humor: October 2007 Archives
The judgment of the Federal Court in Australian Prudential Regulation Authority v Siminton (No 6) [2007] FCA 1608 is good for a few laughs, but the website of the purported 'Principality of Camside' is even better. It's right up there with the last batch of quasi-legal mumbo-jumbo and insanity that I blogged about.
Their declarations of war are particularly good... Oh, and they claim that by virtue of the fact that the Commonwealth failed to send in the army when they declared war back in March 2003, they won by default and now own Australia (with the exception of the Hutt River Province, of course):
Their declarations of war are particularly good... Oh, and they claim that by virtue of the fact that the Commonwealth failed to send in the army when they declared war back in March 2003, they won by default and now own Australia (with the exception of the Hutt River Province, of course):
The law relating to the Declaration of War, state, that if the country on which war has been declared (Australia), fails to turn up to battle, the country that declared war (Principality of Camside), is declared the winner. For this legal reason, the "spoils of war," namely the Australian National Estate, Crown Land, roads and freeways, are now the property and responsibility of the Principality of Camside.Nuttier than a case full of squirrels.
These property spoils of war, however, exclude the sovereign lands already declared as the sovereign independent lands of Hutt River Province.
The Principality of Camside is now be legally referred to as Her Majesty's Government of Camside, as another of the consequences of the Principality of Camside having won by default, the war that they declared on the now defunct, abdicated and defeated Commonwealth of Australia.
Regular readers will remember some earlier dramas when accounting software vendor 2Clix Australia Pty Ltd sued whirlpool.net.au owner Simon Wright for injurious falsehood, and then shortly thereafter announced they would abandon the lawsuit.
Several news websites (including ITwire and idm.net.au) are now reporting that 2Clix has or is about to go into voluntary administration, although the ASIC website doesn't yet reflect this.
You didn't have to be Nostradogbert to see this one coming -- 2Clix's reputation would have been utterly shot as a result of the lawsuit. At the time, I said:
Several news websites (including ITwire and idm.net.au) are now reporting that 2Clix has or is about to go into voluntary administration, although the ASIC website doesn't yet reflect this.
You didn't have to be Nostradogbert to see this one coming -- 2Clix's reputation would have been utterly shot as a result of the lawsuit. At the time, I said:
"Lawsuits are a short-sighted and self-destructive way of dealing with criticism," said EFA Chairperson Dale Clapperton. "As McDonalds and many other companies have learned, suing your critics will cause much more damage and bad publicity than the criticism itself ever would."Here we have the result. An own goal indeed.
While research something completely work related (no, really!) on Wikipedia, I stumbled across a recent lawsuit against the producers of Family Guy. In the Family Guy episode 'When You Wish Upon a Weinstein', Peter sings a musical number to the music of 'When You Wish Upon a Star', praying for a Jewish person to save him from his (self-inflicted) financial woes. Surprisingly, there isn't a video of this on Youtube, but they do have a video of a life performance of the song, but only the last verse.
The copyright owners of 'When You Wish Upon a Star' have sued various Fox companies, the company that produces Family Guy, and the creator of Family Guy, Seth MacFarlane. CNN have a story here, and the complaint is available here as a PDF. The lawsuit seeks statutory damages of at least $150k, as well as a permanent injunction and the destruction of all copies of the Weinstein song.
The copyright owners of 'When You Wish Upon a Star' have sued various Fox companies, the company that produces Family Guy, and the creator of Family Guy, Seth MacFarlane. CNN have a story here, and the complaint is available here as a PDF. The lawsuit seeks statutory damages of at least $150k, as well as a permanent injunction and the destruction of all copies of the Weinstein song.
This has got to be, without exception, the absolute dumbest browse-wrap licence I've ever seen. For those not familiar with the term, a 'browsewrap' licence is a purportedly contractual agreement that many websites like to pretend that you have agreed to be bound by, simply by using their website. e.g. 'By using this website, you agree we own your soul.'
This particular browsewrap agreement is on the website of Dozier Internet Law PC. Amongst other things, it claims that viewing the HTML source of their website is an infringement of copyright. As they purport to be 'The Lawyers for Internet Business', they ought to know that the enforcability of browsewrap agreements is a very grey area, ought to know that many of their intellectual property claims are insane, and generally ought to know better.
Then again, this is the same law firm who has threatened to sue people for posting copies on the Internet of cease-and-desist nastygrams which they've sent out.
Other coverage of this issue is at Slashdot, Techdirt, and the Consumer Law & Policy Blog.
Here's part of one of the stupidest clauses:
This particular browsewrap agreement is on the website of Dozier Internet Law PC. Amongst other things, it claims that viewing the HTML source of their website is an infringement of copyright. As they purport to be 'The Lawyers for Internet Business', they ought to know that the enforcability of browsewrap agreements is a very grey area, ought to know that many of their intellectual property claims are insane, and generally ought to know better.
Then again, this is the same law firm who has threatened to sue people for posting copies on the Internet of cease-and-desist nastygrams which they've sent out.
Other coverage of this issue is at Slashdot, Techdirt, and the Consumer Law & Policy Blog.
