.S. 1, 15-16.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>All justices, in this decision, agreed that the 1st amendment was incorporated against the states. They disagreed whether or not that incorporation should result in striking down the question that was before the court (whether the state could pay for school buses to take children to religious based private schools.) In the end, it was a 5-4 decision that the states could pay for transportation.</p>\n", "score": 13 }, { "answer_id": 6106, "body": "<p>Most U.S. states had state religions at the time of the First Amendment. The First Amendment prevented the Federal Government from creating its own state-religion to trump those of the states.</p>\n\n<p>In more recent vintage, the Supreme Court has adopted the principle of separation of church and state so that now the First Amendment prohibits that which it was designed to protect.</p>\n", "score": 7 } ]

[ "united-states", "human-rights", "religion", "first-amendment" ]

[ { "answer_id": 6103, "body": "<p>From FIFA's website terms:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>All FIFA Content, including FIFA feeds, is owned by, or licensed to,\n FIFA. FIFA Content is provided to You “AS IS” and <strong>may not be used</strong>,\n reproduced, distributed, transmitted, broadcast, displayed, sold,\n licensed or otherwise exploited <strong>for any other purposes than their\n access and usage on the FIFA Digital Platforms</strong>. For that sole and\n exclusive purpose, FIFA grants to You a limited, revocable,\n non-exclusive license to access and use the FIFA Digital Platforms\n privately for non-commercial purposes, in accordance with these Terms.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>There is a common law principle that facts do not enjoy copyright protection. However, the realtime display of data seems special because the presenter of the facts is going to some complicated lengths to make the display happen. While the compiler of the facts might not win a copyright case, they might ban you from their website and then use various property laws to make you liable if you keep pulling data from their sites.</p>\n\n<p>Of course, there are other services that compile real time scores and they certainly have terms of use.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "copyright", "intellectual-property", "data-ownership" ]

[ { "answer_id": 6084, "body": "<p>Yes, why not? It happens all the time. Usually the witness will just say, \"I am not sure\" or \"I don't remember, exactly\".</p>\n\n<p>Also, if Bob is the only witness, how would anyone prove that he was committing \"perjury\"?</p>\n\n<p>In the case of an uncooperative or dissimulating witness, Judges sometimes can hold them in contempt of court, but it is pretty rare. In general, the court has to find \"beyond a reasonable doubt\" that the witness is refusing to testify honestly. (See \"Federal Grand Jury Practice and Procedure\" by Paul Diamond)</p>\n\n<p>It depends very much on the situation.</p>\n\n<p>Note that just trying to act \"drunk\" would not be a good idea, because that is contempt of court.</p>\n", "score": 8 } ]

[ "united-states", "trial" ]

[ { "answer_id": 6100, "body": "<p>Agents of the state are not presumed to be perfect. The justice system and due process are designed to weigh all the nuances of evidence and try to provide a fair outcome. So in a trial the fact that there was a conflict of interest would and should be brought to light, and the judge and jury will consider that conflict and how it should color the evidence.</p>\n\n<p>Even when there is no <em>explicit</em> conflict of interest, a great deal of a criminal trial may be spent by each side trying to impress upon the jury the reliability or dubiousness of the provenance and import of every piece of evidence.</p>\n\n<p>Only when the justice system determines that fundamental rights have been violated (e.g., fourth- and fifth-amendment rights) will it completely exclude evidence so procured.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "united-states", "evidence" ]

[ { "answer_id": 6092, "body": "<p>You misunderstand the primary purpose of a signature. It is <em>not</em> to prevent forgery; claims that a signature was forged are <em>vanishingly</em> rare, as are actual forged signatures. The difficulty of forging a signature is not particularly a factor in whether or not it can legally be used, although it may be a factor in how much a jury believes it. And you can introduce other evidence to justify the existence of the contract, like negotiation documents and the conduct of both sides. </p>\n\n<p>The primary point of a signature is to show <em>acceptance</em>. A signature is something that people recognize as committing yourself to whatever you sign. S-signatures are not what you normally write on documents, so they can serve this role. The authentication role of wet-ink signatures is served through some kind of evidence that the signature was actually made by the signer, which can be as simple as email headers. And, of course, forging an electronic signature is a crime, and you can be forced to testify under oath about whether you did or did not sign it (you can and should take the Fifth to avoid incriminating yourself in criminal fraud, but a civil jury can then assume that you really did forge it).</p>\n\n<p>Electronic signatures may be forgeable, but so are wet ink signatures. Signatures aren't meant to be perfectly secure; again, forgery is almost never raised as a defense, in part because forgery on signatures is very rare. Wet ink signatures aren't some ironclad proof of an agreement either. </p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "signature" ]

[ { "answer_id": 6086, "body": "<p>Under the <a href=\"http://www.shrm.org/templatestools/hrqa/pages/howemployeemedicalabsencequalifiesforfmlaleave.aspx\" rel=\"noreferrer\">FMLA</a>: </p>\n\n<p>a <strong>serious health condition</strong> is an illness, injury, impairment or physical or mental condition that involves inpatient care (defined as an overnight stay in a hospital, hospice or residential medical care facility; any overnight admission to such facilities is an automatic trigger for FMLA eligibility) or continuing treatment by a health care provider</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>Under this definition > <a href=\"http://www.nap.edu/read/9695/chapter/3#20\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Source</a> (See Pages 19-20)</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/clFHB.png\" rel=\"noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/clFHB.png\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></a>\n<a href=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/vfFoH.png\" rel=\"noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/vfFoH.png\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></a>\n<a href=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/5Srtj.png\" rel=\"noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/5Srtj.png\" alt=\"enter image description here\"></a></p>\n\n<hr>\n", "score": 5 }, { "answer_id": 6065, "body": "<p>A major medical condition is one that could kill you or cause you to become physically or mentally impaired.</p>\n", "score": 0 } ]

[ "united-states", "insurance" ]

[ { "answer_id": 6080, "body": "<p>The copyright Act gives copyright owners certain rights:</p>\n\n<p>right to reproduce the copyrighted work<br>\nright to prepare derivative works based upon the work<br>\nright to distribute copies of the work to the public<br>\nright to perform the copyrighted work publicly<br>\nright to display the copyrighted work publicly </p>\n\n<p>The audiobook you create from a copyrighted work is a derivative work (perhaps it is a reproduction; for the analysis it does not matter). It works the other way also.</p>\n\n<p>A derivative work is a work based on or derived from one or more already existing works. Common derivative works include translations, musical arrangements, motion picture versions of literary material or plays, art reproductions, abridgments, and condensations of preexisting works.</p>\n\n<p>It is a violation of the copyright to create derivative works without permission. The commercial nature of the derivative work does not come into play in this situation. Commercial use might be an issue in a fair use defense, but fair use is not applicable based on these facts. Fair use might apply given facts such as: Ten students own copies of the printed work. These students are blind. A teacher reads the book and provides the recording to the students.</p>\n", "score": 6 } ]

[ "copyright" ]

[ { "answer_id": 6076, "body": "<p>This is addressed in OpenStreetMap's Legal FAQ, and, as usual, it depends.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>3d. If I use your data together with someone else's data, do I have to\n apply your license to their data too?</p>\n \n <p>If the two datasets are independent, no, you don't; this is a\n Collective Database.</p>\n \n <p>If you adapt them to work together (for example, by taking footpaths\n from the OSM data, roads from the third-party data, and connecting\n them for routing), this is a Derivative Database and so you must (as\n per 3b). However, if the two datasets are matched \"trivially\" by, for\n example, automated matching using a simple criterion such as\n name/locality, this is not \"substantial\" and remains a Collective\n Database. There is a <a href=\"http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Data_License/Trivial_Transformations_-_Guideline\" rel=\"nofollow\">Community Guideline</a> on what constitutes a trivial\n transformation.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Legal_FAQ#3d._If_I_use_your_data_together_with_someone_else.27s_data.2C_do_I_have_to_apply_your_license_to_their_data_too.3F\" rel=\"nofollow\">OpenStreetMap Legal FAQ, question 3.4 3d</a></p>\n\n<p>So it depends on whether your data and the OSM data are \"independent\", and whether your changes to the OSM data itself qualify as a \"trivial transformation\". This distinction is a bit vague, and is based a similar notion in the EU <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_Directive\" rel=\"nofollow\">Database Directive</a>. I don't think you'll find much more specific general guidance - if you need more assurance, you'll have to work with a lawyer.</p>\n\n<p>In your case, if your metadata is stored separately from the OSM data (ideally, technically separated, as in a different DB table or different file), I would think it would be considered \"independent\". The only link between OSM data and your data would be the reference to the OSM object in the metadata (probably by coordinate or OSM ID) - that should fall under _\"trivial matching\" as explained above.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Thus you create a \"Collective Database\" and not a \"Derivative Database\", and the OSM license probably does not apply to your data.</strong></p>\n", "score": 1 }, { "answer_id": 6071, "body": "<p>As with most \"open source\" projects, if you use their code then if you \"distribute\" with your own modifications, you have to do so under the same open source license as to your modifications as well. Your meta data arguably falls under that under this license as modified code. </p>\n\n<p>So yes, you would have to make your meta data publicly available once your system goes live, as well as attribute to OpenStreetMap. </p>\n\n<p>There are some exceptions to that under this license, but to make sure you don't commit your resources, only to find out that you are threatened with suit, find an attorney who also programs, ask for a written opinion on the subject code\\license, and if you get a positive written opinion, even then seek out the owner of the license and get an in writing assent if possible. </p>\n\n<p>As per @mkennedy's above comment and link to <a href=\"https://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/156816/legal-standpoint-of-using-open-source-map-data-in-proprietary-software/156818#156818\">Legal standpoint of using open source map data in proprietary software?</a> there is a real concern that the added data will be considered to be a derivative database.</p>\n", "score": 0 } ]

[ "united-states", "licensing", "open-source-software" ]

[ { "answer_id": 6047, "body": "<p>First, it is quite unlikely that a US court would take on the case. Someone will have more details, but for example in EU law if you move away from the place you last lived together, you can only file for divorce in the country where your partner is living (in this case, India). Annullment is a much more serious matter than divorce, so I doubt any American court would take this case: Annulment would mean that a US court would have to decide that an Indian registry office didn't do its job right. </p>\n\n<p>Second, <strong>A</strong> needs convincing evidence. Frankly, \"masculine appearance\" and \"typical masculine voice\" are just opinions and therefore not evidence. Even if the court were convinced that <strong>B</strong> has a \"masculine appearance\" that's not evidence for being a male. <strong>A</strong> has to show the evidence, and as half of us know and the other half learned in their biology lessons, there is some pretty convincing evidence that someone is a man which <strong>A</strong> didnt' mention. And I'd ask anyone not to edit this out, because it is quite essential to the case. <strong>B</strong> doesn't have to visit a doctor and get a statement that she is a woman (which would destroy any case immediately), because based on the available evidence, <strong>A</strong> will lose the case anyway. </p>\n\n<p>On the other hand, after that court case has finished, <strong>B</strong> can at any time (after appropriate waiting times according to US law) come to the USA and file for divorce.</p>\n", "score": 4 }, { "answer_id": 6077, "body": "<p>To answer the question about gender:</p>\n\n<p>In jurisdictions that do not allow same-sex marriages, a marriage is automatically considered invalid if it is discovered after the marriage that both partners are of the same sex. </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>In the US and the UK, this is called a <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Void_marriage\" rel=\"nofollow\">void marriage</a> (not to be confused with a <em>voidable</em> marriage, which is one that is not automatically void, but only if one partner requests it in court).</li>\n<li>In Germany, it would simliarly be a <a href=\"https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nichtehe\" rel=\"nofollow\">Nichtehe</a> (literally \"non-marriage\").</li>\n<li>In India, the <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hindu_Marriage_Act,_1955\" rel=\"nofollow\">Hindu Marriage Act</a> also defines a \"void marriage\" with similar rules. However, it does not explicitly mention same-sex marriages, so whether such a marriage is void would probably depend on interpretation by the court.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p><em>Note:</em> Even if the marriage is not automatically void because of the same gender, it might still be void or voidable because of deception (if that can be proved). For example, in Germany a marriage is voidable (but not void) if one partner deceived the other to make them agree to the marriage.</p>\n\n<p>That is a different question, however...</p>\n", "score": 3 } ]

[ "united-states", "india", "divorce" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4114, "body": "<p>This would be an example of an ex post facto application of a decision, and that's generally not something that occurs in US law. </p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "united-states", "copyright" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4664, "body": "<h2>In Canada</h2>\n\n<h3>Initial ownership of Copyright</h3>\n\n<p><em>Copyright Act</em> §13 (1):</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>...the author of a work shall be the first owner of the copyright...</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>(2):</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Where the author of a work was in the employment [...] and the work was made in the course of his employment by that person, the person by whom the author was employed shall, in the absence of any agreement to the contrary, be the first owner of the copyright</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The \"author\" may be a joint author. Joint authorship means (§2):</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>a work produced by the collaboration of two or more authors in which the contribution of one author is not distinct from the contribution of the other author or authors</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>If the authors did not intend to create a joint work, but rather just contributed independent parts to a work, it is considered a \"collective work\", with each author maintaining copyright only in those parts that are originally theirs. The <em>Copyright Act</em> defines a collective work to be (among a few other things):</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>any work written in distinct parts by different authors, or in which works or parts of works of different authors are incorporated</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<h3>Assignment and licencing</h3>\n\n<p>§13(4)-(7) The owner can transfer in whole or in part the copyright to another party. The owner can also give a licence to interest in any of the rights protected by copyright rather than an assignment. Licencing is different than assignment (see <em>Euro-Excellence v. Kraft</em>). In the case of partial transfer, for the purposes of the Copyright Act, the assignee is treated as the owner of the copyright with respect to the assigned rights.</p>\n\n<h3>Exclusive licence</h3>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Is there a way to share the copyright, e.g., for a natural person to assign the copyright to some other party on a shared basis, such that both parties could claim the copyright at the same time on the same piece of work?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This was partially tested in <em><a href=\"http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/2007/2007scc37/2007scc37.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">Euro-Excellence v. Kraft</a></em>. The issue in that case was that Kraft Canada was sold an <em>exclusive licence</em> to use some work related to the Toblerone brand in Canada. Euro-Excellence imported into Canada and sold products that used the copyrighted work (produced with authorization in Europe). One question was whether Kraft, an exclusive licensee, could bring a copyright infringement suit. The court recognized that \"<em>Where the owner of a copyright has granted an exclusive licence, it has temporarily granted a proprietary interest in the copyright itself to the exclusive licensee</em>\", citing <em>Copyright Act</em> §13(7). The act gives \"<em>the exclusive licensee the right to invoke the Act for copyright infringement not only against third parties, but also against the owner-licensor</em>\".</p>\n\n<h3>Summary</h3>\n\n<p>In Canada, splitting of Copyright can happen in a few situations:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>joint authorship, which is more a sharing rather than a splitting of the right,</li>\n<li>collective works, which gives each contributor copyright only to their contributions,</li>\n<li>partial transfer (for which the statute deems each party to be \"owner\" only with respect to the rights they retain), and</li>\n<li>licencing (which isn't really ownership, but does give some rights to a party who would otherwise not have them, including, in the case of exclusive licencing, the right to invoke the act for copyright infringement).</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>I wouldn't call any of these situations \"duplication\". But, that's just a word choice.</p>\n\n<h3>Your example</h3>\n\n<p>Your linked example appears to be either a work of joint authorship or a collective work, but we lack the information needed to make that determination. Also, the declaration of copyright ownership in your linked example shouldn't be taken as fact. Who actually <em>owns</em> the copyright is not dependent on what is claimed in the file.</p>\n\n<h2>In the US</h2>\n\n<p>Initial ownership, joint authorship, collective works, and partial transfer are largely the same in the US as in Canada. See <a href=\"https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/201\" rel=\"nofollow\">17 U.S.C. 201</a>.</p>\n", "score": 1 }, { "answer_id": 4691, "body": "<p>Yes: You can share ownership, and you can list multiple owners in a copyright notice (<a href=\"https://law.stackexchange.com/q/1121/10\">here is an example</a>), <a href=\"https://law.stackexchange.com/a/1857/10\">but you don't have to</a>.</p>\n", "score": 1 }, { "answer_id": 4662, "body": "<p>You can think of a copyright in a creative work as being like a bushel of wheat. You can easily split that bushel up into four pecks, keep one yourself and hand the other three over to other people/entities.</p>\n\n<p>This is done all the time in music copyrights, where you have a song co-writer...each owns 50% of the copyright. That song is then contracted with a publisher...now the publisher owns half (for example) of each of the co-writer's shares.</p>\n\n<p>The result of this split is that the revenues generated by the copyright are split according to the copyright splits.</p>\n\n<p>I might mention that the numbers I selected here for examples are completely arbitrary, and can be split out however the parties may contractually agree. One might have 100 members of an ensemble that agree to each hold 1% of the copyright, or conversely one might find an ensemble where one person holds 90% of the copyright and the other only 10% (certain co-written songs of Madonna and J-lo and Beyonce come to mind...).</p>\n\n<p>One additional point...copyright is not quite the same thing as authorship. They're intrinsically intertwined, but authorship puts credits in your CV, while copyright puts credits in your bank account.</p>\n\n<p>Let's take one other example: You write a book. Your wife then divorces you. In the negotiated settlement you assign 25% of your book copyright to her. You now own 75% of your copyright, she owns 25%. If money is made, she gets some, you get some. You both own copyright</p>\n", "score": 0 } ]

