texts: In a severability clause, what effect does limiting an unenforceable term have?

texts:
This question is about severability in a contract. Some severability clauses contain a second part stating that if limiting a term would make it enforceable, then the term should be limited as so. Is this valid and does it work? Is an example where this works would be:
-A contract has a severability clause “if limiting an unenforceable term would make it enforceable, the term shall be construed as so limited”
-The contract has a term that charges $50 for some administrative fee
-An applicable law exists that says $20 at most can be charged for   administrative fees
-The severability clause  makes it so that $20 can be charged, without it   the whole fee would be waived

Would the whole fee be waived if the severability clause was worded as “if a term is found to be unenforceable, the remainder shall remain in affect”?
Here is an example of one I found in a real contract

  If any part or parts of this Lease shall be held unenforceable for any
  reason, the remainder of this Agreement shall continue in full force
  and effect. If any provision of this Lease is deemed invalid or
  unenforceable by any court of competent jurisdiction, and if limiting
  such provision would make the provision valid, then such provision
  shall be deemed to be construed as so limited.

  https://www.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/ExampleResLeaseWithPurchaseOption.pdf

Also what’s the difference between unenforceable, illegal and an invalid term? Is this redundant?

TL;DR what’s the difference between the clauses “if a term is found to be unenforceable, the remainder will remain in affect” and “if limiting an unenforceable term would make it enforceable, the term shall be construed as so limited”. Could you have the second by itself, or does it require the first?


texts: Covertly Recording Conversations At Work If Policy of No Expectation of Privacy?

texts: My work has a policy that when using company property, there is no expectation of privacy. Does this amount to blanket consent? This is in the state of California so unsure if this policy conflicts with state law.


texts: GDPR - Do we need to give individual mixed personal data of 2 individuals? (Right of access)

texts:
Individual is asking for phone recording which contains personal information of that individual and our marketing person, it also contains our sales speech. Do we need to provide copy of phone recording to the individual according to GDPR?
(There might also be law which will prohibit it)


texts: I have an invention idea for stopping drunk driving but not sure if an 'idea' is a patentable thing.


texts: Can a vendor cancel an order due to a pricing error?

texts:
I purchased some goods from a supplier which has now cancelled my order giving the reason as being a pricing error.

However I had paid for the item and in their online portal it stated that my order was accepted.

Do I have any legal rights in this case, as the terms and conditions don't state terms for acceptance of an order?

Also the t's and c's don't address cancellations.


texts: I just had a question about remarrying after a divorce. Is it legally required to show a divorce decree at the time of remarriage? Also how would it effect the marriage registration if one didn't present the divorce decree? P.S I'm talking about the Laws in the United States of America specifically the state of Texas


texts: Is the White House Weekly Address copyrighted?

texts:
I understand that US government films are not protected by copyright laws, but does this include White House Weekly Address? Are all episodes of weekly addresses free from copyright protection, because they are considered government documents?

Specifically, is this 2016 Christmas message from the White House not copyrighted, as it conforms to the copyright information page?


texts: What does the US Constitution mean by "bribery"?

texts:
The US Constitution mentions several specific crimes as impeachable offences.  Among these is "bribery".

In the English language as it existed at the time of the framers, did this single term refer to "offering a bribe", "soliciting a bribe", or both?


texts: Do replies to a tenant have to address every statement they make?

texts: Just had an email exchange with my tenant, in which he made a couple of untrue assertions. I only sent a short email asking for a phone call so we can resolve the issue since I have no intention of fighting. I like to ask though, If I receive an email containing a number of claims which are false. Do I need to point that out? If I send a reply addressing one issue, am I agreeing to the other items in the email? That is, if the reply contains the original sent by the author. I think our relationship is governed by the contract in place, and the landlord tenant laws. Am I right?


texts: The IRS allows for tax-deductible donations to non-profits of valuable items such as stock or artwork.  Is there precedent for tax-deductible donations of valuable data?  For example, if a package delivery company donated its data on traffic and location patterns to an urban planning non-profit, could the company claim a deduction?


texts: Can my landlord impose a fee that I did not agree to?

texts: I am renting a spot in a four-person student apartment in Utah, and recently got an email from my landlord announcing that they were switching to an online payment system and all tenants owed management $20. This fee is not a consequence for any of my misbehavior, is not mentioned in my contract, and they are not allowing anyone to opt out of using the online system to avoid the fee. To me this seems unfair and possibly mildly illegal, since I did not consent to this in any way. Is my landlord within their rights to do this?


texts: GDPR: legal to combine (clickstreams) tracking and survey?

texts:
I am working on a website that collects clickstream data using Google Analytics. There is also a opti-layer.
In the near future a survey to ask in which industry a visitor works shall be integrated, too. The resulting data should be combined with the tracking. E.g. for visitors from industry sector X we would check their tracking data to observe their behavior on the website.
Would that be legal with respect to gdpr?


texts: What are the potential implications of publishing excerpts from 3rd party copyrighted material in EU?

texts:
Case description

a person in the European Union (not US) collects digital written notes on research they are conducting. These take a form of excerpts (sometimes even multiple paragraphs), annotations, quotes, sometimes stored images, or embedded images via links to 3rd party sources (EU, as well as US and other sources). Note: let's assume that all excerpts are marked as quotes and include link/citation to the original source
some of these 3rd party sources are public domain, some are creative commons licensed, some are clearly copyrighted and some have unstated terms (typically no terms and conditions included in the blog)
I understand that for strictly personal purposes and in private, such notes collection is excluded from copyright protection in most jurisdictions.
at certain point the person decides to create a blog on which they will publish these notes.
The person publishes the notes in a good faith to facilitate own and community's further research and also claims so prominently on their website, albeit in plain language, no legalese. The intent is to eventually also publish analyses and syntheses in a form of blog posts, which however rely on the recorded notes and the linked sources. We could call this a "public second-brain webblog".
there is no profit seeking, no advertisement, just plain publication of originally private notes for the purpose of sharing it with friends and seeking either discussion on topics of those excerpts and notes, or seeking commentary on own syntheses of the included notes.
a 3rd party whose copyright was violated gets upset and decides to act.

Diagnosis
Despite that copyright laws have some (significant) gray area, it's clear that such a published collection of notes would infringe on 3rd copyright. Our note-taker person clearly has a problem.
This question is somewhat similar to this one.
Questions

what are the relevant practices and processes? I.e., is a take-down notice (EU Copyright Directive/DMCA) an obligatory step by the violated party? Or could they automatically proceed to more aggressive legal step?
what are the relevant worst-case consequences of legal proceedings by the 3rd party in EU jurisdictions, assuming that the person which committed copyright infringement is both responsive to take-down notices and complies with all other requests, potentially including website shutdown?
except for deciding not to publish the website in the first place, what could be the mitigation measures the person should perform to minimise impact of their publishing the notes content?

I would be interested to hear also about specific cases of this happening in EU jurisdictions, ideally with links to descriptions of their outcomes/decisions.


texts: Where are non-binary and intersex prisoners kept?

texts:
I have been racking my brain trying to figure this out.

When a non-binary character has to be imprisoned, how is the correctional facility determined since most if not all are binary?

My particular interest is on intersex, genderfluid, and agender with genderfluid being able to fluctuate between different gender expressions.


texts: Has the civil service law ever been challenged in court by a president?

texts:
The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act is one of the main reason why Federal employees often considered themselves as having a lifetime tenure, unable to be fired. Although the act certainly had a valid motive, nevertheless, it would seem to be an unconstitutional violation of the separation of powers, Congress infringing on the ability of the President to run the executive branch the way he wants.

Is there any caselaw on the constitutionality of this law? Have there been any challenges to it on constitutional grounds, and if so were they upheld or denied? Are there any decisions or related laws that would tend to show that this is (or isn't) within the valid powers of Congress?


texts:
I am currently writing a short 10 minute play adaptation of Layla and Majnun, a poem written in the 12th century by Nizami. To do this I am making use of an English translation of the Persian poem by Rudolph Gelpke with Zia Inayat Khan and Omad Safi.

Throughout the play, I wish to use direct quotations or slightly altered quotations from the translated text. Is this allowed?


texts: Is an error in a Rent Increase Notice binding?

texts:
I have just received a letter and email from my landlord stating that the rent will be increased in accordance with Residential Tenancies Act 1997.

Increased rent will be $600.00 per month, an increase of $20 per week.

Current rent is $280 a week. Therefore I suspect it was meant to state $600.00 per fortnight.

Is this letter legally binding?  Can I get half price rent from this error?

Current lease ends in Jan. The agent has said the owner would like to offer me a new lease on the above terms.


texts: Companies discriminating based off Political Views? Similarity to Religious Views?

texts:
There are frequently reports of companies that are refusing to serve customers who support a certain political party (so a company run by Democrats refuses to accept a Trump supporter as a customer or vice-versa). Does this relate to the cases of companies/businesses refusing to serve people based off their sexual orientation (for example Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission)?

If not, I'm just a bit confused as to what the relevant cases and law are for refusing to serve someone due to their political beliefs.


texts:
Can attorneys advertise their flat fees on a third-party site without doing all the things that got Avvo Legal Services in trouble? Didn't Avvo Legal services set the flat fee, handle the payment processing from the client, held the funds until the service was completed, and at the end of the work, Avvo charged the attorney a marketing fee based on the service provided (?)
But, can a third-party site simply allow attorneys to post their flat fees? Like a menu for unbundled legal services? The attorney controls the flat fee they display and there is no issue of fee splitting.


texts:
I live in PA, car was leased in PA, leasing company is in NJ.

