Posts by ScottY
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I am ashamed of you all. By refusing to read Mark Hubbard's blog you are violating his rights.
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Hard News: Narcissists and bullies, in reply to BenWilson,
Can you give me an example of an acceptable proof?
No, I'm not a defence lawyer, but my understanding of defences is that they have to be proven on a balanced of probabilities. Someone will correct me if this isn't right, as my law school days were many decades ago. Balance of probabilities means more probable than not, meaning if the evidence is inconclusive the defendant probably won't make out the defence.
How would you show that, if no one else will testify?
For example, if the accused goes onto Facebook and boasts about sleeping with a 14 year old, it would be hard for them to then claim they thought the victim was old enough to consent. Or if the victim just didn't look 16 years old, a jury might decide that the accused is just a liar. In those circumstances I don't know that you would need the victim to say "he never asked me how old I was".
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Hard News: Narcissists and bullies, in reply to BenWilson,
So if they get all of the people who were there to say the same story, which involves the girl making claims, producing a fake ID, and then flirting with them and taking her clothes off, what evidence is there against? It becomes a number of words against no words.
In that case the prosecution would probably take steps to rebut the defence, e.g. by showing that the defendant and witnesses were lying. The point though, is that the defendant has to actually prove that steps were taken.
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Hard News: Narcissists and bullies, in reply to BenWilson,
This defense means that in order for this charge to stick, there has to be some evidence that they made no efforts to establish the age of the victims.
Actually it's the other way round. The onus is on the defendant to establish that they did take steps, if they want to use this defence.
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Hard News: Mega Strange, in reply to SteveH,
Fair enough. The point I’m trying to make is that talking in terms of what the law actually allows might be pointless because there is a very good chance that the law does not in fact permit enough copying to use even legitimately obtained content.
NZ's Copyright Act provides exceptions for transient reproduction of a copyright work, or copying as an essential part of a technological process, which would cover some of the things you mentioned.
But the law is currently playing catch-up with technology, and (as Russell mentioned above) the TPP also looms on the horizon.
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Hard News: Mega Strange, in reply to Dylan Reeve,
Without knowing an absurd amount of information about the context of the file in question, and the person who’s storing it, there is no way for a hosting provider to draw a conclusion about it’s legitimacy.
And countries around the world have attempted to address this concern by implementing safe harbour rules for ISPs and cloud providers, so that they don't infringe copyright if they do certain things. e.g. our section 92C. I say "attempted", because there will always be arguments about how effective/fair/reasonable they are.
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Hard News: Mega Strange, in reply to Dylan Reeve,
Assuming I have a right to have a file in the first place (ie. I purchased as a file) then what provision might stop me from storing said file on any given medium for my personal use?
Check the terms of the licence.
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Hard News: Mega Strange, in reply to SteveH,
And if I copy the file from the directory I downloaded it to onto another harddrive is that also infringement? How about if I copy it to another directory on the same drive? What about copying it to a portable harddrive? If the law does not treat these cases identically to the USB stick case then the law is unworkable, IMO. There may be an argument from the cloud storage case being different, but it’s a tenuous argument at best.
Also is it infringement when I copy it from the harddrive into RAM? What about a copy that gets stored in an ISP’s proxy server as I download it?
I haven't got time to even attempt to answer your questions. Copyright's complicated. And sometimes it doesn't provide clear or sensible answers.
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Hard News: Mega Strange, in reply to SteveH,
I wouldn’t assume that the law makes logical sense in this regard. It is entirely likely that law draws distinctions between USB sticks and cloud services even though technically there is no difference.
If you copy a file onto a USB stick then you may well be infringing copyright unless the terms of your licence permit that copying, or an exception applies under the Copyright Act. (e.g. there is a format-shifting exception for sound recordings, but I can't see how it would apply to a USB stick)
And yet people say our copyright laws are outdated...
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Hard News: Mega Strange, in reply to Dylan Reeve,
But storing files in the cloud is not infringing. Allowing others to download those files, on the other hand, is something entirely different.
Providing a cloud system that allows people to upload files can potentially be an infringing act. Both uploading and downloading involve copying.
I could upload my entire legal iTunes library to Mega and it’s totally legal.
I wouldn't be so sure about that.