[ "copyright", "software", "authorship", "copyright-transfer" ]

[ { "answer_id": 6040, "body": "<p>In the USA the action is valid and required for the ISP to protect itself from copyright infringement. See <a href=\"http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/MurUEJL/2002/51.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/MurUEJL/2002/51.html</a></p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Moreover, the DMCA relieves ISPs from direct liability for their passive transmission, reception, or temporary storage of material in their networks provided the they adopt policies for terminating subscribers who are repeat offenders and implement industry-developed technical measures used by content providers to protect their work</p>\n</blockquote>\n", "score": 2 }, { "answer_id": 6051, "body": "<p>See this article <a href=\"http://www.reuters.com/article/us-cox-copyright-idUSKBN0U02OD20151217\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.reuters.com/article/us-cox-copyright-idUSKBN0U02OD20151217</a> which reports that Cox Communications was ordered to pay $25 million for copyright infringement. So apparently an ISP cannot only be sued for copyright infringment (anyone can be sued for anything), but can also lose the case. </p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "copyright", "internet" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1867, "body": "<p>Generally, terms of service must be prominently displayed. </p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clickwrap\" rel=\"nofollow\">Click-wrapped</a> terms have been found enforceable if the user is required to view them prior to engaging in activities on the website. </p>\n\n<p>However, <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browse_wrap\" rel=\"nofollow\">browser-wrapped</a> terms have been found unenforceable if a reasonable user would not be expected to view the terms prior to engaging in a transaction.</p>\n\n<p>As an example, when you register an account on the Stack Exchange network, your viewing of legal links, and continuning to use the site after this, is recorded. This could be used as evidence that you agreed to the terms.</p>\n\n<p>There are views that the link to the terms should be placed in the upper-left quadrant of the homepage - this will mean the defendant would need to prove that they ignored the link.</p>\n\n<p>As for font size, while there are no general requirements <em>per se</em>, it is necessary that they be legible (that is, not excessively small).</p>\n", "score": 3 } ]

[ "internet", "terms-of-service", "disclaimers" ]

[ { "answer_id": 6041, "body": "<p>You can certainly apply for your own background check and pay the appropriate fee for it. You are not entitled to the one the prospective employer bought and paid for; they paid for it, it belongs to them.</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "canada", "employment" ]

[ { "answer_id": 6038, "body": "<p>Yes, you may cover it up (I don't recommend painting over it though, as you are then altering the plates). This question was definitively decided by the Supreme Court in Wooley v. Maynard (1977). You can find the case here: <a href=\"http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/430/705.html\" rel=\"noreferrer\">http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/430/705.html</a></p>\n\n<p>This case dealt with an individual who was given several citations for violating the law when he covered up the New Hampshire slogan. He was a devout Jehovah's Witness and the slogan went against his beliefs. In my opinion this case applies to anyone who disagrees with the slogan. Or wish to refrain from saying it.</p>\n\n<p>The Court held:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>\"The fact that most individuals agree with the thrust of New Hampshire's motto is not the test; most Americans also find the flag salute acceptable. The First Amendment protects the right of individuals to hold a point of view different from the majority and to refuse to foster, in the way New Hampshire commands, an idea they find morally objectionable.\"</p></li>\n<li><p>\"the State of New Hampshire may not require appellees to display the state motto upon their vehicle license plates\"</p></li>\n</ol>\n", "score": 5 } ]

[ "traffic", "license-plates" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5669, "body": "<p>Not only would it not be unethical to argue both sides of the issue, if the lawyer argued both sides of the issue and won on both sides, this would be proof that the lawyer is an excellent lawyer. Because the victory would be based on the lawyers skills and not on whether the law leans one way or the other.</p>\n\n<p>Speaking of ethics, I believe it would be unethical for a lawyer not to argue on behalf of one of his clients. A lawyer is required to represent each one of his clients zealously. If this means the lawyer has to argue both sides of an issue, as long as there is no conflict of interest between his two clients, then the lawyer must do so.</p>\n\n<p>Our system is an adversarial system. The system is designed to get a just result by having each side argue their own position in an adversarial setting. This means that the opposing lawyer could argue that the first lawyer is arguing both sides of the issue in different cases. However I believe a good judge would find that lawyer's argument to be irrelevant. Because the only arguments that are relevant would be the arguments based on the law and the facts of each individual case. In other words it would not be relevant for the opposing lawyer to argue that this lawyer frequently argues both sides of the case. As long as he is not doing so in this one specific case.</p>\n", "score": 4 }, { "answer_id": 5694, "body": "<p>From <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawyer\" rel=\"nofollow\">Wikipedia</a>:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Working as a lawyer involves the practical application of abstract legal theories and knowledge to solve specific individualized problems, or to advance the interests of those who hire lawyers to perform legal services.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>If the individual problems require the interpretation of \"abstract legal theories and knowledge\" one way today and another way tomorrow that is not hypocrisy; that's practicing law. This is not dissimilar to the way an engineer will choose a box girder bridge here and a suspension bridge there: different situations require different solutions.</p>\n\n<p>There is no hypocrisy involved: a lawyer is not arguing what they believe; they are arguing what their client believes (often in spite of their advice). </p>\n\n<p>The example you offer is not realistic; the statutory definition of a week (if one exists) will be something that is well established in the jurisdiction - it would be like trying to argue that left and right were interchangeable. However, in common usage \"week\" means both a period of 7 consecutive days <em>and</em> a period of 7 consecutive days starting from a given day (which day? Sunday, Monday?). </p>\n\n<p>Given this, in the context of different cases (or even in different contexts within the same case) it may be a point of dispute about which usage was intended. For example: \"I will pay you in the first week of December 2015\", does than mean by the 7th (the first 7 days of December), the 5th (the end of the first week (assuming the week starts on a Sunday) or the 12th (the end of the first <em>full</em> week)? All of these are arguable and a lawyer is ethically obliged to argue the one that best serves their client's interests.</p>\n", "score": 3 }, { "answer_id": 6033, "body": "<p>We often have to argue both sides of an issue. Sometimes the law on an issue is unclear or conflicted.</p>\n\n<p>Conflicting pleadings are common.</p>\n\n<p>If A and then B and then C means desired outcome and\nIF D and not B and the E means the desired outcome</p>\n\n<p>One argues both sides of B all the time.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "lawyer" ]

[ { "answer_id": 6028, "body": "<p>In the small claims court cases I've been involved in the judge has dismissed all aspects of the claim related to time wasted, transportation costs, and attending court in the judgement amount itself.</p>\n\n<p>However the court costs one incurs should be a part of the amount that is judged in one's favour. Also the costs of enforcing any judgement (court bailiff fees) are usually considered recoverable.</p>\n\n<p>My thoughts are that if one is keen to ensure that the other party pays the full costs of time, collation of evidence, photocopying, phone calls, and anything else one believes they are responsible for, one will have much more luck if one is not self-representing. </p>\n\n<p>The predominant reason for self-representing is to keep costs, and thus one's financial risk from pursuing the case, minimal.</p>\n\n<p><em>disclaimer: this is only opinion, and not legal advice</em></p>\n", "score": 3 } ]

[ "united-states", "new-york-state", "civil-law", "small-claims-court" ]

[ { "answer_id": 6018, "body": "<p>Many people use the same username + password on many sites. I'd expect that you keep passwords safe (storing the password salted + hashed, and if you don't know what that means then stop right now until you know it), and I'd want a privacy policy that states this clearly. </p>\n\n<p>And you wouldn't need a username + password if there wasn't something stored about that user, right? So I'd want a privacy policy about whatever you store as well. </p>\n", "score": 2 }, { "answer_id": 6025, "body": "<p>You should probably have a privacy policy, with at least the following things:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Do you collect the IP address form the site? If so, what do you do with the IP address?</li>\n<li>Do you collect any data specific to that user when he is using the app? </li>\n<li>Are there cookies? What do you do with them?</li>\n<li>If you are in the USA, you need to warn the user that he can not register when he is under 13 years old because of the COPPA (Children Online Privacy Protection Act). </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Warning: I'm not a lawyer, and in fact, I have never had any higher eductation related to law. </p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "privacy" ]

[ { "answer_id": 6019, "body": "<p>Tortious publication of private facts is a doctrine that could get a person in trouble. There is no truth-defense to this tort. However, famous people have a hard time enforcing this one because newsworthiness is a defense and courts often find that facts about famous people are newsworthy (and most movies or books about people who are worth the effort of creation are about famous people).</p>\n\n<p>Right to Publicity is another. This basically says that people have a sort of trademark over their personality and it is analyzed much like trademark infringement. Of note is that this is a property right rather than a tort.</p>\n", "score": 3 }, { "answer_id": 6013, "body": "<p>You can write whatever you like about whoever you like, however, if what you write is defamatory, you can be sued. A defamatory statement is one which:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Is untrue</li>\n<li>Identifies the person. Not necessarily unambiguously; a true statement about John Smith (A) can be actionable by a different John Smith (B) if a reasonable person could think it was about them. Identification does not have the be by name - if a reasonable person can work out who you are writing about then that is enough.</li>\n<li>Is damaging to the person's reputation.</li>\n</ol>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "privacy" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5995, "body": "<p>You are describing a liability suit. My sense is that based on the facts you describe you will face two serious challenges to making a successful case. Damages and liability.</p>\n\n<p>In order to win a liability case, you must first establish that you have been damaged in some way. According to your facts, your damages are at best, the replacement value of a used controller. I'm guessing that's what, $20 or so? That doesn't cover the cost of an attorney's time to even begin to hear your version of the facts, much less give you advice or pursue a case for you.</p>\n\n<p>After you establish damages, you must prove the company is responsible or has some share of <strong><em>liability</em></strong> for causing your damages. Again, I think this is going to be an obstacle for you. Not placing a warning that the game will affect you by causing you to throw your controller and be mean to your mom would be unprecedented if you were to prevail. AFAIK.</p>\n", "score": 4 } ]

[ "business", "software", "liability" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5923, "body": "<p>This question makes me sad.</p>\n\n<p>I think the answer will likely not be a legal one but, rather, an emotional one.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Courts have many reasons to be reluctant to impose a <em>duty</em> of visitation upon a recalcitrant parent; so courts typically will not.</strong></p>\n\n<p>I think the best course of action is for mom (or maybe a helpful third party, but coming from mom first would be best) to call and make an emotional appeal to dad something along the following lines:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Despite what happened between us, your son loves you very much.</li>\n<li>I know that despite what happened, you are a good man. (Even if nobody else actually believes that, be sure <strong><em>dad</em></strong> believes it. So it will be helpful to say this.)</li>\n<li>I know you love your son too.</li>\n<li>Your son wants to be closer to you.</li>\n<li>I would be happy to change the visitation order to whatever you like. (Like above, even if not totally true, it's very helpful to say. It opens hearts, minds and communication channels. If he wants to take her up on this. She should listen and be open to it.)</li>\n<li>Please visit your son. He wants and needs a relationship with you.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Be proactive and appeal to dad's emotions while lowering the overall level of acrimony.</p>\n\n<p>Since I'm commenting, I'll also add this in parting. As a practical matter, so many legal actions have unintended adverse consequences and therefore just because we <strong>can</strong> do them it doesn't mean we <strong>should</strong> do them in order to get the best outcome. Visitation orders and jail time to enforce child support are good examples of this. Sometimes the acrimony involved in taking away or reducing the amount of time a parent is entitled to spend with their children can cause the parent to spend even less time with the child and ultimately hurt the child. Whose interests and wellbeing should be everyone's top concern. Similarly to the point, putting parents behind bars for not paying child support can make it even more difficult for them the earn the money with which to pay the support they are required to pay. It's a crazy world.</p>\n", "score": 5 } ]

[ "new-york-state", "family-law" ]

[ { "answer_id": 6005, "body": "<p>If you had a reasonable belief that the author who licensed the work was entitled to do so, you have an absolute defence to a claim of copyright infringement.</p>\n\n<p>To your specific scenario, if someone posts their content on Stack Overflow <strong>and</strong> a reasonable person would believe that it is their submission and that they are licensing it under the CC-BY-SA licence, and then you then go on to use it, you have a defence against a claim of copyright, even if the person who posted it did not have the right to licence it in that manner.</p>\n\n<p>An injunction to prevent your continued use of the work is likely to be granted, however you would likely not be liable for damages or monetary reparations.</p>\n", "score": 2 }, { "answer_id": 6006, "body": "<p>From the example you've provided, I gather the question you're asking is \"what happens if someone publishes something that they're not licensed to publish?\", is that correct?</p>\n\n<p>If so, I believe the answer is \"mostly nothing\". A third party publishing (or republishing, really) content in a context where they implicitly or explicitly agree to license the content to others, when they have no license to do so from the owner of the IP in question, would be a straightforward violation of copyright in most jurisdictions. It has no impact upon the terms that the content is licensed under.</p>\n\n<p>For instance, if I find some GPL'ed code on github and copy/paste in onto SO, that action doesn't have the effect of removing the GPL from the code. The license terms are whatever the original author of the code specified, and unless they give permission to relicense their code under CC-BY-SA (or soon, MIT) then 1) no such relicensing happens just because I post their code, and 2) it's not technically valid for me to be posting their code like that in the first place. </p>\n\n<p>In principle, the owner of the IP could sue for injunctive relief (and possibly damages) in most jurisdictions in such a case, both against the person who illegally republished their IP and against anyone they find using it (saying \"I found it in a post on SO, which means I can use it if I want\" should protect you from being liable for damages but won't let you keep using the IP without a license if you can't show that 1) the plaintiff published their content on SO, or 2) the plaintiff gave somebody else permission to publish their content on SO). In practice, however, it's relatively uncommon for such litigation to be brought, and even less common for such cases to actually proceed to trial.</p>\n\n<p>Which brings us back to \"mostly nothing\". If the owner of the IP never finds out that their IP has been illegally republished, then certainly nothing happens. Or if they do find out, then they might request that the content be removed. Or negotiate licensing terms with anyone using it. Or if they're particularly militant and have deep pockets and can see an upside to litigation, maybe they'll sue. However that last outcome is generally unlikely unless the violation is particularly egregious, or if their takedown requests go unheeded. </p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "copyright", "licensing" ]