I've never received a statement.  Ever.  Not monthly, not quarterly.  In fact when I called today, I was told "we don't send statements."  Not electronic, and not paper.

Is this common practice and more importantly, legal?


texts: I stored a truck for a friend who died. Do I have to give it to his estate? His daughter said she didn't care. I have had possession for 3 months. What do I do.


texts: Meaning of word "remodeled" in California seller disclosure?

texts:
On California C.A.R. TDS forms sellers have to disclose any unpermitted work properly so that buyers would not later sue seller for misrepresenting property.
On disclosures I have seen words "[re]built", "remodeled", "converted" being used to disclose unpermitted work. What are main differences between these words in common law?
Can seller state "bedroom was remodeled without permits" to imply that what is actually garage on building blueprints is now being called bedroom? Or would seller have to use verb "rebuilt without permits" or "converted without permits" in a such disclosure to imply that non-living space is being used as living space?


texts:
In the Derek Chauvin case, two jurors were recently dismissed because they were aware of the fact that Minneapolis paid a $27 million settlement to the family of George Floyd.
How do lawyers go about determining if a juror will be impartial with regards to recent bombshell info?  It seems impossible to ask about without tainting the juror yourself. "Minneapolis recently paid a huge settlement to George Floyd's family, will that effect your ability to be impartial?" seems like a counter-productive question to ask.  The last thing you want to do is tell them about it, but I don't see any way to ask about it without telling them.
The Chauvin case is just what inspired the question, I'm interested in the topic in general.


texts: Question regarding the 1 year residence for Naturalization

texts:
I am French and I have been living in Ireland for 7 years. Firstly as a student, then working in the country.
As you probably already know, since July 2019, there is a law that says "This includes 1 year (365 or 366 days) of continuous residence immediately before the date you apply."
At first it meant you cannot leave the country WHATSOEVER for a full year, but when this came out, we heard a lot about this rules being reconsidered.
So what I am wondering now is, is it still the case?
I know that for none-EU citizens, they can go abroad for about 20 days per year without problem and still get the citizenship through naturalisation.
Also, "This includes 1 year of continuous residence" does not really sound clear to me, as when traveling abroad, we actually are still resident of Ireland.
I've been going to France about 3 weeks to visit my family in the last year, but no other travels, do you believe my application could go through?
Thank you in advance for your help.


texts: Roommate not on the lease wants to move out without giving 30 day notice

texts:
My friend, call him F1, rents an apartment month to month and is required to give 30 days notice when he wants to move out. He rents to another friend of ours who is not on their lease, call him F2.

F2 told F1 that he was looking at apartments closer to his job on the 7th of January. It's now the 11th of January and F2 hasn't told him wether or not he's moving out, but it's almost guaranteed that he does.

F1 asked him for half of Febuarys rent, because F1 legally couldn't move out until March now but F2 isn't agreeing to that.

Since F2 isn't on a lease, and F1 didn't have him sign anything when he moved in, can he legally ask for half of Febuary. I personally think he should ask for all of Febuary but he's trying to be nice since they have been friends for a long time.

Location is New York USA


texts: Is it legal in Austria for somebody to send threats of legal action in court if money is not paid and not follow through?

texts:
I have received a cease and desist letter from a lawyer in Austria demanding I remove a number of facebook posts that asks critical questions about the (non) functioning of their product.
After this letter had been delivered the client continued to contact me personally via phone and email ( neither which I had given him ) demanding private conversations. Even though his lawyer had already sent a letter threatening legal action a week later he sends me an email from his company account again demanding a private conversation and threatening legal action. This feels like harassment and threats. I have explained that I have no intention of a private conversation and that any discussion about his product should happen in public if he wishes to answer the questions I have put.
My conclusion from his actions is that his lawyer has rightly told him he has no case. He is selling a device that he claims to be a "chip" yet I bought one and dissected it and it had no components and an empty circuit board with some magnets glued on.

Would a lawyer advise their client to keep contacting the defendant in this case?
What I am mainly curious about is that this original legal letter came with a demand for money. 360 euros to be precise. Is this legal in Austria? If there is no real intention of legal action is it just a shakedown attempt?

Do I have recourse to go to the Police?


texts: Allergies, Sudafed, HIPAA, a prescription, and the logbook/databse

texts:
A few years ago I learned about the Sudafed logbook-that-is-implemented-as-a-database. I had to do my own research about it because the person at the Walmart pharmacy didn't know anything and stammered out a few things, most of which made no sense.

While doing research, I discovered several believable stories of people buying sudafed for allergies, yet were harassed and/or arrested by their local authorities. One particular example: http s://www.alternet.org/woman-allergies-arrested-and-imprisoned-buying-sudafed

Putting your name in a controlled item database increases your risk to get arrested for possessing the controlled item. Fundamentally and unarguably. I'm not interested in getting arrested, nor trying to fight a legal battle if I do. Also, I'm not interested in doing anything illegal.

I had thought that getting a prescription for Sudafed would solve my problem, since HIPAA should come into play. As far as I am aware of, it should, and it did (years ago I managed to get a Doctor to prescribe me some Sudafed). I stopped going to that doctor, and I think he died (old age), so I didn't get any more Sudafed, nor could I go back.

Recently, I talked to a nurse and a pharmacy tech involved in my treatment and they said that HIPAA would not apply and that I'd still be logged in the database.

Complaining about being in a database sounds kind of kooky, and people make out to be moreso than it is. However, knowing a couple things about how forensics, analytics, and the legal ramifications of how computing systems work, if you leak any information anywhere at any time, it can and will be used against you.

I had heard that Sudafed's replacement is not effective, so I haven't tried it yet. Due to these hurdles, I'm thinking of giving it a try to see if it works for me. I use Claritan and Flonase as well, but it seems that I have different symptoms based on different allergens, so depending on the problem I use one or all of the three.

Does buying OTC Sudafed enable the protections of HIPAA? Or do you and/or the pharmacy still have to record your details into the logbook/database?


texts: Why Doesn't The President Just Make Laws?

texts: If the President can create Executive Orders -- and those have the full force of the law, why doesn't the President just start making laws? Skip Congress.


texts: Does the United States' Fourth Amendment cover privacy violations by private corporations?

texts:
For the sake of contrast, consider the wording of the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The First Amendment makes clear that only a legal institution which enacts a law, say, "abridging the freedom of speech," would be in violation of the US Constitution; if a private corporation does so, it would not be in violation of this law.
Contrast the wording of the Fourth Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

This passage does not say "shall not be violated by Congress," but rather "shall not be violated," full stop.
Is it a correct inference that the right "to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" extends to even a private corporation? For example, if a corporation, without disclosing such practices in its Terms of Service or Privacy Policy or whatever, infringes on a client's "security in his person," would such corporation be in violation of the Fourth Amendment (irrespective of any other potential legal issues)?


texts: How liable is a seller that was unknowingly paid using stolen funds?

texts:
I sold some of my Bitcoins on LocalBitcoins UK to an account that appears now to have paid using stolen funds from a hacked bank account. I checked that the buyer was ID-verified with LocalBitcoins and released the Bitcoins to the buyer. I find now that my bank account is frozen. I am awaiting further information from the bank but want to understand the legal position here.

My understanding is that bank insurance is for cases of shortcomings in bank account security, and that it is appropriate for the owner of the hacked bank account to be reimbursed by their bank's insurance. The bank can then pursue the person who stole the funds. I cannot see how a seller can be expected to distinguish legitimate from stolen money because money is fungible. Why should I be at a loss for deficiencies in a bank's security?

I would welcome guidance and thoughts on this. If a thief uses stolen money to purchase items in various shops, for example, can an institution demand repayment from those various shops? How about if the owner of one of those shops spends the money elsewhere? Can an institution demand that money also? Where does the buck stop?


texts: How do one country's sanctions on another apply to third parties?

texts:
Having just read that Britain has seized a ship sailing under the flag of Panama carrying oil from Iran to Syria, I wonder what the legal basis for this is.

EU sanctions forbid oil exports to Syria. How can the EU enforce such sanctions on a vessel that has no ties to the European Union?

Edit: Apparently the vessel passed through European waters. That may make the difference.


texts: Can I obtain British/Swedish citizenship via grandparents?

texts:
Grandfather was Swedish, grandmother was British. They moved to Canada and got married in Canada and had my Dad. They divorced and grandmother moved back to UK. Unfortunately my own deceased parents were not married when they had me.

I am pretty sure UK and Sweden don't allow for citizenship via ancestry like Germany allows.

So if not by ancestry, if I track down my grandmother's (UK )or grandfather's (Swedish) birth certificates and Canadian marriage certificate, is it possible to get citizenship that way even though my own parents have already died?

===

Can a deceased person become a naturalized British/Swedish citizen?

If my deceased father's parents were Swedish/British is it possible to get citizenship for him even though he's deceased? Technically it's just paperwork right? I'm asking because then I could get it through him


texts:
I read in the wikipedia article of the movie "A Fistful of Dollars" that the producers were sued by the producer of Yojimbo, the Japanese movie from which the plot line was borrowed, and that the lawsuit was "successful".