Here's part of one of the stupidest clauses:
Dozier Internet Law, P.C. has a lot of intellectual property on our site. For instance, we are the creators of all of the text on this website, and own the "look and feel" of this website. We also own all of the code, including the HTML code, and all content. As you may know, you can view the HTML code with a standard browser. We do not permit you to view such code since we consider it to be our intellectual property protected by the copyright laws. You are therefore not authorized to do so. In addition, you should not make any copies of any part of this website in any way since we do not want anyone copying us. We also do not allow any links to our site without our express permission, except that you must maintain the link in our Copyright Infringement Warning Button as it is designed. The name "Dozier Internet Law, P.C.", and similar derivatives of it, constitute our trademark and servicemark, and should not be used in any manner without our permission.So, I guess they'll now be suing me for:
Go on, I dare you.
- Copyright infringement for viewing their HTML. Which, incidentally, is not valid HTML, and isn't written particularly well either. e.g. <meta name="KEYWORDS" content="keywords go in here">;
- Linking to their website without their express permission. Good luck with that;
- Copying part of their website, because they don't want anyone copying them. I wonder how they feel about criticism, ridicule and parody?; and
- Using their name without their permission. I'm shaking in my shoes. Maybe if i say their name backwards, I can banish them to some other dimension?
The Chaser seem to have offended a pile of people with this segment [WMV file - warning, pervasive offensive language] from last night's show, singing about the posthumous reputational sanitisation of people including Steve Irwin, Peter Brock, John Lennon, Jeff Buckley, Princess Diana, Stan Zemanek, Sir Donald Bradman, and Kerry Packer. Belinda Emmet's name came up, but the song cut out after (scripted) protests from the rest of the Chaser crew. Anna Coren didn't escape unscathed either.
You read some funny things in court judgments.. Like the recent decision of the Federal Court of Australia in Rural Export & Trading (WA) Pty Ltd v Hahnheuser [2007] FCA 1535, in which two agricultural companies sued an environmental activist (Hahnheuser) for feeding ham to a number of sheep, thereby preventing them from being exported to the middle east for halal slaughter.
They sued under s 45DB of the TPA -- boycotts affecting international trade or commerce. They lost, despite the fact that Hahnheuser withdrew his instructions to counsel at the last minute and didn't appear at the trial. Gray ACJ held that the trade and commerce of one of the applicants was not affected, and in any case it was not international trade or commerce.
Significantly, Gray ACJ held that the conduct of Hahnheuser was for the subjective purpose of preventing the suffering and cruelty of sheep in live export, and that such animal welfare concerns fall within the meaning of 'environmental protection' in s 45DD(3) (which deals with permitted boycotts). Therefore, Hahnheuser's actions could not contravene s 45DB. Section 45DD not only qualifies the scope of s 45DB, it qualifies the secondary boycott provisions in s 45D -- meaning that animal welfare boycotts (such as PETA ran against Australian woolgrowers because of 'mulesing') will not be actionable under s 45D if this judgment stands.
The Victorian Farmers Federation are saying the decision 'opens the gate for Agricultural Terrorism'. I thought that agricultural terrorism was cows with guns?
They sued under s 45DB of the TPA -- boycotts affecting international trade or commerce. They lost, despite the fact that Hahnheuser withdrew his instructions to counsel at the last minute and didn't appear at the trial. Gray ACJ held that the trade and commerce of one of the applicants was not affected, and in any case it was not international trade or commerce.
Significantly, Gray ACJ held that the conduct of Hahnheuser was for the subjective purpose of preventing the suffering and cruelty of sheep in live export, and that such animal welfare concerns fall within the meaning of 'environmental protection' in s 45DD(3) (which deals with permitted boycotts). Therefore, Hahnheuser's actions could not contravene s 45DB. Section 45DD not only qualifies the scope of s 45DB, it qualifies the secondary boycott provisions in s 45D -- meaning that animal welfare boycotts (such as PETA ran against Australian woolgrowers because of 'mulesing') will not be actionable under s 45D if this judgment stands.
The Victorian Farmers Federation are saying the decision 'opens the gate for Agricultural Terrorism'. I thought that agricultural terrorism was cows with guns?
It seems that someone forgot to switch off their mobile phone before they went into the Ipswich Magistrates Court today. Which wouldn't ordinarily be newsworthy. Except that the mobile phone in question had a so-called "moan tone" ringtone. Think Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally [NSFW]. The Courier Mail reports that, 'The [ringtone] repeated a woman moaning: "Oh, yeah ... yeah ... oh, yeah ... do it to me."'
Oops. I bet he won't be making that mistake again.
Oops. I bet he won't be making that mistake again.
Wired.com has this story, on testimony in the first US jury trial over alleged copyright infringement by file sharing.
Sony BMG's anti-'piracy' chief, Jennifer Pariser, was asked on the stand whether it was okay if a consumer makes just one copy of a track they've legally purchased. She said no -- that's 'a nice way of saying, "steals just one copy."'
It's official. Fair use is 'stealing'. Which is consistent with the content industry's general approach -- i.e. doing anything at all with, at, or within 100 meters of copyright material, which the copyright holders think they ought to be paid for, is 'stealing'.
There ought to be a law...
Sony BMG's anti-'piracy' chief, Jennifer Pariser, was asked on the stand whether it was okay if a consumer makes just one copy of a track they've legally purchased. She said no -- that's 'a nice way of saying, "steals just one copy."'
It's official. Fair use is 'stealing'. Which is consistent with the content industry's general approach -- i.e. doing anything at all with, at, or within 100 meters of copyright material, which the copyright holders think they ought to be paid for, is 'stealing'.
There ought to be a law...