[ { "answer_id": 6003, "body": "<p>There's a dictionary that does this already - it's the <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collins_COBUILD_Advanced_Dictionary\" rel=\"nofollow\">Collins Cobuild</a> dictionary, which uses corpora to provide examples for its definitions.</p>\n\n<p><em>Generally</em> the text uses no more than is necessary to convey the meaning.</p>\n\n<p>Whether it falls under fair use will depend on the amount of a text used and other factors, such as the effect on the original text's value. The purpose is also considered, and the advancement of knowledge through education is usually accepted.</p>\n\n<p>Whether it falls under fair <em>dealing</em> (relevant to the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries) will generally be determined by the amount that you use, and the purpose of the use - illustrative teaching uses (such as examples in dictionaries) usually fall into this category.</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "united-states", "copyright", "united-kingdom", "european-union", "fair-use" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5999, "body": "<blockquote>\n <p>If someone did an act which was not generally considered to be illegal at the time, but which the court later ruled to be illegal, would he be liable or go to jail?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>No. Laws are not retroactive. Also the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits <strong><em>double jeopardy</em></strong> or being tried for the same crime twice.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>For example, if Oracle wins the Oracle-Google copyright lawsuit and Google would have to pay Oracle for damages, would Google have to pay the same damages as if the Supreme Court ruled that API was copyrightable before Google's copyright violation?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Yes. If Google is held liable for damages then, generally speaking, it would not matter which court upheld the original infringement case.</p>\n", "score": 1 }, { "answer_id": 6000, "body": "<p>I should note that court rulings are almost necessarily retrospective, and with respect to their rulings on law, <em>retroactive</em> - they always judge what the law was <em>at the time the act(s) occurred</em>, generally disregarding what the law says now if it differs.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>If someone did an act which was not generally considered to be illegal at the time, but which the court later ruled to be illegal, would he be liable or go to jail?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>If there were no laws against it at the time, courts generally cannot make a finding of guilt against a defendant. An exception apparently applies to war crimes and crimes against humanity - see the <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_trials\" rel=\"nofollow\">Nuremburg trials</a> for more.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>For example, if Oracle wins the Oracle-Google copyright lawsuit and Google would have to pay Oracle for damages, would Google have to pay the same damages as if the Supreme Court ruled that API was copyrightable before Google's copyright violation?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This is... different. This is the court deciding whether the parties are guilty based on the law at the time that the acts occurred. It's a fine and somewhat arguable distinction, but the difference here is that rather than a court making new law, it is interpreting the laws enacted by the legislature. Of course, in practice, there mightn't be a difference.</p>\n\n<p>In answer to your question, yes - damages are likely to be statutory as well as based on actual loss as calculated from the time of the act.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "criminal-law", "contract-law" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5964, "body": "<p>I don't know what it means to register to a blog or sign up to a website, but I assume you are going to be sending these people email. If so, the CAN-SPAM Act is implicated. Sending people unsolicited can be not only annoying but also illegal.</p>\n\n<p>If this is question is about sending people emails, make sure you provide an opt-out link in the emails that you send and honor the requests quickly. Here is some information which might help: <a href=\"https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business\" rel=\"nofollow\">CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business</a>.</p>\n\n<p>Also, if kids are targets of your site, COPPA is implicated if you are collecting information about the kids which I mention only because \"registering\" and \"singing up\" usually means providing information.</p>\n\n<p>All that said, if this is as literal as it sounds, and people are just providing some information which will be used as a credential to access your pages, there is no law against extending the reach of the permission. </p>\n", "score": 1 }, { "answer_id": 5990, "body": "<p>If the contact details will be used for email marketing from the e-commerce website then yes, there would be a breach of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations.</p>\n\n<p>In a nutshell the regs state that you must have prior consent to send marketing emails to individuals. It is unlikely that you could equate wanting notification of blog entries with wanting associated marketing emails.</p>\n\n<p>An opt-in is arguably your only reliable way of staying the right side of the regs.</p>\n\n<p>As an aside: if someone is signing up to buy something from an e-commerce site it is acceptable to have an opt-out option for marketing emails (i.e. you do not have to rely on an explicit opt-in). This is often referred to as soft opt-in.</p>\n", "score": 0 } ]

[ "united-kingdom", "contract-law" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5915, "body": "<p>No, generally only the state can \"press charges.\" You can encourage the state to do that by reporting the saga to the Attorney General, which typically maintains an office devoted to consumer protection. That office may help resolve your problem, or it may just add it to a file and when the file gets big enough it will prosecute the business.</p>\n\n<p>Insurers also have a state regulator, and you could report your grievance to the regulator. The possible results are the same as with the Attorney General, but typically the regulators are more focused on their subjects.</p>\n\n<p>You should also notify your bank that it was a \"fraudulent\" transaction (\"fraudulent\" in quotes because there's a good chance it was in reality either an honest or negligent mistake). Banks have offices devoted to dealing with those.</p>\n", "score": 1 }, { "answer_id": 5921, "body": "<p>Big, monolithic insurance companies are typically not seeking to cheat people. But, rather, like all bureaucracies they are like the one-eyed cyclops — very big and powerful but slow to move and not very bright.</p>\n\n<p>Also, unfortunately, courts generally don't award emotional damages. Criminal charges won't accomplish your objective and certainly not in a timely fashion given the urgent nature of the situation.</p>\n\n<p>Here is my suggested course of action:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>Immediately write two letters. Address the first one to your state Attorney General's office of consumer affairs. Address the second letter to your state insurance regulator. Explain everything in both factual and emotional terms.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Important:</strong> In your letters, make sure to include all your supporting evidence, documentation and materials that completely sustain your case so the reader does not have to rely on gathering additional documents to be persuaded.</p></li>\n<li><p>Call the insurance company first thing Monday morning and start asking to speak to supervisors. Don't waste any time with the person answering the phone.</p></li>\n<li><p>When you get the first supervisor on the phone, immediately ask him for his email address so you can send him an advanced copy of the letters you will be sending to the AG and regulators.</p></li>\n<li><p>If he gives you his email, email the letters to him and have him hold on the phone during the send process. Keep him on the phone until he receives the letters in his inbox.</p></li>\n<li><p>Have him open the letters with you on the phone. Explain your situation extemporaneously and if the flow of the conversation warrants it, read the letters to him.</p></li>\n<li><p>Ask him what he can do today to resolve the situation. If he says nothing, ask to speak to the manager he reports to. If he says it's a different department, ask for that department.</p></li>\n<li><p>Repeat the process until you get some satisfaction (hopefully an overnighted check) or they stymie you from making progress up the chain. If you get stymied, immediately send the letters to the AG and regulators. Then call back and explain what you just did and why. Then try to continue the process until they either hang up on you or you get an overnighted check.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Important</strong>: During this entire process, never get angry or abusive because that will just let them \"off-the-hook\" with a legitimate excuse to hang up on you. Don't give them any reason to get you off the phone before you get a promise of:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>an overnight check and</li>\n<li>the name a person and phone number you can call to get the tracking number.</li>\n</ul></li>\n<li><p>Whatever happens, make sure you follow up.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>The keys to making this approach work (which admittedly is a long shot) are:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>Be the \"squeaky wheel.\" Assert. Be pro-active. Pick up the phone. Make calls. And ask to speak to supervisors and managers who can make decisions and make things happen.</p></li>\n<li><p>Be polite. But also be assertive, direct and persistent.</p></li>\n<li><p>Don't make threats or demands. But instead ask pointed questions. Like: \"What can you do to resolve this situation today?\" Typically, bureaucracies are limited by policy, not motives; and believe me, they don't want you on their back. The will want you to go away happy if you take this approach.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Good luck!</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "fraud" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5993, "body": "<p>My experience has been that in the context of securities laws, the term <strong><em>general public</em></strong> <em>includes</em> but is <em>not limited to</em> business entities of all types.</p>\n\n<p>If you reason it through, you should agree that this must be the case. This is because, as a practical matter, there is no way to separate business entities from individuals when it comes to marketing and solicitations. This is because <strong><em>one person</em></strong> can be a business entity (corporation, LLC, etc.)</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "united-states", "business", "legal-terms", "finance", "sec" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5991, "body": "<p>The <em>most</em> they can possibly give you are forwarding addresses and contact information for an entity they represent.</p>\n\n<p>One of the functions of a corporation is to shield the identity of owners. If an owner specifically does <em>not</em> want to be found then you're not going to find that person through its registered agent.</p>\n\n<p>However, there's no law against asking. At the very least you could ask the registered agent to forward a message asking that you be contacted. Though, AFAIK, they can't be <em>required</em> to forward anything but legal notices.</p>\n", "score": 1 }, { "answer_id": 5992, "body": "<p>No private party is going to be <strong><em>compelled</em></strong> to do anything upon a simple <strong><em>request</em></strong> by another private party unless they agreed to do that thing in advance. Since they have no relationship with you, that's unlikely.</p>\n\n<p><strong><em>Will</em></strong> they? Probably not. But like you said, it's worth a shot.</p>\n\n<p>If you want to compel them, you might need to serve them with a <strong><em>subpoena</em></strong> pursuant to a law suit.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "business" ]

[ { "answer_id": 428, "body": "<p>I make a copy of any important receipt printed on thermal paper, since the terms of many sellers and manufacturers require receipts for disputes. But I'm not aware of any law that says they have to make it convenient to maintain a receipt or other proof of purchase.</p>\n\n<p>However, when a company makes their terms unclear, unexpected, or difficult to comply with it seems there is often a lawyer ready to step up and file a class action lawsuit. <a href=\"http://www.consumer-action.org/lawsuits/\">Here's one archive</a> to give you an idea of what companies will settle.</p>\n\n<p>In the United States <a href=\"https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/statutes\">the FTC is also empowered by law to \"protect consumers,\"</a> which means that if \"disappearing\" receipts become a widespread problem for consumers they <em>could</em> take action on the government's authority:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>The Federal Trade Commission Act is the primary statute of the\n Commission. Under this Act, the Commission is empowered, among other\n things, to (a) prevent unfair methods of competition, and unfair or\n deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce; (b) seek\n monetary redress and other relief for conduct injurious to consumers;\n (c) prescribe trade regulation rules defining with specificity acts or\n practices that are unfair or deceptive, and establishing requirements\n designed to prevent such acts or practices; (d) conduct investigations\n relating to the organization, business, practices, and management of\n entities engaged in commerce; and (e) make reports and legislative\n recommendations to Congress.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Given the above, I wouldn't be surprised to see either a class-action lawsuit or FTC rule that requires retailers to provide \"durable\" receipts, or some convenient substitute.</p>\n", "score": 6 }, { "answer_id": 427, "body": "<p>In the United States, at least, there is no general right to a receipt at all, much less one that remains legible for a set period of time.</p>\n\n<p>There are specific requirements for specific types of transactions (in the U.S., all credit card transactions are regulated by federal law, I believe), but in general, a receipt is a courtesy, not a legal requirement.</p>\n\n<p>And, as one of the commenters pointed out, there is no such thing as \"disappearing\" ink. If you take your receipt and put it in a file folder, it will last for years. There is certainly no law that requires a vendor to give you a receipt that will survive being stuffed in your wallet.</p>\n", "score": 1 }, { "answer_id": 5986, "body": "<p>Disappearing Ink should be defined as:</p>\n\n<pre><code>Any ink that is no longer visible afer reasonable handling or use\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>We are not saying that receipt providers are using trick ink or engaging in deception, just that it is not fit for purpose by the standard expectation for the lifecycle of a proof of transaction. </p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>In the <strong>United Kingdom</strong> businesses are required to keep a receipt of transactions going back 6 years for tax purposes. When I noticed my receipts fading from thermal paper a slight panic ensued - especially as some of the amounts were significant (ie over USD$100/GBP£75).</p>\n\n<p>However proof of a transaction does not necessitate a paper receipt. As many transactions are now by card a bank statement would attest to the fact that you had spent that amount and to the receiver of the funds. </p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>In <strong>Italy</strong> if you are not given a receipt by a retailer or restaurant you as the purchaser can be fined (along with the offending restaurant/retailer) if the transaction is found to be off the books.</p>\n\n<p>The Guardia di Finanza are rumoured to wait outside of restaurants suspected of 'cooking' the books to catch unlucky patrons and compile evidence against the offending company.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>Long story short: </p>\n\n<p><strong>No</strong> there are no laws I am aware of that discuss the visibility of receipts over time.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Yes</strong> in most jurisdictions sellers are required to provide a legible receipt of transaction at the time of sale, detailing who they are, any tax applied, and their tax reference. </p>\n\n<p>I imagine you could consider litigating for damages if the receipt was a vital piece of evidence for you in a case where you are attempting to prove that you had not committed fraud, and that it became unreadable through the negligence of the receipt provider in under a year. However the likelihood that this one receipt would be the <em>salient</em> piece of evidence is less likely that me scoring a touchdown in the next super bowl.</p>\n\n<p>Or just try heating up your receipt with an <a href=\"http://smallbusiness.chron.com/recover-faded-cash-register-receipt-21509.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">iron/hairdryer</a> ( <em>I accept no liability for this, it is a joke suggestion</em>)</p>\n", "score": 0 } ]

[ "united-states", "california", "consumer-protection", "receipts" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4692, "body": "<p>I won't address the legal questions: You would need to consult a solicitor in your jurisdiction if you're concerned with that.</p>\n\n<p>Practically matters of this magnitude rarely get litigated once liability has been accepted. It would be more common to confirm the terms of coverage with the roofer's insurance. As soon as an insurer says, \"Yes, we will cover the cost of repair,\" the question is, \"Will you repair it, or shall I arrange for repair?\" The advantage in the latter case is that you get to select the craftsmen to do the repair. The advantage in the former is that you expend less effort, but you <em>might</em> not like the craftsmen the insurer picks.</p>\n\n<p>Typically the insurer would require (and you would have the right to demand) that repairs be effected by licensed craftsmen in a \"timely and workmanship-like manner.\" If the insurer wants to inspect and bring in multiple craftsmen to quote the job that's their prerogative (within reason), but <strong>it's not your obligation to do that for them</strong>. Once you have presented a proposal for mitigation they either have to approve it or make their own counterproposal, which is subject to your acceptance. If this process is pursued in good faith by both parties it generally goes smoothly &ndash; at least in the U.S. where insurers are regulated by the government &ndash; because the insurer's time is worth money, just like yours.</p>\n\n<p>In fact, insurers will often pay a premium to established contractors they know can get repairs done in a timely and proper fashion because they don't want to deal with blowback: You are already an \"aggrieved party\" because of the actions of their insured, so if anything were ever litigated it would not go well for them.</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "united-kingdom", "insurance" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5972, "body": "<p>Everything except the summary and the cover art are all facts; facts are not subject to copyright.</p>\n\n<p>The summary and cover art would be subject to copyright. You may have a fair use defence given that all you are doing is cataloguing the books.</p>\n", "score": 3 } ]

[ "copyright" ]