I guess I don't understand how a story can be copyrighted, since a story is an idea, not a form of expression. How is it that the Japanese filmakers won the lawsuit.


texts: What is minimum that needs to be said in order to legally record a telephone conversation?

texts:
When dealing with unscrupulous companies (especially insurance companies), I have learned that it is essential to record telephone conversations.

Many times, I have been provided with grossly incorrect information, but when I later try to confront them about the false information they have provided, the company simply denies it.  Their unethical behavior relies on the fact that I have no proof of what was previously communicated.

I have repeatedly been told that it is legal for them to record me, but that it is illegal for me to record them.

To my understanding, this is an incorrect understanding of the law.  As long as both parties are notified that the recording is taking place, my understanding is that both parties may lawfully record the call.

I am seeking the minimum required statement that will allow me to lawfully record calls.

I find that if I ask permission to record a call, the person on the other end often gets highly defensive and tells me that recording calls is illegal (which is ironic given that they have often just informed me that they are recording the call).

Instead of asking permission, is it sufficient to simply state that the call is being recorded?  By continuing the call, has the other party provided consent without explicitly being asked?

In order to not violate any laws, what is the verbiage you recommend in order to maximize their willingness to continue with the call being recorded, without scaring them off?

Here are a several ideas to use:

I am required to notify you that this call may be recorded.
I am required to notify you that this call is be recorded.
All calls on this line may be recorded.
All calls on this line are recorded.

Do all these meet the legal requirements for recording a telephone call?

Which of the above do you recommend, or do you recommend anything better?

Note: The calls currently originate in California (USA), and the companies called are often located in California, but not always.  Some of the calls are with Medicare or CMS (government agencies).


texts:
I am the subject of a legal case where the opposing party alleges that I had sent some damaging texts to them on an unconventional texting app (e.g., Whatsapp). Some of the identifying characteristics of the text messages themselves makes it pretty obvious that the sender is me, although I am uncertain I did not send these text messages. These messages were forged/doctored, and obviously the person who is doing it is going to make it look believable, i.e., make it sound like it's me sendin git.

With today's technology, you can manipulate texts very easily. You can manipulate the screenshots, the texts itself, etc....So far, the opposing party has only provided the screenshots of the texts. I alleged that these messages were doctored and that I want the original messages so I can have hire someone to do a forensics analysis. However, the opposing party claims they do not have the original messages on their phone (how convenient).

These messages weren't sent through cell phone servers, so we cannot subpoena the records of communication. It is sent through an external app that does not keep messaging data in their system, unless either the sender or recipient(s) still has it. However, the issue is the opposing party claimed that they do not have the original messages and only the screenshot, so we wouldn't be able to subpoena it even if it was an option. How convenient right? metadata on screenshots can be so easily manipulated and the screenshot itself can be so easily manipulated with software that I don't know how I am going to prove that I didn't send these messages when they claim they don't have the originals.

Am I pretty SOL in proving that I didn't send these text messages and the only trace of the message is the screenshot?


texts: Regarding "Right to be Forgotten", what's the definition of a "search engine"?

texts:
§§ — The decision by Europe's highest court allows people living in Europe to ask for links to "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant" material to be removed from search results, although it will still be available on the original web page[.]

Google Search might be unambiguously considered as a "search engine", but what about other websites like Blogger, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Quora, StackExchange, 4chan, Reddit, etc?

Are news websites which store their own archives of old news considered a "search engine", or "original web page", or both? (Notice that material must be removed from search results yet is allowed to remain available on the original web page.)

Let's assume that John Doe (either an imaginary student, salaryman, politician, etc) exercised his right to be forgotten. Then, :

Does a blogger have the right to list links and prior search results of John Doe's past on his personal blog which is publicly available?
If the blogger also writes about John Doe's past (i.e. the blogger creates original material), would the blogpost now be considered "original web page" and allowed to be available?


texts:
I know that reproduction is, generally, illegal.

However, if you don't buy the music and try to share the (encrypted) files, they don't play if one doesn't use the Amazon Music app.

Buying the music and downloading it produces files that play on any device.

So, is it legal to take the music and

make a CD with the songs?
copy them across all my devices?
copy them to the devices of my family?
copy them to the devices of my friends?

Thanks.


texts: Can I be liable for vandalism if I have posted a political sign on the property?

texts: I have posted a political sign on the front lawn of a house I am renting. The landlord has told me that if I don’t remove this sign, I will be liable for any vandalism occurring to the house, as he believes the sign might make the property a target. Will I be legally liable? What if I respond to his communication and accept it?


texts: Is the affirmative defense of self-defense available for the crime of terroristic threats?

texts:
According to this article, the DOJ may charge individuals who attempt to spread COVID-19 with terroristic acts/threats. Suppose that an individual, say Bob, is being assaulted or otherwise a crime is being committed against an individual for which it is generally appropriate to use self defense in response. Call the criminal Joe. Suppose this occurs in one of the fifty states of the United States (if your answer is state specific please note it in your answer).

Suppose that Bob coughs on Joe in an act of self defense and generally attempts to defend himself by spreading his illness. Suppose that an objective lay person and Bob himself believes that Bob is infected with SARS-COV-2 (causing the disease of COVID-19). Also, an objective lay person and Bob would feel that Joe’s actions if not stopped would cause imminent harm to Bob, but would not result in death.

Suppose further that Bob believes that his acts of coughing would act as a deterrent to reduce the chance of Joe assaulting/attacking Bob.

Is this a legally permissible act for Bob to do? Is there any crime Bob is committing?


texts: What is the process for obtaining an anonymous internet poster's identity for a civil lawsuit?

texts:
An anonymous person can, given some effort and a minimum of expertise, ruin a person's life on the internet through defamation. (The popular method currently is to forge authentic looking screenshots of a person posting insensitive or hateful statements, and setting them loose online)

If a person is victimized by an anonymous person online in this way, what are the steps for them to exact damages in a civil court case?  Not too interested in if it's practical, I'm wondering if it's even possible.

How would a person compel Twitter/Reddit/etc. to disclose the ISP information on their account?
How would a person compel an ISP to disclose the subscriber information (address, name) for the IP address?
Is obtaining the ISP subscriber's information enough to bring a lawsuit against them?  Would they able to argue they didn't post the messages and bear no liability, even if it originated from their network?  If it originated from an open wifi hotspot, would the proprietor bear responsibility at this point?
Can the extensive legal costs of pursuing the case to its conclusion be added to the damages sought easily?


texts: Artistic representation of 100+ year old lamp

texts:
A designer drew a logo for me. It is an artistic representation of a lamp screen with recognizable traits, together with text. The original lamp was created more than 100 years ago, in the early 1900s. The specific lamp used as model for this artistic representation is a newer one made by someone else, but it maintains the main traits of the original.

Originally, the design was patented, but the patent expired long ago. Many manufacturers have mass produced their versions of this lamp later, and variants are for sale everywhere. Still, I am wondering if there may be copyright at play here: The original creator died less than 70 years ago.

Can using this logo create any problems for me? Can laws vary from country to country, making this problematic only in some countries?

(I want to use a nickname that is associated with this type of lamp together with the logo. The name is not trademarked in any domain. Also, I should note that my product has nothing to do with lamps.)


texts: If a lawyer is a juror and he accurately explains a legal concept to fellow jurrors is he violating his ethical responsibilities?

texts:
Many questions on here stress that a jury is suppose to rule based off of the rules as explained to them by the judge and facts presented during the case, not on their own knowledge or expertise.  It's also been well explained that Lawyers are often strike from jury duty to avoid their impacting the result of the cased based off their understanding of the law: Why are lawyers typically excluded from juries?

However, if making decisions solely based off of what is presented at the trial is so important that judges have dismissed people with specialized knowledge and researching even basic legal information while a juror is cause to be dismissed it seems odd to me that a lawyer is allowed to sway the jury using his legal knowledge, as is was suggested would happen if a lawyer was allowed to be a juror.

Is a lawyer allowed to explain legal laws if he is part of a jury to the rest of his jurors, or is this grounds for the lawyer to be removed if discovered?

For that matter what if a Juror had discovered he had some specialized knowledge relevant to a case during the case, such as being familiar enough with a gun used in a shooting to know it's unlikely to have fired the way claimed or having consoled enough rape victims to know their psychology and that certain activities after a rape that may seem illogical or to prove a victim wasn't raped are actually somewhat common and are poor proof that a rape didn't occurred etc.  Is the Juror allowed to share his own specialized knowledge with the Jury, or even use it to make a decision himself?


texts: If my phone number is put in a commercial video for sale (in a scene involving texting) without my authorization is that illegal? What action can be taken? I work on the set, I've never signed a release, I went to my boss and she did nothing, the film was released and is being sold, I had someone (a fan) text me to see if the number is real trying to see if it was the actors phone number.


texts: Mechanical Rights for Beethoven's Piano Sonata

texts: I'd like to use a music based on Beethoven's Piano Sonata in my short movie. I'm planning to ask a violin player to work with the score and use the recorded music for my movie.  How can we deal with the rights and payment?


texts: Am I entitled to information that the DMCA claimant is taking a legal action against me within 10 business days after receiving counter DMCA notice?

texts:
An item of mine was removed from a third-party website due to a DMCA copyright claim. I'd gone thoroughly into it and noticed serious issues with the document. Namely, contact credentials were incomplete and misleading (lack of full address), and the document was written in an absolutely abhorent English (e.g. "a item are") despite the fact that the name and surname were American/English.