[ { "answer_id": 3470, "body": "<blockquote>\n <p>the ratio of divorced men paying the ex wife versus divorced women\n paying the ex husband should more or less reflect the ratio of\n employed men vs. employed women</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Not necessarily. Some states (NC for example) look at more than just the work scenario that you propose. From <a href=\"http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/HTML/BySection/Chapter_50/GS_50-16.3A.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">§ 50-16.3A</a>:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>(1) The marital misconduct of either of the spouses. Nothing\n herein shall prevent a court from considering incidents of post\n date-of-separation marital misconduct as corroborating evidence\n supporting other evidence that marital misconduct occurred during the\n marriage and prior to date of separation;</p>\n \n <p>(2) The relative earnings and earning capacities of the\n spouses;</p>\n \n <p>(3) The ages and the physical, mental, and emotional conditions\n of the spouses;</p>\n \n <p>(4) The amount and sources of earned and unearned income of\n both spouses, including, but not limited to, earnings, dividends, and\n benefits such as medical, retirement, insurance, social security, or\n others;</p>\n \n <p>(5) The duration of the marriage;</p>\n \n <p>(6) The contribution by one spouse to the education, training,\n or increased earning power of the other spouse;</p>\n \n <p>(7) The extent to which the earning power, expenses, or\n financial obligations of a spouse will be affected by reason of\n serving as the custodian of a minor child;</p>\n \n <p>(8) The standard of living of the spouses established during\n the marriage;</p>\n \n <p>(9) The relative education of the spouses and the time\n necessary to acquire sufficient education or training to enable the\n spouse seeking alimony to find employment to meet his or her\n reasonable economic needs;</p>\n \n <p>(10) The relative assets and liabilities of the spouses and the\n relative debt service requirements of the spouses, including legal\n obligations of support;</p>\n \n <p>(11) The property brought to the marriage by either spouse;</p>\n \n <p>(12) The contribution of a spouse as homemaker;</p>\n \n <p>(13) The relative needs of the spouses;</p>\n \n <p>(14) The federal, State, and local tax ramifications of the\n alimony award;</p>\n \n <p>(15) Any other factor relating to the economic circumstances of\n the parties that the court finds to be just and proper.</p>\n \n <p>(16) The fact that income received by either party was previously\n considered by the court in determining the value of a marital or\n divisible asset in an equitable distribution of the parties' marital\n or divisible property.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Take a look at <a href=\"http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/HTML/BySection/Chapter_50/GS_50-16.1A.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">§ 50-16.1A</a> also, where they define Marital Misconduct. Some may be of the opinion that alimony in NC is partly about punishment.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>(3) \"Marital misconduct\" means any of the following acts that\n occur during the marriage and prior to or on the date of separation:</p>\n \n <p>a. Illicit sexual behavior. For the purpose of this section,\n illicit sexual behavior means acts of sexual or deviate sexual\n intercourse, deviate sexual acts, or sexual acts defined in G.S.\n 14-27.1(4), voluntarily engaged in by a spouse with someone other than\n the other spouse;</p>\n \n <p>b. Involuntary separation of the spouses in consequence of a\n criminal act committed prior to the proceeding in which alimony is\n sought;</p>\n \n <p>c. Abandonment of the other spouse;</p>\n \n <p>d. Malicious turning out-of-doors of the other spouse;</p>\n \n <p>e. Cruel or barbarous treatment endangering the life of the\n other spouse;</p>\n \n <p>f. Indignities rendering the condition of the other spouse\n intolerable and life burdensome;</p>\n \n <p>g. Reckless spending of the income of either party, or the\n destruction, waste, diversion, or concealment of assets;</p>\n \n <p>h. Excessive use of alcohol or drugs so as to render the\n condition of the other spouse intolerable and life burdensome;</p>\n \n <p>i. Willful failure to provide necessary subsistence according\n to one's means and condition so as to render the condition of the\n other spouse intolerable and life burdensome.</p>\n</blockquote>\n", "score": 4 }, { "answer_id": 5903, "body": "<p>The reason that more woman get alimony than the men is a sociological, more than a legal phenomenon. Despite the fact that it's 2015, there is still a gap between men and women when it comes to earnings. Further, in families where it is financially possible, many more women are homemakers than men (raising the children, keeping the home, etc). </p>\n\n<p>When alimony is available, the court will look at these issues and make the party that would suffer a downward departure is standard of living whole; meaning that the person who makes more will be required to pay. Obviously, that is not the only analysis. The answer above lays out \"at fault\" criteria, which is somewhat retributive. This is especially so when marital assets are abused. However, the reasons I stated make up the bulk of why men tend to be the payor rather than payee as many more states are no \"no fault\" states. Financial or physical abuse can still be taken into account, but it is only one factor. In this day and age, alimony is typically rehabilitate only, until you are talking about 20 plus year marriages. There is typically a tier system in those cases.</p>\n", "score": 4 } ]

[ "civil-procedure", "divorce" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5984, "body": "<p>They wouldn't need to keep samples, just the fingerprint. So they could send a guy with a laptop to Japan, download all the songs, fingerprint them, and take the fingerprints back home. It's not a problem, but it would be expensive. </p>\n\n<p>I suspect that US and European record companies will make the music available to them for free, otherwise they'd have to pay 20-30 million dollars for 20-30 million songs. The Japanese record companies wouldn't, so while it is technically and legally possible to collect the fingerprints, it would be expensive. </p>\n\n<p>And what is the benefit? We are talking here about music that you cannot legally own, that you cannot legally buy after the software recognised it, so there is very little incentive to spend that money. </p>\n", "score": 5 } ]

[ "copyright", "international", "software" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5365, "body": "<p>No, unless you administer the public space or are acting in the interests of safety (e.g police officer, gas utility worker). All public space is owned by someone; usually a local government.</p>\n\n<p>You can <em>use</em> the space by e.g putting out a picnic blanket, even a very (but not absurdly) big blanket. The law does not prevent anyone from sitting on your blanket, however, social convention does and this can be more potent than the law.</p>\n\n<p>If your use of the space impedes others use then they may complain to the administrator of the space (or the police); if they were to give you a lawful and reasonable order to stop doing whatever it is that was complained of and you didn't then you would be trespassing.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "privacy", "property", "ownership" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5983, "body": "<p>You are free to sell or not to sell to whoever you like (unless it is illegal discrimination, like not selling to white Christians), but it doesn't make a difference, because anyone who buys the software from you can legally sell it on to anyone they want. So you cannot control who ends up owning the software. If I want the software and you don't sell it to me, and I still want it, I'll just ask a friend to buy it and give them the money. Other people would just get a pirated copy if you refuse to sell to them (and would have very little bad conscience since they offered you cash and you refused to take it). </p>\n\n<p>You can put terms into a license, and in the USA this is binding. The customer may not agree with the license, and in that case they have the right to get a refund for the software. In the EU, I don't think a license is binding, so you'd have to sign a legally binding contract with the buyer. </p>\n\n<p>Apart from all that, you have very little chance to find out if the software is used against your wishes and to do anything about it. </p>\n", "score": 3 }, { "answer_id": 5966, "body": "<p>When you try the exercise of substituting other words for \"adult\" in your eula, for exaample \"catholic\" or \"culinary\" or \"alcohol/wine\" or \"anti-abortion\" or even \"Manchester United\"....does it still make sense?</p>\n\n<p>i.e. How would you even know about such use, never mind be able to do anything about it?</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "international", "business", "software", "commerce" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5982, "body": "<p>No. The mother is not obligated because the child is 18. And has, therefore, reached the <strong><em>age of majority</em></strong> in New Hampshire. (See below chart.)</p>\n\n<p><strong>Before</strong> age of majority:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Parents are legally obligated to provide for the basic wellbeing of the child including but not limited to proper medical care.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p><strong>After</strong> age of majority:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Parents do not have any legal or financial obligation for the care and maintenance of children.</li>\n<li>Parents should not be paying or receiving child support payments.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<h3>Exception to Statutory Obligations</h3>\n\n<p>It is possible, however, that the parenting plan or custody agreement places extra-statutory obligations on one or both parents while child support is being paid. It would be important to read the parenting plan or custody agreement to see if that sets forth obligations for the mother not covered by statute. In which case the child could sue the mom for contempt of court or violation of the custody agreement (or whatever it might be called in New Hampshire) in order to enforce it.</p>\n\n<h3>Age of Majority by U.S. State</h3>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://contests.about.com/od/3/g/ageofmajority.htm\" rel=\"nofollow\">Source</a>: <a href=\"http://contests.about.com/od/3/g/ageofmajority.htm\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://contests.about.com/od/3/g/ageofmajority.htm</a></p>\n\n<p>State Age of Majority</p>\n\n<p>Alabama 19</p>\n\n<p>Alaska 18</p>\n\n<p>Arizona 18</p>\n\n<p>Arkansas 18 or graduation from high school, whichever is later</p>\n\n<p>California 18</p>\n\n<p>Colorado 18</p>\n\n<p>Connecticut 18</p>\n\n<p>Delaware 19</p>\n\n<p>District of Columbia 18</p>\n\n<p>Florida 18</p>\n\n<p>Georgia 18</p>\n\n<p>Hawaii 18</p>\n\n<p>Idaho 18</p>\n\n<p>Illinois 18</p>\n\n<p>Indiana 18</p>\n\n<p>Iowa 18</p>\n\n<p>Kansas 18</p>\n\n<p>Kentucky 18</p>\n\n<p>Louisiana 18</p>\n\n<p>Maine 18</p>\n\n<p>Maryland 18</p>\n\n<p>Massachusetts 18</p>\n\n<p>Michigan 18</p>\n\n<p>Minnesota 18</p>\n\n<p>Missouri 18</p>\n\n<p>Mississippi 21</p>\n\n<p>Montana 18</p>\n\n<p>Nebraska 19</p>\n\n<p>New Hampshire 18</p>\n\n<p>New Mexico 18</p>\n\n<p>Nevada 18, or if still in high school at 18, 19 or graduation, whichever comes sooner</p>\n\n<p>New Jersy 18</p>\n\n<p>New York 18</p>\n\n<p>North Carolina 18</p>\n\n<p>North Dakota 18</p>\n\n<p>Ohio 18 or graduation from high school, whichever comes first</p>\n\n<p>Oklahoma 18</p>\n\n<p>Oregon 18</p>\n\n<p>Pennsylvania 18</p>\n\n<p>Rhode Island 18</p>\n\n<p>South Carolina 18</p>\n\n<p>South Dakota 18</p>\n\n<p>Tennessee 18 or graduation from high school, whichever is later</p>\n\n<p>Texas 18</p>\n\n<p>Utah 18 or graduation from high school, whichever is earlier</p>\n\n<p>Vermont 18</p>\n\n<p>Virginia 18</p>\n\n<p>Washington 18</p>\n\n<p>West Virginia 18</p>\n\n<p>Wisconsin 18, or if still in high school at 18, 19 or graduation, whichever comes sooner</p>\n\n<p>Wyoming 18</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "health", "health-insurance", "children" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4678, "body": "<p><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest\" rel=\"nofollow\">Conflict of Interest</a> in a legal sense is <em>not</em> subjective: if in the circumstances a reasonable person would identify a conflict of interest then there is a conflict of interest.</p>\n\n<p>Legally, <em>reasonable</em> is an objective standard. Practically, different people will draw the line of <em>reasonable</em> at different points.</p>\n\n<p>As always, a court will only intervene if there is a dispute (people can agree that there is or is not a conflict of interest) and the parties ask it to. If it does, then it has the final word on what is <em>reasonable</em>.</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "legal-terms", "legal-concepts" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5963, "body": "<p>Giving you specific advice about where to file and who to name as a defendant can look like legal advice, so I will be careful here.</p>\n\n<p>There are some rules about where to file. Generally, you are safe if you file in the county where the business is located. The things that might make the case suitable for your county are things like the nature of the dispute and the nature of the injury (injury is a legal term of art).</p>\n\n<p>Generally (again, generally!) use the in-state address.</p>\n\n<p>Most courts these days will have a form you fill out for small claims complaints. I bet the space for name asks for either the first and last of a person <strong>or</strong> a company name.</p>\n\n<p>The <strong>plaintiff is responsible</strong> for serving the defendant, the court does not do it for you. You will be able to find a document outlining the specifics of who can serve process and what needs to be done. Something like this: <a href=\"https://www.nycourts.gov/courts/1jd/supctmanh/Self-Rep%20Forms/How%20to%20Serve.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">How to Serve Legal Papers</a>.</p>\n", "score": 2 }, { "answer_id": 5968, "body": "<p>On the secretary of states's website, it will show their legal name under which they do business. This is the name you'd use for plaintiff. You will serve the registered agent listed on that site, for their USA affiliate (since their international). You can choose the county, so file closest to you. It won't really matter, because if they're international and they don't feel like dealing with you, they'll gave the case removed to Federal District Court since they have jurisdiction. This is a common corporate ploy, as people often can't afford to litigate in federal court, so they will often just drop the case. Any corporation whose home base is abroad or in another state can opt for federal court. </p>\n", "score": 0 } ]

[ "united-states", "new-york-state", "corporate-law", "small-claims-court" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4665, "body": "<p>Taking into account all possibilities its too complex to be fully explained here, but here are my quick initial thoughts. (Note: I did not look up the laws):</p>\n\n<p>I'm assuming no one would care that you made those modifications, so long as you didn't use the modifications on public streets and if there would be no chance of the system spontaneously taking over control (I was working on making my car similar to that but gave up).</p>\n\n<p>I don't think there are many laws specifically targeting this at the moment, but I'm assuming it would be illegal to do currently, unless you had specific approval for testing (with huge restrictions).</p>\n\n<p>Assuming it could be approved:\nIf someone was in the car to take over control at any time and be in constant focus of the vehicles travel, the chance for approval would be higher. Otherwise, unless the vehicle is fully autonomous (with restrictions), it wouldn't be allowed.</p>\n\n<p>If it got in an accident, assuming there would be a person inside and, as stated previously, they maintained focus of the road, that person would be likely responsible. I don't think it is ever a good idea to blame the system (or person) driving the car externally, since that transfers the risk and liability to something that should ideally be more perfect than the driver themselves.</p>\n\n<p>The problem with someone else controlling the vehicle is that they can make mistakes or have communication issues with the vehicle. Which makes that theoretically a bad idea.</p>\n\n<p>Assuming its legal, which it would not be currently:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Who is responsible?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The driver inside probably (or if no driver, (in theory) obviously the owner/external driver)</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Does this change if there is a person in the car who can take over\n control at any time?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Yes. (see first answer) Even if the car is either theoretically legal or illegal to drive.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Does this change if there is a person in the car who can not drive?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Yes.(see first answer) But this probably wouldnt be allowed.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Does this change if someone else is injured or killed?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>That would probably be the same as any other accident. Assuming what I already stated.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Does this change if there is a person in the car who can take over\n control at any time and they are injured or killed?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>If they could take over control I would assume they assume the risk, unless the external driver made a negligent or purposeful mistake.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Does this change if there is a person in the car who can not drive and\n they are injured or killed?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Once again, IF this was allowed, it would be the external drivers fault.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>What would happen if the car was pulled over by police and there was\n no one inside, or if there was a person in the car who can take over\n control at any time?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>If this was allowed, there would likely be a way to contact the external driver, and they would be charged. Unless the driver focused on road and was able to take control.</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

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

[ { "answer_id": 5965, "body": "<p>Daniel Fleetwood, and his wife who watched the movie with him, were bound <a href=\"http://m.tmz.com/#article/2015/11/05/star-wars-force-awakens-cancer-patient/\" rel=\"nofollow\">by a confidentiality agreement</a>:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>She can't say much more because she had to sign a confidentiality agreement. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Basically, both he and his wife signed a contract, if they had said anything they would have been in breach of that contract and could have been sued. </p>\n\n<p>Such agreements are standard, even for actors, so presumably, the lawyers at Disney know what they are doing when they write such a contract. NDAs such as this often <a href=\"http://www.theguardian.com/media/shortcuts/2014/oct/19/non-disclosure-agreement-arch-enemy-the-arts-critic\" rel=\"nofollow\">specify hefty fines</a>. </p>\n\n<p>I am doubtful that his illness would have meant they would have lost a case against him in that situation - it would have meant a whole lot of negative publicity, but if the contract was legally binding, the health condition does not matter. </p>\n\n<p>Daniel himself <a href=\"http://edition.cnn.com/2015/11/10/entertainment/dying-star-wars-fan-force-awakens-update/\" rel=\"nofollow\">died five days after watching the movie</a>. </p>\n", "score": 4 } ]

[ "contract-law" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5952, "body": "<p>There was no requirement for B to actually construct the building, much less use the specified components of the building in such a construction.</p>\n\n<p>There is no breach of contract.</p>\n", "score": 0 } ]

[ "contract-law" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5949, "body": "<p>Absolutely. Copyright exists when the work is created, publication is immaterial.</p>\n", "score": 4 } ]

[ "copyright", "international" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5947, "body": "<p>Ideally, both.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Indemnity</strong> means security against or exemption from legal responsibility for one's actions. An insurance contract is a classic example of an indemnity: in return for your premium they agree to indemnify you against whatever legal liability they are insuring. In a client/contractor relationship there <em>may</em> be things the client will indemnify the contractor for, however, most clients would be unwilling to extend this to indemnifying the contractor from the quality of the work. For example, if the correct input to your software gives incorrect output and the client suffers damage as a result then they would quite rightly want the option of suing you.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Liability insurance</strong> is a type of insurance (either public, product or professional) where your insurance company will indemnify you against negligence providing that you have complied with the policy terms. Basically, when you get sued, they will defend the case and pay out the settlement and costs. Note that this type of insurance does not cover fines or criminal charges levied by governments; there are policies that do subject to public policy constraints (e.g. if a person is penalised by the state then public policy dictates that they cant just offload the penalty to the insurer). Nor does it cover the cost of rework if required. </p>\n", "score": 0 } ]

[ "united-kingdom", "contract-law", "software", "medical" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5945, "body": "<p>Easy part first, there is no contract between the owners and M so there is no action possible under contract law.</p>\n\n<p>For tort law, the only one I can see is the tort of negligence. To succeed, M would need to demonstrate:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>The owners owed M a duty of care</li>\n<li>They failed in that duty</li>\n<li>As a result of that failure M suffered harm that was reasonably foreseeable to the owners.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Ultimately this is a matter of evidence but there are difficult problems for M on all these steps.</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Do the owners of a building have a duty to someone who did not enter that building?</li>\n<li>Was the roof collapse the fault of the owners or was it beyond their control (e.g. Earthquake)? Even if there were no external factors was the poor state of the roof something the owners could or should have known?</li>\n<li>It is highly likely that even if the first 2 are proven, that damage to M would not be reasonably foreseeable in a legal sense. If M had witnessed the friend die in a car accident without being an occupant of an involved vehicle the negligent driver would not be responsible for M's damage: same principle here.</li>\n</ol>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "contract-law" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5944, "body": "<p>First, you would probably be breaching a whole hoard of food safety laws; unless resold immediately bacteria and other nasties will be growing.</p>\n\n<p>Other than that, you can resell it - this is called \"retailing\". However, you would be required to disclose that what you were selling was a McDonald's Big Mac just like you would need to disclose you were selling a Sony PlayStation. Not disclosing would be the tort of passing off, deceptive and misleading conduct and trade mark violation.</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "united-kingdom", "restaurants" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5918, "body": "<p><strong>tl;dr</strong></p>\n\n<p>Assume everything is as in the original question, but let's also say there's some generic accompanying text in the email to the effect of \"Check this out.\"</p>\n\n<p>As nomenagentis mentions, the topic is debated. In particular, copyright is one of those areas that requires the judge to consider the particular facts of the case. In this scenario:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>The accompanying text likely doesn't meet the required creativity threshold for protection</li>\n<li>Judges will probably be split on whether the video attachment is protected. This is because they will run the facts through a \"balancing test,\" and that test might tilt either way depending on how the judge weighs the importance of each factor</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>In running this test, the courts look to a number of sources for insight. I consider an expectation of privacy, property, and copyright in turn.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Expectation of Privacy</strong></p>\n\n<p>This line of thought derives from the <a href=\"http://constitution.findlaw.com/amendments.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">Amendment IV</a> right of \"people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects\" from unreasonable searches. Why start with unreasonable searches when the question is about people forwarding a friend's emails? Two reasons: 1) search and seizure opinions have had to refine the concept of privacy (as a result of having to figure out what law enforcement can use), and 2) the notion of privacy extends well beyond government searches.</p>\n\n<p>In an early case the court drew a parallel between email and other forms of communication. It then went on to say \"if a sender of first-class mail seals an envelope and addresses it to another person, the sender can reasonably expect the contents to remain private and free from the eyes of the police absent a search warrant founded upon probable cause [...] <strong>[O]nce the letter is received and opened, the destiny of the letter then lies in the control of the recipient of the letter, not the sender</strong>, absent some legal privilege.\" <a href=\"http://www.armfor.uscourts.gov/newcaaf/opinions/1996Term/95_0751.htm\" rel=\"nofollow\"><em>United States v. Maxwell</em>, 45 M.J. 406 (Armed Forces 1996)</a> referencing Mil. R. Evid. 501-06 and <em>Gouled v. United States</em>, 255 U.S. at 302 (1921).</p>\n\n<p>The bold text is the common sense approach, and it gets quoted far outside <em>Maxwell</em>'s context. <em>See, e.g.</em> <a href=\"http://www.leagle.com/decision/19972156979FSupp1177_12013/U.S.%20v.%20CHARBONNEAU\" rel=\"nofollow\"><em>United States v. Charbonneau</em>, 979 F. Supp. 1177 (S.D. Ohio 1997)</a> (email, \"like a letter, cannot be afforded a reasonable expectation of privacy once that message is received.\") Likewise, when an individual sends or mails letters, messages, or other information on the computer, that Fourth Amendment expectation of privacy diminishes incrementally. <em>Id.</em> and <em>cf.</em> <em>Gouled</em>. </p>\n\n<p>Further, one lacks \"clearly established privacy rights in e-mail content voluntarily transmitted over the Internet and stored at a third-party Internet service provider.\" <a href=\"https://casetext.com/case/rehberg-v-paulk-2\" rel=\"nofollow\"><em>Rehberg v. Paulk</em>, 611 F.3d 828 (11th Cir. 2010)</a>. Elsewhere, by registering for an account with their provider, users explicitly consented (under the Wiretap Act) to the practice of scanning and analyzing emails sent from non-users of the service. <em>In re Yahoo Mail Litigation</em>, 7 F. Supp. 3d 1016 (N.D. Cal. 2014).</p>\n\n<p>All that to say: after clicking the send button, writers of emails have a diminished expectation of privacy.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Property</strong></p>\n\n<p>The diminished expectation of ownership extends beyond the United States. In <a href=\"http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/TCC/2012/2952.html\" rel=\"nofollow\"><em>Fairstar Heavy Transp. N.V. v. Adkins</em>, (EWHC 2012)</a> the court could find no practical basis for holding that there should be property in the content of an email. In a business context, it went on to say there is no proprietary claim unless the content is confidential information belonging to a business, unless copyright subsists in the content that belongs to a business, or unless that business has a contractual right of ownership over the content.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Copyright</strong></p>\n\n<p><em>Fairstar</em> singles out copyright as an exception to claims based on a lack of proprietary, but it also bears mention since the video and text might be considered intellectual property. <strong>There are two broad approaches to defeating a copyright claim. The first is to claim the material wasn't copyright protected in the first place, and the second is to claim some exception, like the fair use doctrine.</strong></p>\n\n<p>For the first approach, <a href=\"https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/102\" rel=\"nofollow\">17 U.S.C. § 102(a)</a> protects only original works of authorship, but originality does require a minimum level of creativity. The \"amount of creative input by the author required to meet the originality standard is low,\" but \"not negligible.\" <em>Satava v. Lowry</em>, 323 F.3d 805, 810 (9th Cir. 2003). Further, it's possible the \"creative spark is utterly lacking or so trivial as to be virtually nonexistent.\" <em>Feist Publ'ns, Inc. v. Rural Tel. Serv. Co.</em>, 499 U.S. 340 (1991). For example, in <a href=\"http://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/sternvdoes.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\"><em>Stern v. Does</em>, 978 F. Supp. 2d 1031 (C.D. Cal. 2011)</a>, an email on a listserv got redistributed without the author's consent but was found to lack the requisite creativity to constitute a valid copyright.</p>\n\n<p><strong>The Copyright Act doesn't define creativity or fair use, so this is one of those areas that relies on judgment.</strong> That's why it's hard to get a clear answer on a site like this: a judge would have to weigh the particular facts of the situation to determine whether there has been a violation. For the second approach--fair use--there are four factors to balance. I'm going to summarize the well-reasoned logic of <em>Stern</em> as it applies to each:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Factor 1: Purpose and character of the use. In <em>Campbell v. Acuff–Rose Music, Inc.</em>, 510 U.S. 569, 579 (1994), the court said when the new work is more transformative, the other factors are less important. In the email forwarding case, the court found the purpose of the forwarding was transformative: it sought to notify others of the existence of the email, which was different than the author's original purpose (soliciting information). <em>Stern</em> at 1045. Likewise, the lack of a commercial use tends to eliminate \"the presumption of unfairness.\" <em>Worldwide Church</em> at 1117.</li>\n<li>Factor 2: Nature of the copyrighted work. The more factual the work, the weaker the claim against fair use. In <em>Stern</em> at 1046, the email was largely informational.</li>\n<li>Factor 3: Amount and substantiality of the portion taken. The baseline rule is that \"wholesale copying of copyrighted material precludes application of the fair use doctrine.\" <em>Stern</em> at 1046 citing <em>Marcus v. Rowley</em>, 695 F.2d 1171, 1176 (9th Cir. 1983). Likewise, <em>Wall Data Inc. v. L.A. County Sheriff's Dep't</em>, 447 F.3d 769, 778 (9th Cir. 2006) found that verbatim copying of the entire copyrighted work weighs against a finding of fair use. <em>Id.</em> citing <em>Worldwide Church of God v. Phila. Church of God, Inc.</em>, 227 F.3d 1110, 1118 (9th Cir. 2000). As with most things, there are exceptions that do permit wholesale copying. For example, in the email forwarding case, the court thought this factor was neutral because the email was short and the intended use was reasonable.</li>\n<li>Factor 4: Effect of the use upon the potential market. In <em>Stern</em> at 1048, there was no market impact since it was a private email.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p><strong>Back to the case at hand</strong></p>\n\n<p>Note: the analysis would be different if the content were illegal, however the video is \"innocuous.\" </p>\n\n<p>Concerning originality, it's likely the video meets the level of creativity required for protection. It is three minutes long and probably required some effort, at a minimum, in framing the subjects. The text probably doesn't meet the required creative bar. As to fair use, the first factor would look at the purpose of the forwarding. Here the forwarding probably isn't transformative in purpose, but I'm assuming it is non-commercial. As to factor two, a family video is probably less informative, while the accompanying text is factual and directive in nature. Factor three asks us to look at a verbatim copying of the content. This is likely not an issue for the accompanying text, but it does appear to weigh against the video content. The last factor isn't relevant since we assume the friend has no commercial market for the home video.</p>\n\n<p>Because a judge must weigh the factors, it might go either way:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>One judge might hone in on the fact that the video meets the creativity bar and may argue the video forwarding fails fair use because the video isn't informational in nature and the forwarding was verbatim rather than derivative. This judge would probably concede the text forwarding was permissible.</li>\n<li>However, a second judge might say the first fair use factor is more important than the other three, arguing the non-commercial purpose dominates the non-informational nature in factor two and the verbatim character in factor three. This judge would add steam to the argument by citing the diminished expectation of privacy and the lack of property rights that might be said to ensue when copyright fails. This judge might make a final argument related to public policy: it is arguably difficult to police electronic traffic once it is sent, and the party in the best position to ensure the video's control is the initial sender.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p><a href=\"/questions/tagged/united-states\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;united-states&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">united-states</a> <a href=\"/questions/tagged/copyright\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;copyright&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">copyright</a> <a href=\"/questions/tagged/privacy\" class=\"post-tag\" title=\"show questions tagged &#39;privacy&#39;\" rel=\"tag\">privacy</a></p>\n", "score": 5 }, { "answer_id": 5912, "body": "<p>Here is good <a href=\"http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ01.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">document</a>. Read \"Who Can Claim Copyright?\" and \"Transfer of Copyright\" sections. In that document I could not find anything that would imply that receiving a file in attachment automatically grants you permission to distribute this file to whoever you want.</p>\n\n<p>Also, I am software engineer who is involved in Open Source development. We have a similar issue where we explicitly have to ask person who sends us an email with code patch to give us a special \"<a href=\"https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1962094/what-is-the-sign-off-feature-in-git-for\">Signed-off-by</a>\" line in the email message. Basically, only after receiving such line we accept his contribution in to our Open Source project to avoid any possible copyright infringement lawsuits.</p>\n\n<p>If you want more backed up answer then you probably would have to look for similar precedent cases in court rulings. Perhaps start to look in <a href=\"http://openjurist.org/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">this site</a> or in <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_copyright_case_law\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Wikipedia's List of copyright case law</a>. However, YMMV because legal system is not deterministic and you really don't know what will be considered as convincing evidence because your case most likely will be at least little bit different than any other case on Internet. I will try to provide you some examples that stood out to my eyes regarding <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Fair Use</a>.</p>\n\n<p>Also, the question in my opinion does not mention few important aspects around particular situation in questions:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Was it one time sharing or do you keep sharing the video even after the Copyright Holder sent you Copyright Infringement notice?</li>\n<li>Who are these people to whom you forwarded the video - are they relatives, friends, coworkers, random people or random people that paid you money for video?</li>\n</ol>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "email" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5938, "body": "<p>A special case is not paying the income tax that the company is supposed to be paying on behalf of its employees. If an employee makes £4,000 a month, and the employer is supposed to pay £1,000 tax and doesn't, that's not the employer's money, that's the employee's money. Not paying the employee's money is a much more serious matter than not paying your own taxes. </p>\n\n<p>A google search found this article <a href=\"http://www.gaebler.com/Not-Paying-Payroll-Taxes.htm\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.gaebler.com/Not-Paying-Payroll-Taxes.htm</a> which says that a person not paying taxes for employees is <em>personally liable</em>, that this liability <em>does not go away with bankruptcy</em>, and that <em>jail is possible</em>. </p>\n\n<p>So their advice is: Whatever other debt you have, paying taxes for your employees' payroll is the absolutely highest priority (higher priority than paying wages, paying the rent, paying company taxes and so on). </p>\n", "score": 4 }, { "answer_id": 1925, "body": "<p>First, in both the US and the UK there are criminal sanctions including prison terms for breaching tax laws; <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Capone\" rel=\"nofollow\">Al Capone</a> being the most famous example.</p>\n\n<p>This is <strong>not</strong> the same as legitimately following the tax laws and then being unable to pay when required.</p>\n\n<p>A person (including a corporation) who is unable to pay their debts (which includes taxes) as and when they fall due is bankrupt. There are laws that deal with bankruptcy and they also have criminal sanctions including prison if you don't follow them. However, if you do follow the law then you cannot be sent to jail for being bankrupt.</p>\n", "score": 3 } ]