This person claimed to work for a renown, non-profit company located in the US and claimed the rights to my product in their name. The thing is, he didn't send this notice from that company's email domain, but instead used other third-party email provider located in a different continet that boasts one would need a warrant from this country's court to get access to the mailbox. I tried contacting the company he represented, but no one responded.I even sent a mail to his supposedly company's mailbox, but I got an error stating it didn't exist. Even the copyright claim was easily refutable. Therefore, everything looked extremely suspicious.

I informed the file-host company about the issues withthe DMCA, but they said they can't ignore it on the basis of its legitimacy, as they're just passing the information. So I filed a counter notice, received the information that my item would be restored within 14 days. Unfotunately, 18 days my item is still disabled. I haven't received any feedback despite contacting the file-host company. I assume what happened is the guy told them in his third-world English that he's taking a legal action, but I highly doubt any action will ever be taken.

I'm not a US citizen, but I thought he'd need to present a legal document, an injunction, from the court to stop the process, but to do so, he'd have to be thoroughly checked. I'm being kept in the dark and haven't received any legal notice. Unfortunately, I can't even sue him since his personal credentials are made up or incomplete.

Am I not even entitled to receive any type of court document at this or some point in the future? How do I know he took or will take any legal action against me? What if he doesn't? Should I pressure the hosting company for more information? They haven't replied to my previous email, so maybe a need a solicitor to send them a notice and scare them a little bit? The thing is, the value of this item isn't even worth that much and the costs of legal actions would be huge I assume.

I'd appreciate any advice at this point. Thank you for your time.


texts:
I have a website that I want to publish, so I guess it's about time I get it copyrighted. The question is how?

I've heard I can do it through www.creativecommons.org

Here is what I found:

  Copyright is created automatically. In Cyprus as well as in the
  European Union and in most countries there is no process of
  registering and certifying copyright.  In case of infringement of
  copyright, however, many are the ways which can witness and evidence
  in court the ownership of copyright.
  – http://ipcyprus.com/faq/

So does that mean I can't get the content of my website copyrighted?


texts: Would conditioning wildlife to harrass someone playing music too loud risk legal repercussions?

texts:
This XKCD comic jokingly suggest training wildlife to harass people playing music too loud in their car:

I'm pretty sure no one is actually considering a solution like this, but it made me curious what would happen if someone tried it.  I'd consider training wildlife to harass individuals to be generally antisocial, even if they were playing annoying music, and conditioning to harass someone who is driving when it could potentially lead to an accident would be doubly so.  Thus it would presumably be something the government, and thus legal system, would want to discourage.  The question is rather the legal system has any rules about this particular situation.

Thus I'm wondering if someone tried this and it lead to a driver being harassed by animals could there be any legal repercussions, and if so what would they be?  I'd count both civil or criminal actions here.  If jurisdiction matters the creator of the comic is located in Massachusetts, USA.

For now lets ignore any potential disturbing the peace issues that may come up with playing music when food is dispensed.


texts: When does "silence imply consent" for trespass to land?

texts:
Once upon a time there was a parking lot attendant.  He watched a person getting out of his car and could have said, "You're not allowed to park in that particular spot."  But the attendant stayed silent.  For he was not an employee of the owner of the parking lot, but rather of the towing company, whose financial interest was in towing cars that were illegally parked.

The parking lot owner's interests would have been served better by an immediate oral notice to the driver, since the car would have been removed faster.

I happen to know of a case where a criminal charge of trespassing was dismissed because an employee of the company on whose property the defendant was said to have trespassed watched him for some time without ever telling him to leave.

Might something similar apply to the situation described here, if the car's owner sued the towing company, saying the attendant's silence implied consent?


texts: Can I use the copyright symbol on my website without registration of copyright in India?

texts:
I wanted to ask whether I can use the copyright symbol on my website without actually registering it.

  COPYRIGHT © AUTHOR

And is it allowed according to Indian copyright law?

I came to know that India is part of Berne Convention which includes US, Canada etc. so the copyright laws must be similar but still I wanted to confirm it.


texts:
I saw Google Ad showing "Wikibuy Beating Amazon" on website.

Website is US Based & also I am using USA Net Connection.

Is it legal to put competitor name in commercials in USA?


texts: Would GDPR affect my own personal website?

texts:
I am developing my own website with a blog, portfolio and tutorials, which will be accessible to the public.

As I am the only person who is in charge (my personal site), would I have to oblige to GDPR?

What I want to do is make an administrator panel and track user IP address ONLY if they go to that page. I would then block their IP if there is suspicious activity. I would also need to store cookies to ensure that the person using the administrator page is authorised.

As I understand GDPR make IP addresses personal information. Also, there is the EU cookie law too.

Is the GDPR and Cookie Law applicable to me or not? Also, would I have to make Terms and Conditions?


texts: Using lyrics in an app to learn languages

texts:
I am working on an app to learn languages, and beside the usual texts, dialogues, and lists of words, I was thinking to include also written lyrics of famous songs, to help the users practicing the languages.
I know that "educational uses" are part of "fair uses" of copyrighted material, but I am not sure it this applies to the case in question?
Note that the texts will be freely available in the app, so I am not asking the users to pay to read them - the app will monetise though other system (ads, services like statistics on the learning curve of the user etc).
Would that be legal?
Or if not, how should I proceed?


texts: Is the presence of a melee weapon such as a knife enough legal justification for a police man to shoot the possessor of the knife?

texts:
Background
Recently, Jacob Blake of Kenosha, Wisconsin was shot in the back 4 times by police officer Rusten Sheskey while the officers were attempting to arrest Blake over a domestic violence dispute.  When talking to Wisconsin state investigators later, Jacob Blake admitted to investigators that he did have a knife in his possession as stated by Attorney General Joshua Kaul:

Kaul says Blake had a knife.
"Mr. Blake admitted he had a knife in his possession and DCI agents recovered a knife on the driver's side floorboards of Mr. Blake's vehicle."

However, the shooting committed by Officer Rusten has caused unrest in the area of Kenosha, Wisconsin, given the concurrent resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement at the time of the shooting. It is the fact of the knife as well as the strong response that has encouraged me to ask the following question:
Question
Given the presence of the knife in addition to the officers attempting to arrest Jacob Blake for a domestic violence dispute, was that enough justification for the 7 shots (4 of which hit Blake) as a reasonable response by Officer Rusten Sheskey?


texts: Is breaching ToS of installed software automatically a copyright infringement?

texts:
Suppose entity X offers some software (maybe for free, maybe for a price) bundled with some terms of service. Suppose person Y (after paying any relevant price) installs the software following X's instructions. Suppose Y then breaches the terms of service. Has Y then infringed copyright (assuming it is not considered fair use)?

This answer presents the following argument:

Installing the software constituted making a copy of it.
This copy was only authorized by X on the condition that Y complies with the terms of service.
This condition was not met, so the copy was not authorized, so it infringed copyright.

This surprised me since I imagined (maybe incorrectly, IANAL) copyright infringement to be a more serious issue than ToS violation. This article also seems to contradict the above:

  However, if a company violates a license by, for example, failing to purchase additional licenses through the publisher, instead of through an otherwise authorized reseller, then the violation could form the basis of a breach-of-contract claim, but not a copyright claim – none of the exclusive rights would be affected by failure to follow specified payment or transaction terms.


texts: Why would corporate house counsel be limited by unsupervised discovery?

texts:
Source: The Betrayed Profession (1994), p. 11 Middle.

   Indeed, even today we have significant areas of law where
  lawyers must pledge not to do what their clients would wish
  them to do. Judges will often agree to order the opponents of a
  party to a lawsuit to let that party's lawyers interrogate them
  and scour their files in unsupervised "discovery" proceedings
  prior to trial. Such access to the other party's secrets may, how-
  ever, be hedged with a "confidentiality agreement" by which
  the lawyer promises not to communicate the contents of those
  files to anyone, including his clients. House counsel for corporations will be limited in what they can do when litigation requires this sort of discovery [emboldening mine], because courts will be reluctant to
  give mere employees of the company, whether or not they have
  law degrees, access to confidential files of its rival.

Why does the bolded sentence refer only to house counsel? Doesn't this limitation include external counsel too?
What does 'they can do' mean exactly? No benefits from this unsupervised "discovery" to house counsel? House counsel's inability to thwart the counterparty's counsel from benefitting from this "discovery"?


texts:
I haven't been to Germany but I've heard of the Quiet Hours law. It is required to keep noises at very low levels during "quiet hours" like at night, on Sundays and holidays. However, I'm pretty sure there are also typically noisy festivals and events in Germany.

What if some typically noisy events fall on quiet hours? What are some exceptions for the Quiet Hours law?


texts: Are digital signatures from Mac's Preview app legally valid?

texts:
Mac's Preview application allows users to take a photo of their handwritten signature and convert it into a digital signature, which can then be inserted into PDF documents presumably in place of a handwritten signature. The signature Preview generates is not certified.
So, if someone "signs" a legal document by opening it in Preview and inserting their digital signature, is the signature valid?


texts:
What happens to my property if I die without a will?