[ "united-states", "united-kingdom", "tax-law" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5304, "body": "<p>It seems that the encryption functionality consists of giving the user a choice of different algorithms, letting the user pick one, and using that algorithm to encrypt the data. </p>\n\n<p>It seems that functionality cannot easily be changed, or can it? </p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "united-states", "cryptography" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5917, "body": "<p>Companies dissolve by one of two modes: voluntarily or involuntarily.</p>\n\n<p>If it's a <strong>voluntary</strong> dissolution: the assets remaining after paying all the creditors are distributed among the owners according to their ownership percentages or by some other agreement. The successor owner of the IP will be determined at that time.</p>\n\n<p>In the case of an <strong>involuntary</strong> dissolution: usually as part of a bankruptcy proceeding, the bankruptcy court will first transfer all the corporate assets into a <strong><em>receivership</em></strong> managed by a <strong><em>trustee</em></strong>. The trustee will then disposition the company's assets (including the IP) per the laws of bankruptcy. The successor owner of the IP will be determined through that process. Many of the company's assets will be liquidated by auction and sold to the highest bidder; and the auction proceeds will be used to pay the company's creditors. So in the event of an involuntary bankruptcy dissolution, the successor owner of the IP will have most typically outbid all other bidders at the liquidation sale/auction. If there is any money left over after all the creditors and bankruptcy fees are paid, the remainder will be distributed to the shareholders as above described.</p>\n", "score": 7 }, { "answer_id": 5916, "body": "<p>The rules governing ownership of intellectual property are essentially the same as the rules governing ownership any other property. <em>Somebody</em> retains ownership when a company goes defunct. It may not be as easy to determine who that owner is, because with real property \"possession is nine-tenths of the law.\" But a good starting point would be a presumption that, absent a contract indicating transfer to another entity, the original author of the IP still owns it.</p>\n\n<p>I.e., if someone can establish authorship, the burden would fall to the entity claiming legitimate license to that author's IP to prove by a preponderance of evidence that rights passed from the author to it.</p>\n", "score": 3 } ]

[ "intellectual-property", "corporate-law", "australia" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5933, "body": "<p>Generally speaking, if you can render the bills \"unfit for circulation\" then you should be ok.</p>\n\n<p>One way to do this would be to laminate the bills in plastic, with an indellible label that states: \"COUNTERFEIT CURRENCY\" or something to that effect.</p>\n", "score": 3 } ]

[ "criminal-law" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5316, "body": "<p>In general, you don't need specific wording to make a contract.</p>\n\n<p>\"I will give you 1% of the shares when we incorporate in return for your advice.\" you say.\n\"OK\", he says.</p>\n\n<p>... and we have a legally binding contract (with or without a handshake). The terms might be a little vague but if you don't get into a dispute that won't matter. Even if you do get into a dispute there is enough substance in the contract and the circumstances for a court to make a ruling.</p>\n\n<p>However, if he wants something in writing (and its probably a good idea), write down what you will do and when, what he will do and when and what the (prospective) company will do and when (companies can be bound by contracts made in anticipation of their existence) and what will happen if one of you doesn't do what they said they would by when they said they would.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "legal-terms", "ownership" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5930, "body": "<p>The Howard League for Penal Reform, who I presume are well informed about the subject, issued a <a href=\"http://www.howardleague.org/courts-charge-victory/\" rel=\"nofollow\">press release</a> including the following:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>“There remains the problem of people who have had the criminal courts\n charge imposed on them, many of whom will simply not be able to pay.\n We call on magistrates to exercise compassion and common sense when\n these unfortunate people are returned to court.”</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>So the answer is yes, unless they can convince a magistrate that the charge is unaffordable when they get hauled back to court for non-payment. </p>\n\n<p>As the abolition of the charge was done by secondary legislation, I doubt there would be powers to act retroactively, even if this was thought desirable.</p>\n", "score": 3 } ]

[ "united-kingdom", "rules-of-court", "fees" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5925, "body": "<p>Human life is worth between $1 million and $10 million. Apparently.</p>\n<p>I did a quick Google search and found a couple of interesting sources to answer this question.</p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http://scholarship.law.campbell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1078&amp;context=clr\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">An academic study by Campbell Law</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"http://courses2.cit.cornell.edu/sociallaw/student_projects/victimcompensation.html\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">A report from Cornell Law School</a></li>\n</ul>\n<p>In that second source, I found these interesting charts which seem to support the answer given.</p>\n<p><a href=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/zvnU5.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/zvnU5.jpg\" alt=\"enter image description here\" /></a>\n<a href=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/0eM71.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/0eM71.jpg\" alt=\"enter image description here\" /></a></p>\n<p><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Also, this Wikipedia article says the following</a>:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<h3>Life Value in the US</h3>\n<p>The following estimates have been applied to the value of life. The estimates are either for one year of additional life or for the statistical value of a single life.</p>\n<ul>\n<li>$50,000 per year of quality life (international standard most private and government-run health insurance plans worldwide use to determine whether to cover a new medical procedure)</li>\n<li>$129,000 per year of quality life (based on analysis of kidney dialysis procedures by Stefanos Zenios and colleagues at Stanford Graduate School of Business)</li>\n<li>$9.1 million (Environmental Protection Agency, 2010)</li>\n<li>$7.9 million (Food and Drug Administration, 2010)</li>\n<li>$9.4 million (Transportation Department, 2015)</li>\n<li>$9.1 million (Prof. W. Kip Viscusi, Vanderbilt University, 2013)</li>\n</ul>\n</blockquote>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "united-states", "civil-law", "damages" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4810, "body": "<p>Legally, the employer is responsible for the actions of the employee. So your company \"obtained\" it in the eyes of the law.</p>\n\n<p>How it was \"obtained\" matters. </p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>If it was obtained through criminal means then there may be obligations to report the employee to the police. For example, in New South Wales, it is a crime to fail to report a serious indictable offence: theft, computer fraud and corruption would all be serious indictable offences.</li>\n<li>If it was received in confidence then it is confidential information and its use would be the tort of breach of confidential information. For example, an employee of Company A told an employee of Company B the information in circumstances where the Company B employee knew or should have known that it was given in confidence; something like \"Don't tell anyone but ...\".</li>\n<li>If it was \"obtained\" innocently, for example, by finding it in the other company's garbage or lying by the side of the road; then you can use it.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Notwithstanding, it has clearly compromised the tender process and if you used the information and won the contract, this may be sufficient to make the contract voidable.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "united-kingdom" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5889, "body": "<p>I think the facts you describe might or might not create a problem for you.</p>\n\n<p>My sense of things is the best course of action might be to try and negotiate a settlement regarding the disposition of the files in question. </p>\n\n<p>See my comments.</p>\n", "score": 1 }, { "answer_id": 5910, "body": "<p>It's all about the user account that you used when you created the files ie the owner. </p>\n\n<p>Assuming there was no written contract between you and your friend which might override the default circumstances: </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>If you or your friend has created a user account for you on his computer/server then <strong><em>you have the right to do whatever you want/can with the files you create</em></strong> as long as you don't override the access control rules (ie the privileges assigned to your account by the OS) by exploiting some privileges escalation vulnerability.</p></li>\n<li><p>If you used somebody's else account to create the files then you have a very small chance proving that the files contents are actually yours and you have the copyrights for them and you decided to take action and remove them instead of complaining to the authorities which might reduce the punishment for the unauthorized act you performed on your friends computer. </p></li>\n</ul>\n", "score": 0 } ]

[ "intellectual-property" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5904, "body": "<p>If the employer and the employee were both based in the U.S. then this question would be about the difference between being a W-2 <strong><em>employee</em></strong> vs. a 1099 <strong><em>independent contractor</em></strong>. The terms <strong><em>W-2</em></strong> and <strong><em>1099</em></strong> refer to the IRS forms you use for tax purposes.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p><a href=\"http://art.mt.gov/artists/IRS_20pt_Checklist_%20Independent_Contractor.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Here's a checklist somebody built to help decide which</a>.</p></li>\n<li><p><a href=\"https://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&amp;-Self-Employed/Independent-Contractor-Self-Employed-or-Employee\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Here is a link to the IRS website that covers the issue</a>.</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>The distinction between being an employee vs. an independent contractor has implications regarding tax obligations owed to the federal government. Things like: who owes what income and payroll taxes, how much is owed and when are payments due are affected by this dinstinction. As well as other potential obligations (e.g., health care coverage) placed on the employer if the worker is an employee.</p>\n\n<p>This is all very complicated due to the nature and complexity of U.S. employment law. Such that you will likely need the help of a CPA to figure it all out and comply if you are 1099. The company will have to figure out everything to comply if you are a W-2 employee.</p>\n\n<p>If you want to research this further <a href=\"http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2013/11/21/do-you-want-a-1099-or-a-w-2/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">here is an article to get you started</a>.</p>\n\n<p>Two points worth mentioning:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>In the U.S., usually the employer determines whether the job is a W-2 or 1099 position. Typically, the employer will prefer a 1099 relationship because it places fewer burdens and obligations on the employer. But this is not necessarily always the case. In any event, the IRS publishes guidelines for employers to follow when making the determination. But employers have no way of guaranteeing in advance how the IRS will rule on any given case. Because the guidelines are not binding and are open to interpretation. There are a few noteworthy cases right now making their way through the system on this issue with companies like Uber and the fast food franchises.</p></li>\n<li><p>Your question doesn't clarify which of the two of you are subject to U.S. employment law. You say the employer is based in the U.K. but you don't say where you are located or whether or not the employer has any presence in your home country (e.g. satellite office or branch, etc.). This answer only applies to the U.S. If this is international it could get more complex. <a href=\"https://law.stackexchange.com/a/3767/794\">If so, see this question and answer for more details</a>.</p></li>\n</ol>\n", "score": 1 }, { "answer_id": 5905, "body": "<p>In the USA, he irs has rules for declaring you to be a de facto employee, regardless of how you arrange your compensation. High on the list is the question of whether your engagement is at the whim of the employer with respect to time, tools, and place. I.e. You call yourself a vendor, but you work when the employer wants you to, sitting in their office, using their computers. The irs will very likely decide that you are indeed an employee.</p>\n\n<p>Pragmatically for you, it comes down to which party, you or the employer, will be paying the various social taxes.</p>\n", "score": 0 } ]

[ "united-kingdom", "employment" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5907, "body": "<p>Only my perception.... </p>\n\n<p>I believe you have 2 <em>legal</em> options.</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Rip the CDs to the format that you want for personal use</li>\n<li>Purchase the music again in the format (MP3, etc.) that you want</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>I don't know of any other <em>legal</em> options. </p>\n\n<p>I went through the same things several years ago.... spent a couple weeks swapping CDs and ripping everything myself. Although time consuming and tedious, it's not like it has to be done overnight. Take your time, rip a few a day or a few a week. Eventually you'll have them all ripped. And when complete, you shouldn't ever have to do it again (provided you have backup methods in place).</p>\n\n<p>You should be thankful that ripping is even an option rather than dreading it. With previous delivery method changes (LP then 8-track then cassette then CD) the <em>only</em> option was to repurchase. I lost track of how many times I purchased the <em>same</em> thing to use a new \"player\". Although, admittedly, the 8-track thing was a bit before my time.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Please be aware:</strong> I am not now and have never been an attorney or legal professional.</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "united-states", "copyright", "music" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5900, "body": "<p>What you are describing is not \"phishing.\" It does, however, violate all sorts of laws against copyright and trademark infringement. Furthermore you would have compelling claims against the former employee for various torts &ndash; e.g., breach of trust.</p>\n\n<p>The prudent course of action in this scenario would be to contact a lawyer assess the value of your claims and consider suing the former employee for damages and injunctions. If the potential damages (and the ability to collect them) are high enough you might be able to retain a lawyer's services on contingency.</p>\n\n<p>At the very least you could send the former employee a \"cease and desist\" letter. Ideally that should be drafted by a lawyer, but there is plenty of boilerplate and samples to be found online if you lack the money to properly defend your business.</p>\n", "score": 5 } ]

[ "trademark", "civil-law" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5891, "body": "<p><a href=\"http://www.bizfilings.com/new-york/ongoing-llc-requirements.aspx\" rel=\"nofollow\">This link looks like a good resource</a>. It lists the following ongoing maintenance items.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <ul>\n <li>Biennial report</li>\n <li>Taxes</li>\n <li>Federal tax identification number (EIN)</li>\n </ul>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>That page contains nested links to more and more detailed information regarding taxes.</p>\n\n<p>I think you can successfully do what you describe between by relying on a reference work (like the site I linked you to) and a CPA.</p>\n\n<p>Also, see comments. </p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "united-states", "new-york-state", "corporate-law" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5817, "body": "<p><strong><em>Agree</em></strong> and <strong><em>accept</em></strong> are equivalent terms in this context.</p>\n", "score": 7 }, { "answer_id": 5885, "body": "<p>No. It is semantics. The signature on the contract is what represents a willingness to adhere to all requisite duties and rights that the contract puts upon each party to the instrument. </p>\n", "score": 4 } ]

[ "contract-law", "legal-terms" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5881, "body": "<p><a href=\"http://www.ny.gov/services/start-limited-liability-company-llc\" rel=\"nofollow\">All your questions should be answered by your NY state regulatory authority found here</a>.</p>\n\n<p>Generally speaking, doing what you describe is relatively easy and takes minimal time, effort and cost. All state authorities have an interest in making this process as easy and efficient as possible for people to do themselves.</p>\n\n<p>You have asked all the right questions in your OP. And, like I mentioned, all the answers should be found at that link. If not, stop back by and let us know.</p>\n\n<h3>Important Notes</h3>\n\n<p>A few things to mention:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>You will probably want to open a bank account for your new LLC to further \"establish\" it as a legal entity. For that, you will first need to get an Employer Identification Number (EIN) from the IRS. Also easy. Just Google to see how. You used to just have to call an 800 number and answer some questions and you could get it in about 15 minutes. But I read somewhere that process has changed since those days. <a href=\"https://www.irs.gov/uac/Form-SS-4,-Application-for-Employer-Identification-Number-(EIN)\" rel=\"nofollow\">See IRS form SS-4</a>.</p></li>\n<li><p>Remember to pay your annual filing fees on time. Otherwise you might have your status revoked. Which you can usually reinstate within a grace period under state statute after paying additional fees. But you might not maintain corporate protection during that period if you ever let that lapse.</p></li>\n<li><p>Read up on what you must do to prevent a potential creditor from <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piercing_the_corporate_veil\" rel=\"nofollow\"><strong><em>piercing the corporate veil</em></strong></a> if you want to maintain maximum liability protection your entity provides.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<h3>Where to Publish</h3>\n\n<p>Contact your county clerk's office.</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://www.nyc.gov/html/sbs/nycbiz/downloads/pdf/educational/legal/registering.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">On page 7 of this document, the author writes</a>:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>The notice must be published once per week for six consecutive weeks in two newspapers in the county where the office of the business is located. <strong><em>The county clerk will designate which newspapers</em></strong> the notices must run in, one of which will be published daily and one published weekly.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>For more information, <a href=\"http://www.newyorksmallbusinesslaw.com/new_york_small_business_l/2007/01/what_happens_if.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">you can also read this link</a>.</p>\n\n<p>Congrats on your new business. And good luck!</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "united-states", "business", "new-york-state" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5877, "body": "<p>Pragmatically, on your server side, there is nothing about an http request from a computer program that is any different than one typed manually, so if the \"robot\" doesn't intend to honor your demand, there's little or nothing you can do.</p>\n\n<p>Most sites implement a \"robots.txt\" file in their root directory that defines the site's policy, and many/most of the web crawlers and spiders respect that policy...but it's an honor system.</p>\n\n<p>You can use sophisticated metadata methods to block programmatic access to your site...refuse new connections less than five seconds apart, for example.</p>\n\n<p>Edit: There's no law that says you have to honor an http GET request. You can allow or refuse them at your most capricious whim.</p>\n", "score": 6 } ]