The jurisdiction is Victoria, Australia.


texts: What constitutes voluntary termination of employment?

texts:
I have a clause in my contract that reads as follows:

"If you voluntarily terminate your employment prior to 12 months following your hire date, your bonus will be due immediately"

If I give my two weeks notice 5 days before my first 12 months at the company are up, and my company fires me the next day, could they make a realistic claim that I had voluntarily terminated my contract before the year was over? I doubt they could make me pay the bonus since this seems non-voluntary, but would appreciate another perspective.

I am employed in California.


texts: Why is everyone affraid to give "legal advice"? What is the difference between legal advice and personal opinion?

texts:
Why is it illegal to give your opinion/advice about a legal problem or case if you are not licensed or do not have a lawyer/client contract?

Findlaw - What is Legal Advice page says it's ok if you are just a friend, or if you give general information but not to a specific case.

The reason I am asking is because as I look at it for the first time, it sounds a bit in contradiction with the principle of free speech, or the right to engage in a free non-binding exchange of opinions.

If the main reason is that you may be "dangerously wrong", why isn't the same logic applied to every other aspect of life like cooking, how to fix the foundation of your house.. etc? Putting wrong ingredients in your recipe can poison you. A weak foundation may cause your house to collapse and kill you.

Edit:

Why do many explanations about the meaning of "legal advice" include representing someone in court? To me, an advice is more like giving someone an opinion than actually doing something for them.


texts: What is it called when you get a ticket for driving an automobile which is in sore need of repair?

texts:
I live in the United States
Specifically, the state of Colorado.
I am required to tell my new employer what crimes I have pled guilty to, or been convicted of in a court of law.
In Colorado, you can get a ticket for driving a badly damaged car.
If you drive a rust-bucket - a shit-box - then you can get a ticket for having a poorly maintained vehicle. I have done exactly that.
The punishment for this crime crime is a monetary fee + 2 points removed from the guilty party's driver's license.
What is the official name of this traffic offense in the veritable state of Colorado?


texts: How does "apparent authority" work for a company's directors?

texts:
An employee or agent of a company has apparent authority to transact on behalf of the company if his function or standing with the company will lead a reasonable person to believe that the company person has authority to transact, whether or not s/he actually has that authority.

For instance, if a company made someone VP of Purchasing, one would reasonably believe that this person can purchase on behalf of the company. More to the point, if a Manager of Purchasing had the authority to purchase up to $1 million, and actually made a purchase of $2 million, in most cases the manager would have "apparent" (though not actual) authority to make the $2 million purchase.

If one is a member of the company's Board of Directors, the term "ostensible authority" is used to describe apparent authority. How does this work, and does it differ in any way from "apparent authority." Put another way, what gives (or removes) "ostensible authority" from a board member to deal on behalf of the company.


texts:
I create the code that everybody can download for free and use on their website (MIT licensed).

In that code, I want to put the additional code sending requests to my server if the domain name is different than the one used by web browsers when developing locally (window.location.host)

It would not store any additional code (no cookies, no local storage) in page visitors' web browsers.

To download the package, you do not need to register to the service. There are many download methods, including

direct download from my website or Sourceforge
download from 6 public third-party code repositories (GitHub, GitLab, BitBucket, Beanstalk, Sourceforge, Launchpad)
download from package managers: Composer, NPM, NuGet and RubyGems (and Yarn and Bower in the result of NPM)

And it is very important to me that my package stays that widely available.

Question: How can I approach this to be GDPR compliant?


texts: 1099 income during severance period before unemployment

texts:
Let's say you are laid off with a month of severance.  In the second week of the severance period, you take up a temp job hanging drywall or something like that, that pays you 1099 with no benefits, and do it that week only.  This job is not proper employment with all the strings attached, just freelancing.

Are you obligated to report that income when filing for unemployment towards the end of the severance period, when you become eligible for it once the severance runs out?  I understand if it were during unemployment, you would have to report it and your weekly claim would be adjusted.  You also have to report severance so the unemployment agency can calculate your eligibility date.  But this is 1099 income earned during the severance period.


texts: As the borrower, can I prevent my loan guarantor/co-signer from being released from the guarantee?

texts:
Inspired by the question My co-borrower wants her name removed from a 5 year mortgage contract :

Assume I am the debtor of a loan, and someone else agreed to guarantee/co-sign the loan for me.

If the guarantor later wants to be released from the guarantee, and the lender agrees, can I (as the debtor) prevent that release?

On the one hand, as far as I understand, a loan guarantee is an agreement between the lender and the guarantor. So as the borrower I am not part of the agreement, and therefore I would assume I do not get a say in how it is handled.

On the other hand, I may wish for the guarantee to continue, for example because I get better rates, or because I hope the creditor will go after the guarantee's money instead of after me. Is this a sufficient reason to ask for the guarantee to continue?

I am interested in answers for different jurisdictions, particularly for Germany.


texts: Can a company be sued for storing plain-text passwords?

texts:
Even if most of the developers nowadays understand the necessity of encryption, a consequent amount of websites still store the user's password as plain-text. It can be easy to spot : just asking for a password recovery and see if they send back your old password in the email, or harder trough pen-testing in order to see how are the password stored.

If by any method someone had to find a website like this, is it possible to sue the company for "voluntary making the information system weak" ? Or should we be more "nice" and politely ask for the webmaster to remove the concerned user from its DB ? (let's keep in mind that some people just disable accounts without removing them, c.f. Ashley Madison's hack).

Can the law change on this kind of issues according to the country hosting the DB ? to the country where the webmaster is from ? to the country the user is from ?

Thanks for reading.


texts: Can I use a trademark to indicate what an app is for?

texts:
I've made an application for University students, and the University's trademark is 'XYZ'.

Is it OK for me to have the name of the app in the store listing to be "App Name for XYZ". The actual app will have no uses of the trademark, is used only in the store name and is free to download. Is this fair use?


texts: Can a landlord require a tenant to pay for utilities that are not explicity required in the lease?

texts:
I have been a tenant for the past 6 months, and am responsibile for paying for utilities myself and have them setup under my own name. I chose not to sign up for garbage service, as it is cheaper to take it to the dump myself.

I was just contacted by the property management company informing me I owe 6 months past due balance on trash service, in which the account is not in my name nor did I want this service. Obviously I want to dispute this... in my lease the utilities clause is as follows:

  Utilities. Lessee shall be responsible for arranging for and paying
  for all utility services required on the premises, except that None
  shall be provided by Lessor.

There was no mention of garbage being a required utility, nor is it required in my county.

Looking to see what my options are here and if I infact do have to pay this past balance


texts: Institution can access my email (inbox/sent items/etc) and edit it?

texts:
First of all, I have thoroughly read the answers to the following questions and none of them answer my queries:

Can Google Chrome read/scan my ProtonMail inbox page?
Can my IT department read my Google Hangouts chats while at work?
Does company email can access hangouts and private emails?

I am a student at one of the highest ranking universities of the UK (even though I avoid giving much credence to rankings). A couple of days ago, someone found a way to send emails to every single student, masquerading as the Vice Chancellor (the emails appeared to be from his own university email address).

The email body was basically a silly hoax, appearing to have been executed by teenagers ("Dear students, just got off the phone with the prime minister, the University of [censored] will close indefinitely, exams are cancelled, go out and party, etc").

The same day after a few hours, all the received emails had been deleted from all of our inboxes; a few people had replied to that email though and still had the original 'hoax' email. The next day, the email they had sent was deleted as well.

The University evidently has access to our email accounts, but:

Are they allowed to Access/View/Edit out accounts?
Is this legal?
Do I have any say in it? As in, can I refuse using the University email for any type of correspondence and can I demand that they contact me only through my personal email address? If not, is there any way I can preserve my privacy?
If this was not disclosed clearly to any form of "Terms & Conditions" that I agree to by studying here, then what are my rights?
Does GDPR have any effect here, or is the university allowed to do whatever they feel like?
What else do they possibly have access to?

The university uses Office365 (Outlook).


texts: Can Company Profits Be Split Equally Amongst Two Partners With Different Shares?

texts:
I intend to create an 'inc.' moral entity in Quebec, Canada (corporation).
Can I own 75% of the shares while splitting profit 50/50 with my partner? (In a legally binding manner)


texts: In US, does marriage protect men from paternity fraud or make it more liable?

texts:
Suppose I am a rich man who wants a biological heir. I find a woman that agrees to bear me a child. Should I get married? In what jurisdiction is getting married a good legal move?

A book by Matt Ridley says that marriage laws are there to prevent paternity fraud.

If you are married and your wife has sex with another man, she is killed. Hence, she wouldn't do that. Hence, you can be sure that your wife's child is yours.

But now things are different.

If you are married, and your wife has sex with another man, you are still liable to pay child support for your wife's children.

If you are not married, then you are only liable if the child is really yours, say, via paternity tests.

So if a man wants to only support his biological children, do U.S. laws suggest that the only way to do this is to avoid marriage?


texts: Do governments need to compensate business owners if they temporarily force a business closure?

texts: If the government (let's say in the US or EU) prohibit businesses engaging in an otherwise legally compliant enterprise, do it need to compensate the business owners for that? Assuming that's for example extreme weather, an imminent war or the 2020 pandemic, and assuming they do not single out concrete businesses, that is, they close entire sectors (all restaurants not only Bob's Diner). Would that be analogous to the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution (if the government takes private property for public use, it must provide "just compensation.")?


texts: Did not receive yearly bonus, despite being employed at the company during the bonus period

texts:
At my last place we had a bonus scheme based on performance. If you met all of your targets for the year the bonus was 5% of your base salary. If you exceeded all of your targets for the year the bonus was 7% of your base salary. The scheme ran from the months June-June which meant that anyone who is employed from June to June the following year, providing that their performance was good, was entitled to a bonus. Despite the fact I was leaving at the end of July, I was under the presumption I'd receive my bonus and was even told verbally that I would get it, however, I never did.1

Since the performance meeting took place after the 25th (pay day) then I presumed that the bonus should come in the next pay day (since that's what I was told), which would also be my final salary payment from the company. I mostly worked all of July, I left a few days before the final salary payment was due, and to my surprise when I checked my payslip the bonus was not there.

Since I had already had many issues with the company at this point, I did not feel like or rather, I did not have the energy to argue this and I'm not overly concerned about the money. I am just wondering what the legality of this is? Was I entitled to that bonus? Or is it ultimately down to director discretion? I'm really interested in the legalities of workplace bonuses since they do not seem to be guaranteed like salary.

I appreciate that perhaps I should've got this in writing, however, I did not expect I would have to. The contract clearly states that an employee is entitled to that bonus if they meet their targets - as mentioned I did. In-fact, I even have a copy of my performance review document which shows in clear text that I met all of the targets thus as per the employment contract I should receive that 5% bonus.

 As a further aside: it's possible that in regards to the performance section of the contract when it comes to bonuses that the contract also stated that the bonus also relied upon the companies performance for that financial year, unfortunately I can't quite remember if it did mention that or not.


texts: Do mature minors have the right to privately consult with a medical professional?

texts:
The title should be relatively self-explanatory. Do mature minors (aged 16 or older) have a legal right to privately consult with a medical professional, free from the involvement of a parent, guardian, or some other individual in loco parentis?

If there exists any applicable state law, Minnesota is my area of concern.


texts: Dismissal versus redundancy from a consulting / outsourcing role

texts:
A family member works for a large consulting / outsourcing company and has been permanently employed by them for many years, working for multiple different clients over this time. When one client assignment comes to an end he uses the employer's internal jobs board to find a new assignment.

Late last year he started a new assignment, but a few weeks in the client decided that his skills were not well matched with the tasks they wanted him to do and requested that a new person be assigned to the role. He was withdrawn from the role and his employer provided the client with a new person instead.

At that time he was given written notice by his employer that he was now "in a Consultation process" and if he could not find a new assignment within some period of time (as far as I know, no set time frame was given in writing, but verbally he understood that he had about 6 weeks) then his employment would be terminated "on the grounds of skills mismatch with the current role."

They also verbally used the word "redundancy" but have subsequently retracted this and stated in writing that the role (with the specific client that he was withdrawn from) is not redundant, the work is ongoing and another person whose skills are better matched has filled that role.

He then continued looking for alternative assignments and spent time doing various training courses to broaden his skillset. Unfortunately he was not able to find another assignment that matched his skills within the time frame, and his employer has now given him notice.

To my mind (and from https://www.gov.uk/dismissal/reasons-you-can-be-dismissed ) there are two ways they could have done this:
- redundancy (not redundancy from the specific assignment he was withdrawn from, but redundancy from his outsourcing role in general if they no longer have any roles that need his skillset) - which would entail a redundancy payment
- dismissal due to "Not being able to do your job properly" - in which case he should have been through a disciplinary process etc., which he has not.

I also work for a (different) consultancy firm and in my company we would definitely class this as redundancy and would pay a redundancy payment. The issue would be ours in that we would not have any suitable work for someone with his skillset, not that he was unable to perform the specific role we had originally allocated him to.

Is my understanding correct? Assuming that he would be happy with an outcome of either a) having his job back and waiting until a role that matches his skillset comes along, or b) being paid a redundancy payment, what should be his next steps?


texts: If country A and B has no extradition treaty, then can B arrest As citizens residing in B if A requests?


texts: Antisocial behaviour and direct threats from youths on a bus

texts:
Recently I encountered two young boys on the bus who were shouting and swearing at random passengers constantly - literally turning and screaming at them "hey, F YOU, you are shit, the F you are looking at" and so on, you get the picture. And when a passenger asked them to stop, behave, the response would be among the lines "Want me to beat ya?", "Do you know who my parents are you shit", again you get the gist. They looked about 11.

Besides that, they were kicking the bus and each other, quite strongly. Strongly enough that at one point driver stopped the bus and came upstairs, physically put them apart to separate chairs and told them to cut it off. One of the boys responded "You cannot touch me", to which bus driver responded, "Then keep it up and I will call the police, they can touch you.".

This didn't help either, they swore more and more at every passenger on the bus, making few people head to debus on the next stop after being targetted, and at least a few I am more than sure that this was not their stop. So it kept going on, for good 30 minutes now.

So I wonder what can I do in this situation as one of the passengers? The bus driver clearly didn't want to take it further, but I also don't particularly enjoy having to cope with this, and if they were adults, I would likely already call the police myself. I honestly considered doing it and reporting two lost kids on the bus, but eventually decided against it for some reasons.

I imagine that their age will play a role, and while my estimate at 11 may not be perfect, if a year or two up, or down, changes things I am wondering how.

Update: I did record their behavior and filled a crime report afterward. I am mostly interested is there anything I can do while still on the bus. I personally do not feel threatened by two 11-year-old boys, nor pay much attention to the curses, but also I saw that it was making people really uncomfortable and pushing them off the bus. And that just does not sit well with me.


texts: Can I be fined for the intention to commit a traffic violation, after the police prevented me from carrying through?

texts:
After having stopped at a red traffic light, seeing the intersection empty, I was about to get on by bike and turn right when a police officer behind me informed me that doing so would mean a €100 fine¹, so I walked around the corner and then got on my bike there.  I did not get fined.  Which makes me wonder:

Can the police officer issue a fine for clearly intending to commit a traffic violation, even if the police officer prevented me from doing so?

¹Although a general "right turn on red allowed for cyclists" has been discussed, such is currently not allowed in Germany.


texts: Is throw-away-the-key-encryption allowed under GDPR?

texts:
Article 15 of the GDPR says:

  The data subject shall have the right to obtain [...] personal data [if it is being "processed"]

Article 4 says that "processing" includes storage.

Therefore, all stored personal data should be available upon request.

Then does GDPR disallow the following scenario?

You give me your personal data.
I encrypt your personal data using a random encryption key.
I store the encrypted data and assign it a random ID for reference.
I give you copies of the encryption key and the ID and throw away my copies.
You later provide the ID and encryption key to me and ask me to decrypt your data and perform some work with it.

Note a few things:

Nothing about the encrypted data, encryption keys, IDs, work performed, logs, etc leaves any information which correlates to you. Only your unencrypted personal data does.
Your personal data still exists the whole time--I'm storing it in encrypted form (has it been anonymized?).
Your personal data is readily available, if you give me the correct ID and encryption key.

Importantly, I'll never be able to satisfy your request for all your stored personal data. It's technically impossible since I lack anything which correlates it to you, and I don't have any encryption keys. I would only be able to satisfy the request if you gave me all encryption keys and IDs that I have ever sent you.

A concrete example:

In order to sign into a website you must have a trusted email address. Email addresses take the form of firstname.lastname@example.com, thus they are personal data. You sign in by providing this personal data and clicking a button. Clicking the button stores your encrypted personal data according to the scheme above and then emails you a link containing the reference ID and encryption key. You establish trust by clicking the link, sending the website everything it needs to find and decrypt your personal data. Then the website takes action on your personal data, signing you in. Incidentally, the encrypted personal data is single-use and expires, so it gets deleted after you are signed in or if it gets too old.

I realize the goals of this example could be accomplished a different way. But I hope it helps make the scenario clear.


texts: Are there any licensing rules regarding code samples that I could include in my book?

texts: I'm thinking to write a book where I could need to use some code samples regarding a proprietary software (SAS in particular). So my question is, should I pay something to the software owner just for using some code rows? Or just because I mention the proprietary software name in my book? I stress that these code samples would be written by me, but usable in a software (as SAS is), that is not open source but is covered by copyright.


texts: GDPR, is scrolling the page can mean cookie acceptance?

texts:
For example take a look at https://www.cookiebot.com/ as soon as you scroll down a bit, the consenting options fades away, and it puts a cookie in your browser, that you accepted their cookies.

Is this acceptable by the GDPR / ePrivacy regulation, as a cookie and tracking (analytics, fb pixel) consent?


texts: In Finland, can a light entrepreneuer take the cash payments if he has no business identity code?

texts:
In Finland, suppose one is a light entrepreneur working with accounting service that do not provide right to sign for a corporation. Suppose a customer pays to cash. Then I read from https://www.finlex.fi/fi/ that the entrepreneur must write a receipt with business identity code.
Now if the light entrepreneur has no business identity code, can he take the cash payments legally? Can he for example replace the BIC by his or her social security number? Or what do the law says if he writes the receipt without BIC?


texts: GDPR dilemma: Does a full name contained in a URL constitute PII as stated by Google Analytics?

texts:
But wait, it gets better: This full name belongs to person who was interviewed in an article under this URL.

https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/7686480?hl=en

  What Google considers PII: ... full names or usernames

Now, probably the right question would be: Should common CMS's such as Wordpress censor names from URLs?