[ "copyright", "internet" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5876, "body": "<p>Think of this another way: ExxonMobil is an international corporation. Why should they have to comply with the sovereign laws of some small country they do business within?</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "internet", "international" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5855, "body": "<p>Game shows are not gambling because the participants do not wager their own money. They risk the show's money only. (Also as @aroth points out in the comments, the vast majority of game shows can also use the \"game of skill\" defense.)</p>\n\n<p>Yes. Game shows use contracts for contestants. See the following examples.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http://www.spandyandy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Wipeout-Canada-Contestant-Application-Agreement-and-Release.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">Wipeout Canada</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"https://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/32287092\" rel=\"nofollow\">Survivor</a></li>\n</ul>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "gambling" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5863, "body": "<p>You need an attorney to advise you.</p>\n\n<p>When you speak with your attorney, make sure you are clear and ask her to advise you for the best way to comply with the law and not how to circumvent it.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "employment", "immigration", "f1-visa" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5861, "body": "<p><strong>In general, no</strong></p>\n\n<p>Think about it; Google probably has a fleet of several thousand cars - these are all \"other assets\". It would be impractical (and uncompetitive) for them to disclose each and every transaction involving their motor vehicle fleet.</p>\n\n<p>Purchases of real property and public companies are a matter of public record (in most places), so these are disclosed. Assets like private companies, \"businesses\", plant, equipment, motor vehicles, stationary etc. are private matters between the buyer and the seller. The buyer or the seller can of course disclose this information if they want subject to any NDA.</p>\n\n<p>Records of these transactions must be kept for accounting and taxation purposes and the consolidated accounts of a public company are a matter of public record. Line item detail like \"Purchase ABC Corporation - $562,000,000\" and \"Purchase Pens - $7.60\" do not make it that far. </p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "corporate-law" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5858, "body": "<p>Yes. (Generally speaking.)</p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.dutycalculator.com/new-import-duty-and-tax-calculation/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Here is a calculator</a>.</p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.dutycalculator.com/country-guides/Import-duty-taxes-when-importing-into-the-United-States/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">On this page, the author writes</a>:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><em>Import duty and taxes are due when importing goods into the United States whether by a private individual or a commercial entity. The valuation method is FOB (Free on Board), which means that the import duty and taxes payable are calculated exclusively on the value of the imported goods. However, some duties are based part in value and part in quantity. In addition to duty, imports may be subject to a Merchandise Processing Fee, and in some cases to sales tax, and Federal Excise Tax.</em></p>\n</blockquote>\n<h3>Possible Exemptions</h3>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.cbp.gov/travel/international-visitors/kbyg/customs-duty-info\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Here is the official page of U.S. Customs</a>. They write:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<h3>Household Effects & Personal Effects - Customs Duty Guidance</h3>\n<p>Household effects conditionally included are duty-free. These include such items as furniture, carpets, paintings, tableware, stereos, linens, and similar household furnishings; tools of the trade, professional books, implements, and instruments.</p>\n<p>You may import household effects you acquired abroad duty-free if:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>You used them abroad for no less than one year.</li>\n<li>They are not intended for any other person or for sale.</li>\n</ul>\n<p>For Customs purposes, clothing, jewelry, photography equipment, portable radios, and vehicles are considered personal effects and cannot be brought in duty-free as household effects. However, duty is usually waived on personal effects more than one year of age. All vehicles are dutiable.</p>\n</blockquote>\n", "score": 2 } ]

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

[ { "answer_id": 5852, "body": "<p>Summary from comments. (<em>Hat tip @jqning</em>)</p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.avvo.com/legal-answers/use-of---symbol-but-not-federally-registered-1125746.html\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Daniel Nathan Ballard writes here</a>:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>[It] is not only improper it is UNLAWFUL and may result in serious repercussions...</p>\n<p>Such a misuse may constitute false advertising... (“It is no doubt true” that affixing the ‘Trade Mark Registered U.S. Patent Office” notice on goods that are not protected by a federally registered trademark creates “a prima facie case of fraud against the public… .”).</p>\n<p>...</p>\n<p>Such use is also a form of “unclean hands” that can bar the user’s registration of the mark.</p>\n<p>...</p>\n<p>Such a use may also bar the maintenance of an infringement case.</p>\n<p>...</p>\n<p>And the fraudulent use of the trademark registration symbol DOES provide other marketplace participants with standing to oppose the user’s registration of the mark.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.avvo.com/legal-answers/use-of---symbol-but-not-federally-registered-1125746.html\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">http://www.avvo.com/legal-answers/use-of---symbol-but-not-federally-registered-1125746.html</a></p>\n", "score": 4 }, { "answer_id": 5844, "body": "<p>Well, you are lying. The problem isn't so much the symbol, but the claim that you have a registered trademark. And the question is whether your lie cost someone money, and whether that someone finds out and sues you. </p>\n\n<p>Worst case, some company planned to release a new product under a new name, which they wanted to trademark, but they spotted your claim of a registered trademark for the same name, and changed the name, having to change documentation, product manuals, advertisement materials and so on. And then they find out that you don't actually have a trademark and it cost them a lot of money. </p>\n\n<p>Nobody could say whether they would win in court, but if they take you to court, you can bet it will cost you a lot of money. </p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "united-states", "trademark" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5850, "body": "<p>You're thinking of \"adverse possession,\" or in the vernacular, \"squatter's rights.\"</p>\n\n<p>In Mass, USA, the term is 20 years. If it had gone the full time, you would be looking at not an easement or right of way, but actual ownership (because it was not for public use, but rather your own paddlocked use.)</p>\n\n<p>Don't necessarily take the condo association's opinion as settled fact.</p>\n", "score": 2 }, { "answer_id": 5851, "body": "<p>This case is sufficiently nuanced that you should spend a few bucks and hire a real attorney.</p>\n\n<p>Generally speaking, you should never look to this site for any advice on a real case. Especially not a case like this.</p>\n\n<p><em>The only exception to the above would be if there were a real attorney on this site licensed to practice law in Massachusetts and wanted to mention a word or two to help point you in the right direction.</em></p>\n", "score": 0 } ]

[ "rental-property" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5848, "body": "<p>It would be, prima facie, both copyright infringement and trade mark infringement.</p>\n\n<p>Copyright offers a fair use defence: this <em>may</em> qualify but it doesn't seem likely.</p>\n\n<p>Trade mark has no such defence; if a reasonable person might believe that your game is in some way associated with or endorsed by the owner of the Mario trade mark (Nintendo?) then you have breached their trade mark.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "copyright", "fair-use" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5838, "body": "<p>IANAL (I am not a lawyer), and I'm also not a Canadian, nor an expert on Canadian immigration. I have looked at the Express Entry websites and some provincial nomination websites, so please take this answer as incomplete but possibly useful.</p>\n\n<p>The express entry \"point limits\" on the draws so far this year have been running around 450 - 800 points. Because you have a job, that significantly adds points to your total. I would suggest finding the pages where you can add up your points and see what your total would be. </p>\n\n<p>You can concurrently apply for OINP and if you receive it, add more points to your Express Entry total. However, is there some reason you cannot apply for the Masters Graduates Stream of the OINP? The biggest hurdles I see are the $1500 cost, you have to be within 2 years of graduation, and possibly your company may have to be approved and have your job approved for the OINP. </p>\n\n<p>OINP is currently closed for this Stream until January 4, 2016. </p>\n\n<p>You also might talk to your HR department to see if they've had temporary work permit employees convert to permanent residents in the past. They have ideas on the best way to do it.</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "canada", "immigration" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5824, "body": "<p>If you are under oath it is called <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perjury\" rel=\"nofollow\">perjury</a>. If you are not under oath it is called lying.</p>\n", "score": 1 }, { "answer_id": 5837, "body": "<blockquote>\n <p>Signing this document would amount to <strong>free speech</strong>.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>There are circumstances, as comments have said, where we are not allowed to lie. But these circumstances are circumscribed - such as speech under penalty of perjury, attesting to facts under a regulatory rule (signing certain financial documents), etc. Of course, lies about facially mundane things like your address or how long you've lived a place are fraudulent if circumstances align. </p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "contract-law", "common-law", "definition" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5834, "body": "<p>There's a famous case that discusses this very thing. Back in the ancient days before millennials roamed the planet, there was a record company, Apple Records, it was the publishing/record company of The Beatles. Along came these two fresh young kids from Cupertino, who had just started Apple Computers. Apple records sued for trade name infringement.</p>\n\n<p>Ultimately, they settled, recognizing that they were in different industries and the chance of dilution was minimal, and Apple computers agreed to stay away from the music business.</p>\n\n<p>Ten years later, the new Macintosh computer had a sound card and could play music. Apocryphally, Woz has been dinged for naming the default Macintosh alert sound \"SoSuMe\" ostensibly intended as a raspberry taunt to the moribund Apple records...</p>\n", "score": 1 }, { "answer_id": 5830, "body": "<p>Maybe; or maybe not. It's complicated.</p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.iusmentis.com/trademarks/crashcourse/rights/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">You might want to read this piece claiming to be a crash course on trademarks</a>.</p>\n<p>There, they point out:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<h3>Use for different goods or services</h3>\n<p>The registration of a trademark includes an indication of the goods or services which it is intended to protect. This means that, in principle, others are free to use the trademark for other goods or services. However, there are some exceptions. As explained earlier, a trademark always runs the risk that it loses its distinctive character, which could mean that the trademark at some point is annulled.</p>\n<p>It is also an infringement if the use of the mark is such that it harms the trademark holder in an unfair way. The reputation or image that he has built could suffer from somebody elses use of the mark. For example, the Dutch holder of the trademark King (who makes peppermints) was able to successfully stop someone else from selling condoms under the same trademark.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>So my (non lawyer, lay) read of this article suggests that, generally speaking, use is permitted for different goods or services unless the situation is subject to exception. Words describing the exceptions like <em><strong>harm</strong></em> and <em><strong>unfair</strong></em> make the answer subjective and situation-dependent.</p>\n", "score": 0 } ]

[ "trademark", "branding" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5832, "body": "<p>Claims to copyright infringement must state what has been infringed so that it can be removed.</p>\n\n<p>Respond to them and ask where and how you have committed copyright infringement.</p>\n\n<p>The ball lies with them to prove you have infringed, not you to prove you have not.</p>\n\n<p>[I'll add citations later]</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "united-states", "copyright", "united-kingdom" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5505, "body": "<blockquote>\n <p>Can posts and comments that are untrue be used in slander lawsuit?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Only if they are audio posts. Slander is the <em>verbal</em> making of false statements that damage a persons reputation. Written posts could form the basis of the tort of libel. Slander and libel are both subcategories of the law of defamation.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Or is it impossible to prove?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>No more so than defamation in a book or a newspaper. Libel is simply a published false statement that is damaging to a person's reputation. Placing it on the internet is publishing it. If its false and causes damage it is actionable.</p>\n", "score": 1 }, { "answer_id": 5827, "body": "<p>There is nothing about an online post that excludes its being used as evidence of defamation, but not all false and negative online posts are defamatory. There would have to be an element of reputational damage, which in turn raises issues of the content of the post, the scope of the readership, and the identity of the readers. So the answer to your question is yes, but the conditions in your question are not alone sufficient for defamation. </p>\n", "score": 0 }, { "answer_id": 5831, "body": "<p>As long as you can prove what has been written and be reasonably sure who has written it then a screenshot and a statement can be enough to begin although it is best to contact the police to show them and get a statement written up.</p>\n\n<p>Just yesterday I took a statement from someone who had been the victim of just this. </p>\n", "score": 0 } ]

[ "internet", "criminal-law" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5822, "body": "<p>If the crime is a summary conviction offence you must be charged within 6 months of the act.</p>\n\n<p>For indictable (serious) offences there is no limit other than the practical one of before you die.</p>\n\n<p>The police are under no obligation to inform you of the status of their investigation and you can rest assured that they only told you they were investigating you in order to further the investigation in some way.</p>\n\n<p>Sorry about your stress.</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "criminal-law", "canada" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5816, "body": "<p>Assuming you own the copyright; none. Under the Facebook terms and conditions, you gave Facebook a royalty-free licence in perpetuity to do whatever they want with everything you post, including sub-licensing it.</p>\n", "score": 1 }, { "answer_id": 5818, "body": "<p>It's not necessarily a copyright issue, but if the person causes harm to your reputation through injurious falsehoods, you may have a claim of <strong>defamation</strong>; if they persist in this kind of behaviour, you may have a claim of <strong>harassment</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>Defamation, or libel, would depend on whether the statements cause your standing within your community to diminish, and on whether the statements are untrue.</p>\n\n<p>Harassment depends on, among other things, whether they have done this before and whether this causes you to feel distressed, humiliated, or threatened.</p>\n\n<p>Remember that despite terms and conditions, you cannot contract outside of a law; such terms are illegal and void.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "copyright", "united-kingdom" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5815, "body": "<p>You breach copyright when you substantially copy <em>or create a derivative work from</em> a literary work. A poem is a literary work; you need permission. From The Tolkien estate you won't get it.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "copyright", "fair-use" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5803, "body": "<p>Generally, this will not matter.</p>\n\n<p><strong>However</strong>, in order to remove any doubt, contracts often include an interpretation clause to the following effect:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Unless the contexts otherwise demands, words importing any gender shall be interpreted to mean any or all genders.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>These clauses help to ensure that such uses of gender are not exhaustive or restrictive.</p>\n", "score": 2 }, { "answer_id": 5804, "body": "<p>Think of it this way: what gender is appropriate if the tenant is \"medicalSuppliesOvernight.com?\"</p>\n\n<p>The better approach is of course to write in gender-neutral phrases. i.e. \"the conduct of the tenant's guests is the responsibility of the tenant. Damage caused by tenant's guests is blah blah blah...\"</p>\n\n<p>In other words, avoid pronouns when possible. It makes for somewhat clunky speech, but it removes the opportunity for ambiguity.</p>\n", "score": 2 }, { "answer_id": 5805, "body": "<p>It is important to remember that the exact phrasing of a contract <strong>only ever</strong> matters when there is a dispute. If everyone is happy with how the contract is operating then no one ever looks at it.</p>\n\n<p>Because the text only matters in a dispute it is <strong>very</strong> important to be clear: people are only looking at it because 1) they have entered a hitherto novel part of their relationship and they want to be reminded what they agreed or 2) the relationship is turning to shit and they want to screw the other guy over. 1 can very rapidly lead to 2 if the language is unclear. Also, once you start fighting you tend to fight over everything including what \"he\" and \"she\" mean.</p>\n", "score": 2 }, { "answer_id": 5801, "body": "<p><strong>not a lawyer here</strong></p>\n\n<p>I don't think it matters, if it is <strong>obvious</strong> that with \"he\" or \"she\" you unambiguously meant \"tenant\" and not \"landlord\" (or vice versa depending on case). Note that \"he\" and \"she\" are words that could be ambiguous, if there are at least 2 people on contract with the same gender.</p>\n\n<p>Also, how about transgender people? I don't think that all jurisdictions specify, if transgenders should be \"he\" or \"she\". So in this case you really would not know what to put.</p>\n\n<p>However, for the sake of readability I would recommend to be consistent - don't use \"he\" in one sentence and in the next sentence \"she\".</p>\n\n<p>And, if you want to be polite to the other person use wording \"he or she\" instead of simply \"he\" if that is female. There are people out there who could get offended by this.</p>\n", "score": 0 }, { "answer_id": 5802, "body": "<p>Not necessarily.</p>\n\n<p>The issue here is the same as with all contract language: to clarify the intent of the parties. So the pronouns should be selected to as clearly as possible describe their intent.</p>\n\n<p>The choice of one pronoun over another does not automatically invalidate a contract. However, if the language (including but not limited to pronoun selection) is sufficiently obscure such that its meaning in unclear and the intent of the parties can not be adequately inferred by the court, <strong>then</strong> the contract <strong>might</strong> be held as invalid and/or unenforceable.</p>\n", "score": 0 } ]

[ "contract-law" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5788, "body": "<p>You need to check the license. For example if you purchase an application on Apple's App Store, you have free choices: 1. Private use on several computers that you own and control. 2. Professional use on any number of computers that are exclusively used by you. 3. Professional use on one single computer that is used by any number of users. Other companies probably have similar licenses. </p>\n\n<p>So if that was your software license, you could install the software on any number of company computers that are used only by you and use it professionally, but you couldn't then use it on a personal computer as well. And independent of the software license, your company might not agree with this. For example, depending on the laws in place it might be illegal for a company to let employees pay for such software out of their own pocket. </p>\n", "score": 0 } ]

[ "licensing", "corporate-law", "natural-person" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5784, "body": "<p>It must rest on intent. If negotiations take place, for example, they must be in contemplation of a sale even if such sale never eventuates. </p>\n\n<p>If it could be <strong>proven</strong> that one or both of the parties was never had a <em>bona fide</em> intent to sell/buy then it could be argued that the negotiation was not preliminary but not otherwise.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "united-states", "real-estate" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5783, "body": "<p>A term is a condition for which termination of the contract is a redress for breach. A condition that is not a term (i.e. the breach does not allow the aggrieved party to terminate; they can only recover damages) is a warranty. Which is which turns on the facts of each case.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "contract-law" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5710, "body": "<p>Variations of contracts must be consented to by all parties.</p>\n\n<p>This means that if the company sent your friend varied terms, it would have included means by which she would have consented - this may be by continuing to use a service.</p>\n\n<p>You cannot unilaterally change the terms of a contract. You could <em>try</em> to charge the company PoS terminal storage fees, but it's highly unlikely to be enforceable if they don't agree to it.</p>\n\n<p>In theory <strong>if they are aware of the change and they accept them in some way then they are bound to the terms just as she would be</strong>, even if they later claimed that they were not aware of them. There is some precedent - in <strong>Russia</strong> - for this with a bank and <a href=\"http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/borrowing/creditcards/10231556/Man-who-created-own-credit-card-sues-bank-for-not-sticking-to-terms.html\" rel=\"noreferrer\">it made the news some time ago</a>.</p>\n\n<p>There's plenty of cases in which people who don't read EULAs or loan contracts thoroughly are still forced to honour their obligations to their creditors under them.</p>\n", "score": 5 }, { "answer_id": 5780, "body": "<p>From <a href=\"http://openjurist.org/775/f2d/757/hand-v-dayton-hudson\" rel=\"nofollow\">Hand v. Dayton-Hudson</a> case it seems that there has been a precedent in US legal system that undisclosed contract changes made by recipient were reverted and considered as fraudulent:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Plaintiff John Hand appeals from the entry of summary judgment by the\n district court in favor of defendant Dayton-Hudson Corporation in a\n diversity action alleging breach of an employment contract and age\n discrimination. <strong>The district court found that Hand had fraudulently\n altered a release which both parties subsequently signed</strong>. The court\n reformed the release to conform to its original meaning. For the\n reasons set forth below, we affirm.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This case to some extent is similar to still unfolding case in <a href=\"http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/borrowing/creditcards/10231556/Man-who-created-own-credit-card-sues-bank-for-not-sticking-to-terms.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">Russia</a></p>\n", "score": 3 } ]

[ "contract-law", "california", "business", "fraud" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5751, "body": "<p>All of them; it could be freely used by the organisation as evidence in court.</p>\n\n<p>The information on an organisation's Google Apps account belongs to the organisation: not the user.</p>\n", "score": 2 }, { "answer_id": 5771, "body": "<p>It's legal if this is a work related Google Apps account, and if the admin has been asked by the organisation to investigate. </p>\n\n<p>It is most likely that the admin would get into trouble if he or she just reads stuff on your Google Apps account out of curiosity (and that is covered by the title of your question). For example, your Google Apps account might contain confidential customer data that you received from a customer under NDA. Your organisation could decide to read this data and call their legal department to check if this is a breach of the NDA or not. The admin doing that out of curiosity would be in trouble with your company, but in that situation might also be stealing someone's trade secrets, which would be criminal. </p>\n\n<p>For criminal evidence, anyone holding evidence can be asked to hand it over to the police. If a company wants to avoid this, the only way is to not hold that information. </p>\n", "score": 0 } ]

[ "evidence", "administrative-law", "email" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5770, "body": "<p>Your company is free to allow you to use your own devices in the workplace and connect them to their networks. In most places in the world, including the UK, they would also be allowed to not to allow you to use your own devices in the workplace and connect them to their networks, or set up conditions that you have to meet to get the permission. </p>\n\n<p>If you have a sysadmin at your company cancelling your account claiming that you violated a policy, then this isn't a law issue but a workplace issue. He is allowed to do this if the company allows it. If you are supposed to have violated a policy that didn't exist, that would seem unfair and something to sort out with your manager and his manager. if he closes your account and that keeps you from doing your job, and the reason is that he is a little man on a power trip, then this is definitely something to sort out with your manager and his manager. So this really belongs on workplace.stackexchange. </p>\n", "score": 1 }, { "answer_id": 5761, "body": "<p>From legal point of view ... I think you should obey whatever BYOD policy states. IT department knows which parts of their network are more secure and which are less secure. If desired access method for BYOD devices is not explicitly mentioned in BYOD policy then I would say that <strong>IT department needs to improve communication with employees</strong>. You don't have to figure out on your own which parts are secure and which are not. Also, if IT department is smart enough they could automatically enforce this \"legal requirement\" by configuring their Ethernet switches to drop traffic from unknown source MAC addresses as first layer of defense to prevent accidental BYOD policy violations (of course MAC address can be changed, but this would imply that you know what you are doing).</p>\n\n<p>From technical point of view ... Authentication and Internet Packet filtering security <strong>could be implemented differently for wireless and wired access methods</strong>. This means that sometimes Wireless access method could be safer (for example, if over wireless you are required to use VPN Gateway that can filter <em>all</em> unwanted traffic and run anti-virus \"in the cloud\"). However, sometimes wireless can be less secure if they don't have VPN gateway and solely depend on WiFi authentication that is unsafe. There are other variables that could effect security, but it is hard to judge without knowing how network is configured in your company. Where I am going with this is that, if your company has reasonable upper-management you could try to escalate this issue to them. However, you will need to argue from security point of view why you are right and network admin is not. This would require you to understand how IT department has wired up network in your company.</p>\n\n<p>From relationship point of view ... As another person pointed out in a comment, sometimes it is better to apologize and say that you did not know about this BYOD requirement. You have to understand that network admin and you will be working in the same company for some time. You don't know when your paths will cross again.</p>\n\n<p><em>Also, I would be really careful about disclosing too much information about your company's IT configuration publicly.</em></p>\n", "score": 0 } ]

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

[ { "answer_id": 5452, "body": "<p>Besides Texas, which has some oddness in their tenancy laws, and perhaps a few other states, you are occupying a rental property and considered in tenancy as long as you control the property and have paid the rent. </p>\n\n<p>There's nothing to stop you from renting an apartment, paying 6 months rent, and never setting foot inside...and the landlord in that circumstance has no particular rights of vacancy. </p>\n", "score": 2 }, { "answer_id": 5769, "body": "<p>I can only assume that as long as you pay your rent, you can move your belongings anytime you want. Some leases require you to inform the landlord if the unit is going to be empty for an extended period of time, so maybe inform your landlord as well. That said, they can't keep you from moving your belongings in or out of your unit. </p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "canada", "rental-property" ]

[ { "answer_id": 4813, "body": "<p>Most advice that a lawyer gives is subjective; facts are objective but opinions are always subjective. What a lawyer does when they advise a client is typically called a \"legal opinion\". The reason it is subjective is that, as Dale M said, there are numerous variants that go into an opinion, and reasonably trained professionals (attorneys) can disagree as to the outcome of a specific factual predicate. Often times, case outcomes will differ based on the application of the facts to the law, so much so that the case outcome can differ based on the choice of words a witness uses, or even the way a judge interprets the law. </p>\n\n<p>This is why unlike truly objective discipline such as mathematics, where there is a right and wrong answer, no lawyer can ever say a case will definitely go one way or another. It will always be dependent on perception, which is the very definition of subjective. So, whoever indicated that lawyers don't give subjective advice was simply misinformed. They do. What they try not to do is make value-judgments, saying that things are good or bad; rather, they are trained to indicate whether something is illegal or not, or likely to get you sued or not. However, these are all legal opinions. </p>\n", "score": 7 }, { "answer_id": 4807, "body": "<p>I think lawyers generally shy away from making value judgments on behalf of their clients because:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><strong><em>attorney-client privilege</em></strong> is <strong><em>unilateral</em></strong> (i.e., only the client can assert it, not the attorney) and </li>\n<li>if a client really gets into trouble, he can always say <em>\"My lawyer told me to do it.\"</em> (Taken out of context, of course.)</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Attorneys want to avoid this because:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>They want to remain on the right side of the law and ethics;</li>\n<li>They invest a lot of time, money and effort to acquire their law license and</li>\n<li>They do not want to get sued or put their law license (often their most valuable asset) in jeopardy.</li>\n</ol>\n", "score": 4 }, { "answer_id": 4811, "body": "<p>Lawyers don't want to give subjective legal advice for the same reasons that physicists do not want to give subjective statements on the nature of universe.</p>\n\n<p>It is a surprise to many outsiders but the law is a <em>highly</em> rational process of reasoning from facts and laws to judgements. Change the facts and you change the judgement. Change the law (i.e. by considering alternative laws that <em>might</em> apply) and you change the judgement. Change the judge and you change the reasoning process and therefore the judgement.</p>\n\n<p>In addition, lawyers are not accountants or engineers or marketers or priests; the scope of their professional advice is the law. In real life decisions, the law is only one input into the decision making process: there are financial, practical, reputational and moral dimensions which a lawyer can only have a <em>personal</em> opinion on; not a <em>professional</em> one. </p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "lawyer", "attorney-client-privilege", "unlicensed-practice", "malpractice" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5765, "body": "<p>Yes, it helps if the contract explicitly states: \"the below signatures indicate acceptance of the terms set forth herein.\"</p>\n\n<p>Or something to that effect. This is called a <strong><em>binding statement</em></strong> or a <strong><em>binding clause</em></strong>. This is useful for exactly the reasons you speculate in your question. Clarity.</p>\n\n<p>The written document is not the contract. It is <em>evidence</em> of the contract. Therefore, the binding statement is evidence of the parties' <strong><em>intent</em></strong>.</p>\n\n<p>Although a binding clause is <strong><em>useful</em></strong>, it is neither <strong><em>necessary</em></strong> nor <strong><em>sufficient</em></strong> to bind the parties.</p>\n\n<p>The parties can still be bound without a binding clause. The statement merely adds additional evidence and clarity in case one party were to claim that s/he never intended to be bound by their signature. Because, let's say, the other party said something similar to what you describe in the OP.</p>\n\n<p>And, finally, other elements must be present in order to bind the parties. Things like a <strong><em>meeting of the minds</em></strong> and <strong><em>consideration</em></strong> are two but not all of those necessary elements.</p>\n", "score": 1 }, { "answer_id": 5764, "body": "<p>Contracts don't have to be necessarily in a written form to become enforceable and hence in such case do not need signature at all.</p>\n\n<p>Two obvious reason why to ask for a contract to be in written form are:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Both parties can rehearse their responsibilities and rights (opposed to non-written contract where people tend to forget things).</li>\n<li>If dispute escalates to court, then written contract is more convincing to judge than a claim of \"verbal contract\" existence that is hard to prove.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>So, in theory, you might have a <em>verbal contract</em> that you agree to a <em>written contract (that does not have signature)</em>. See <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_by_reference\" rel=\"nofollow\">Incorporation by reference</a> for more details.</p>\n", "score": 0 } ]

[ "contract-law" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5162, "body": "<p>Why has it come to going court? Paypal themselves should handle it. I've used that route for non-ebay sales several times. Odds are they will refund you, they almost always side with the buyer.</p>\n\n<p>Unless you marked the transfer as \"gift\", then they won't</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "small-claims-court" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5759, "body": "<p>Generally speaking, the purpose of a corporation is to shield its owners from liability resulting from the conduct of business or trade.</p>\n\n<p>That said, I can not be certain yet that you need one in your case because it's not clear to me what legal liability you feel might accrue from your conduct of this business.</p>\n\n<p>If you could briefly describe a hypothetical claim you think a plaintiff might make against you it might help you get a better answer from me or others on this site.</p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "non-profit" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5147, "body": "<p><a href=\"https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=I_mLdBpi7eUC&amp;pg=PA133&amp;lpg=PA133&amp;dq=ancient+roman+law+contracts+responsibility+and+guilt&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=gz8A-IWnQP&amp;sig=M7wOiZxbRKqRm5ZhMO5noDJ21tw&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0CDQQ6AEwBWoVChMIpvHHjL-HyQIVgSyUCh0U3gO4#v=onepage&amp;q=contract&amp;f=false\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=I_mLdBpi7eUC&amp;pg=PA133&amp;lpg=PA133&amp;dq=ancient+roman+law+contracts+responsibility+and+guilt&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=gz8A-IWnQP&amp;sig=M7wOiZxbRKqRm5ZhMO5noDJ21tw&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0CDQQ6AEwBWoVChMIpvHHjL-HyQIVgSyUCh0U3gO4#v=onepage&amp;q=contract&amp;f=false</a></p>\n\n<p>I had a bit of a search but don't really know enough about the topic to help. Here is a link i found to a book that seems relevant.</p>\n", "score": 2 } ]

[ "contract-law", "legal-history", "research", "from-the-latin" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5748, "body": "<p>It depends where you and your friend are and where the copyright was created.</p>\n\n<p>Ripping music for personal use is considered fair use/fair dealing in most jurisdictions. Having multiple copies/devices for personal use is OK too - practically, you can't watch more than one at a time unless you have a very unusual brain.</p>\n\n<p>If the intention is that both you and he would have and use copies then that is a violation.</p>\n", "score": 3 } ]

[ "copyright", "copyright-transfer" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5745, "body": "<p>No, this falls under the heading of <strong>negotiation</strong>. You will need a lawyer and probably an accountant because if this is done badly you will owe waaay more tax than you should. However, most general lawyers will have sufficient experience with property transfer to be able to help you.</p>\n\n<p>What will matter in this is how the properties were owned by your mother-in-law and how the transfer is structured to the children. The three children <em>can</em> just hold equal share in each of the properties but I gather that is not what you want.</p>\n\n<p>You need to agree among yourselves who gets what property and in what proportion. This doesn't have to involve valuations and equal shares <em>unless you want it to</em>. So long as everyone is satisfied with the division, equality is irrelevant. A lawyer may help with negotiation but then, so could a good friend who is a cod fisherman.</p>\n\n<p>What you really, really want to avoid is having the property pass to the siblings and <em>then</em> redistributing it - this will trigger property taxes twice. However, it seems that this may have already happened. </p>\n", "score": 1 } ]

[ "real-estate", "estate-planning" ]