PS: This is a rather food for thought question, I do not expect you to provide a correct answer, I am more interested in your point of view on this specific use case.


texts: Can I name a company e.g. "Nike" in a piece of art such as a game?

texts:
I am thinking about developing a game. In the dystopian world the game takes place in, companies are named after Greek Mythological Gods.

One of them being Nike (the God).

I guess that could be seen as trademark infringement, but in this case it actually has nothing to do with the company Nike.

Would I be taking a risk?


texts: Is Law prepared to somebody leaving Earth regardless of the Outer Space Treaty?

texts:
I've read two other questions about Legality of space colonization and Am I legally allowed to build my own rocket and fly to space by myself?. And I'd like to raise the stakes from those questions.

Imagine a capable group of people, who have all that it takes to fly away to Mars and settle there. They obtain no permit from any Country, they launch from International waters and ignore Outer Space Treaty.

What would be their legal status on Mars from our perspective?

It would be ultimately costly and time consuming even to try to return them to Earth to convict. Moreover, they may declare Mars as their property and there will be no way to object that claim.


texts: Is it illegal to enter illegally one's own country?

texts:
In Né quelque part (an obscure French movie), the main character, a French citizen, is entering France illegally (on a boat with illegal immigrants).

I am under the impression that a citizen cannot be refused the entrance to their country - this is apparently the case in the US (I saw a reference to the relevant law in several forums) and for France I could not find any information about that (there is plentiful for aliens).

It it illegal for a citizen to enter their own country illegally (without going through an established border entry point, without proper papers, ...)?

I would be interested from the perspective if international law, or French if such a law does not exist (or any other interesting case)

Note: I am not challenging the fact that someone is temporarily detained for the time needed to check their nationality. I am wondering if a citizen can be prosecuted (probably afterwards, after they entered the country) for entering their country illegally.


texts: Transfer of Ownership of a Trademarked Domain Name

texts:
Building upon the question "What is the relation between Trademarks and Domains?":

  ...if I register a domain when no trademark exists, but then someone
  registers the trademark...

  Can that person sue me and take out the domain, which I bought before
  she acquired the trademark?

And assuming that the slightly more popular answer (at the time of this writing) that interprets WIPO's overview and asserts the following:

  ...if the domain was originally registered in good faith, it will not be transferred even if a trademark is registered later...

Does this mean that the current owner of the trademarked domain, purchased in "good faith", must either use, sit on, or let the domain expire, but cannot sell/transfer this domain to a third-party? (Presumably because the third-party will be purchasing a trademarked domain -- possibly in "bad faith")


texts: Can someone sue me for not giving back the amount of money they gave me as a gift?

texts:
I was given an amount of money (less than 2,000$ CAD) as a gift from someone with her confirmation (by message and on paper). At first, I told her that I would accept the gift, but in the future, if possible, I will return it as my will because I do not want to owe anyone any amount of money (with no confirmation of the exact date/time to return it). Now the relationship has gone badly, and she asked me for the money back and told me that she would bring me to court for this.
Can she legally do this, and am I obliged to pay it back?


texts: Intellectual property at employee hackathon?

texts:
The company I am working for this summer is going to be hosting an hackathon for its summer interns. Out of idle curiosity, I asked about the IP rights for any resulting projects, and got the (not entirely  surprising) response that the company would own any resulting projects.

That got me thinking, though- is this legal? It's a company event for employees, yes, but it's taking place outside work hours with no compensation (aside from food and a few prizes), and projects may be totally unrelated to any existing IP owned by the company. Of course, it's entirely possible that there was some clause in the new hire paperwork about this, but outside of that, would this hold up in court?


texts: Do most people who take the stand at a trial not tell "the whole truth"?

texts:
I should note beforehand that much of my legal "knowledge" is based off of TV shows and movies so some of my assumptions might be off.

When you take the stand at a trial, you promise to tell "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." But it seems like most witnesses do not tell the whole truth, at least right away.

For example, lawyers often give certain lines of questioning to develop an argument. From what I understand, witnesses are encouraged to simply answer the questions asked and not say much more.

But often there is a lot more nuance and a lot more additional evidence that could paint the story in a different light. If you are simply responding to a lawyer's line of questioning, and the lawyer's line of questioning is not complete, then your responses are not telling the whole truth. And because lawyers are usually representing one side or the other, they rarely give a complete line of questioning and only ask the questions that support their side of the case.

Does this mean that most witnesses are not telling the whole truth?


texts: Why does MirOS licence have liability exception?

texts:
MirOS licence has this warranty disclaimer:

  This work is provided “AS IS” and WITHOUT WARRANTY of any kind, to the
  utmost extent permitted by applicable law, neither express nor
  implied; without malicious intent or gross negligence. In no event may
  a licensor, author or contributor be held liable for indirect, direct,
  other damage, loss, or other issues arising in any way out of dealing
  in the work, even if advised of the possibility of such damage or
  existence of a defect, except proven that it results out of said
  person’s immediate fault when using the work as intended.

Why does it have this exception at the end, if purpose is to protect author from being held liable?

I know you may be held liable regardless, but why licence contains that explicitly?


texts:
I have a software development business and after finishing a client's project i take a copy and put it on my website as a demo for any website visitor to be able to see and play with my previous work without affecting my client's database.

I copied this part from another company's terms and conditions but I want to double check if what's written in there means that i can use the app for any purpose (because it's non exclusive?)

'Subject to the customer’s compliance with all the above terms, AnIdeaForAnApp grants the customer a nonexclusive, irrevocable, perpetual and fee free license to use the software for the purpose which it was intended. This grant is also subject to the customer warranting that it will not, nor will it allow any third party to, separate out the created IP and use it for any other project or purpose, including transplanting that IP into other code, documentation or artifacts'


texts: Law regarding licensing database of publicly available factual information

texts:
Some friends and I were working on a startup and we plan to consult with actual lawyers before moving forward.
We want to get a list of company names in an industry and we found firm that as a collection of these names in their database. Of course, most of the company names are publicly available but hard tedious to compile. They have an offer to license their data for commercial use. My question is if that license expires, since the list of names is technically publicly available information, will we never be allowed to use this list of names without, say, showing we can/have collected the names ourselves after the fact?


texts: Could the President abolish the Supreme Court?

texts:
Article II, Section 2, of the US Constitution states:

  [The President] shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law[.]

At some point, most presidents have probably gotten annoyed by something the Supreme Court did. Could the President decide to stop appointing Supreme Court judges, in violation of this duty ("shall"), even to the point where no judges remain?

This seems like it would be harder to do legally than the Senate abolishing the Court (see question on that over here).

Alternatively, could the President satisfy his duty while still reaching the same end by nominating only candidates who (s/)he knows will never be confirmed (e.g. because they are nowhere near qualified)?

Could is intended to refer to legally could; political feasibility considerations would be at Politics, not Law.

A much narrower related question: Could President Obama do as Sen. McConnell says and leave the SCOTUS nominations to the next President?


texts: Is it against any Texas wildlife regulations to keep a possum as a pet?

texts: Is there a law anywhere in black and white on paper that says it is against the law to keep a possum that was rescued as pet since if would only die if released into the wild?


texts: Mathematical models for money lending and antidiscrimination laws in the US

texts: Are there any federal or state laws in the US regulating which models can banks and money lenders use to decide for/against lending money to an individual? I am interested on this topic in the context of mechanisms to avoid discrimination (for example, how do you ensure that your AI model doesn't have a variable that indirectly or directly takes into account ethnicity when making a decision).


texts: Does having an absentee ballot request approved mean it's legal to vote using that ballot?

texts:
I'm an American living abroad and I'd like to register to vote. I'm trying to figure out in which state I can vote. I was born in Pennsylvania and lived there until the age of 21, then moved to Maryland for 4 years, then I was a graduate student in New Jersey for a little over a year, and then I moved abroad. So New Jersey was the last state in which I lived in the US, but I don't really consider myself a New Jerseyan; I have much stronger ties to Pennsylvania or even Maryland.

The website www.votefromabroad.com gives the following advice on the matter:

  As U.S. citizen living abroad, your voting address is usually your
  last residence address in the U.S.-- but if you have new or strong
  ties to another state, you may be able to vote there. It is up to the
  Local Election Official (LEO) to determine whether to accept your
  voter registration application. You can explain your situation to your
  Local Election Official (contact information here) and ask what their
  decision would be, or you can try to submit the Federal Post Card
  Application (FPCA)–which you can produce here–and see if it is
  accepted.

So I took their advice, sent in my Federal Post Card Application in order to vote in Pennsylvania, and it was accepted, and I should be receiving some "balloting materials" in the mail. So does this mean it's legal for me to use these balloting materials to vote in Pennsylvania as long as I don't vote in any other state?


texts: I believe an electric/gas supply company has forged a backdated letter to me. Is there any way I can prove this?

texts:
Currently engaged in a dispute with a gas/electric supplier and applying something called the "Back Billing Code", referring to the company, by law, only having the right to bill me for the year prior to their first letter to me. This has been going on for months and suddenly out of nowhere, they have produced a digital copy of a letter they sent from years ago that I am certain I never received. It's suspicious because:
a. I have never had any problem receiving letters from them or anyone else - reliable postal system here.
b. This is the only letter, in a long period of letter drought, that they claim to have sent (despite having sent me several unimpeded letters since this dispute began - why no follow up to the original?)
c. It has taken them ages to reproduce this letter after a lot of talk about its existence
If I had received this letter none of this would have began in the first place! From my interactions with them I think their ethos would absolutely allow this sort of fraud, but can I do anything about it?


texts: Is it legal to bypass location restrictions on web sites?

texts:
Some web sites refuse to offer content to connections which appear to them to be coming from certain countries (or all countries but one, or offer different content based on the apparent location of the viewer).

Due to the nature of the Internet, with any communication involving a string of devices, it's possible in various ways to not give location information and/or give incorrect location information. In fact, there are services that anonymize Internet use and represent the traffic as coming from some machine providing the service, which could be anywhere in the world. For example, the Opera web browser has a built-in VPN feature that does this.

Is there anything illegal about using this to view content that would otherwise be refused?

For specific example, a person currently in Canada trying to view content on the PBS web site.


texts: Can an employer pay for my education with pre-tax earnings?

texts: Since scholarships are not taxed by the government, can I request my employer to "pay" (compensate) me in scholarships, so that I do have taxes withheld or due on those wages that are going towards my college education?


texts: Why is Apple not at fault for accepting Qualcomm "bribes"/kickbacks

texts:
With regards to the following:
EU hits Qualcomm with €997m fine for abusing its dominance

I have several questions about this piece of news:

How is this different from a simple business deal, where a company could provide a cheaper alternative or subsidise the deal?
How come Apple are not at all at fault in the eyes of the EU for this? Surely this amounts to accepting a bribe or at least anti competitive behaviour by them?
How is this different from a company paying a provider to only use their service/product? Which I believe happens fairly regularly in many industries.


texts: Pregnancy discrimination against woman who does professional surrogacy on the side

texts:
In the United States it is generally forbidden to refrain from hiring women who intend on becoming pregnant and one must preserve their position while they are on maternity leave.

If a woman decides to become a professional surrogate and deliver a baby every year, to her profit and to her employer's inconvenience, does she have to disclose this before hiring and would the employer have any recourse?

I would think that once she starts accepting money for her pregnancies, it becomes a business and while an employer can't discriminate against a pregnancy, he can discriminate against a worker having a second job that interferes with the first job.


texts: How do possible future court cases affect a bankruptcy application or judgement?

texts:
Asking with regard to the USA.
I have court cases I have been considering filing, suing specific people or organizations for damages. I've been advised that I don't have a lot of ground to sue and would probably not be successful. This is not a simple issue like a debt or something similar.
Would I need to declare every possible entity I think I could have a claim on when filing for bankruptcy?
What happens if I were to sue after filing without claiming, and was successful?


texts: Fifth Amendment privileges v. Sixth Amendment privileges in criminal trials

texts:
I'm quite confident that all users on Law StackExchange are well acquainted with the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, which confers the privilege against self-incrimination upon witnesses as well as defendants. I'm also equally assured of users' familiarity with the Amendment that follows, and they are thus aware of the rights it affords to the defendant, which includes one to confront adverse witnesses and obtain favourable ones via a compulsory process.
In my opinion, the rights that I have stated in the previous paragraph are in conflict with each other in certain scenarios. For example, what happens if the state's witness invokes their Fifth Amendment right on cross-examination or a defence witness, whom the state refuses to give immunity, does the same on direct examination?
I am aware that a witness may not want to expose themselves to prosecution, but would they deprive a defendant's right to a full defence in doing so?


texts:
Page 77 of the textbook Vaccines states:

The Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (Section 502[e][1][A][iii]) states that all inactive ingredients should be noted in labeling; it also states that this requirement is not necessary if trade secret information would be disclosed. The CFR additionally notes that an inactive ingredient should be listed in the labeling if the ingredient's presence is considered a safety factor (21 CFR 610.61[n]). In some cases, even in the absence of any evidence that a particular material might pose a safety factor, manufacturers have elected to disclose the presence of residual materials such as detergents, solvents, and chelating agents (see Table 6-2 for examples of manufacturing residuals).

Here is the relevant quote from the FD&C:

(iii) the established name of each inactive ingredient listed in alphabetical order on the outside container of the retail package and, if determined to be appropriate by the Secretary, on the immediate container, as prescribed in regulation promulgated by the Secretary, except that nothing in this subclause shall be deemed to require that any trade secret be divulged, and except that the requirements of this subclause with respect to alphabetical order shall apply only to nonprescription drugs that are not also cosmetics and that this subclause shall not apply to nonprescription drugs not intended for human use.

And from Title 21 of the Code of Federal Regulations:

The following items shall appear on the label affixed to each package containing a product:

The preservative used and its concentration, or if no preservative is used and the absence of a preservative is a safety factor, the words "no preservative";

The type and calculated amount of antibiotics added during manufacture;

The inactive ingredients when a safety factor, or reference to an enclosed circular containing appropriate information;

The adjuvant, if present;

The source of the product when a factor in safe administration;

The identity of each microorganism used in manufacture, and, where applicable, the production medium and the method of inactivation, or reference to an enclosed circular containing appropriate information;

FD&C allows keeping of trade secrets. CFR says the inactive ingredients must be disclosed when a safety factor. Let's say we have an inactive ingredient that is a trade secret that is also a safety factor.

Which law has precedence?

Why does the law that has precedence have precedence?

How is it determined if an inactive ingredient is a safety factor?

Does a trade secret ever have to be disclosed? When?

As far as you can tell, is this a "loophole" in the law?


texts: Suits: How can Simon Lowe, with Daniel Hardman, sue Harvey Specter in connection with the doctrine of unclean hands?

texts:
In the last 2 episodes of Suits Season 8, Simon Lowe sues, via his attorney Daniel Hardman, Harvey Specter for breaking privilege.

What happened was the lawyers Harvey Specter and Alex Williams who both work at the law firm Zane-Specter-Litt-Wheelers-Williams both represented clients, Simon Lowe and Thomas Kessler, respectively, on opposing sides of the same case.

This of course is a conflict of interest, and so Lowe and Kessler signed conflict of interest waivers.
The case is that Lowe wanted to make a deal with Kessler, to either buy something from Kessler or sell something to Kessler, I kinda forgot, but I don't think this was a settlement negotation. Kessler and Lowe engage in a verbal contract (and physical if you include a handshake), in the presence of their attorneys Harvey and Alex (and I think the managing partner, Louis Litt, was present as well, I forgot).
Later, Lowe reveals Harvey that Lowe intended or had intended to use Kessler as a stalking horse (I forgot if Lowe was planning to betray Kessler from the beginning or just decided to betray later on) and thus break the verbal contract.
Finally, Harvey breaks privilege and then Lowe fires and sues Harvey via Hardman. The manner in which Harvey breaks privilege is as follows:

   Harvey told Donna Paulson, their chief operating officer who then told Lowe (Donna and Lowe have been romantically involved for a few episodes now). The reason I recall Harvey did so was because Donna is very good at reading people, especially those she already knows and knew something was up when she and Harvey spoke after Harvey, Alex, Lowe and Kessler had met and made a verbal agreement (but also after Lowe had revealed Lowe's intentions to Harvey).

This next part is another spoiler for the audience but pretty obvious to the lawyers here:

   One could argue that technically it was Donna and not Harvey who broke privilege. This legal argument is a spoiler because this was a potential legal strategy pointed out (but not suggested to be used) by someone else.

   Of course another could argue that Harvey should not have told Donna because privilege didn't extend to her. Yet still another could argue that the conflict of interest waivers might have or should have protected Harvey or Donna. And so on.

Finally, my question:

Lowe's hands seem very unclean to me, in the sense of unclean hands or clean hands or dirty hands. So either

Case 1: I'm misinterpreting unclean hands. How am I misinterpreting?
Case 2: I'm interpreting unclean hands correctly but have missed or misinterpreted something in the show. What is it? (Asked on movies stackexchange just in case.)
Case 3: I'm interpreting unclean hands correctly and have not missed or misinterpreted anything in the show. How does Simon Lowe overcome unclean hands to sue Harvey? ("Bad writing" or "unrealistic scenario" or "mistake" is an acceptable response.)
Case 4: There is another case. What is the other case?


texts: Am I allowed to use the word "Android" in my YouTube channel name?

texts:
Say I have a YouTube channel about Android development.

And I want to name my channel to something like "Android Guy" / "Android Dude" / ...

My question here is: am I legally allowed to include the word "Android" in my YouTube channel name?

All information I found so far is this: https://developer.android.com/distribute/marketing-tools/brand-guidelines?hl=en

But it didn't really help.

Furthermore I saw that there's a YouTube channel called "Android Authority", which seems to be allowed by Google. But it is a really big channel.


texts: What happens to early votes if a candidate dies prior to the election?

texts:
If I absentee/early vote for a candidate in early October but that candidate dies prior to the November 2nd election, what happens to my vote?  Do I get to vote over?  Does that vote go to the VP candidate?  Does my vote go to the new candidate chosen by the party?

I've looked at the 20th amendment but it only makes mention of "president-elect".  President-elect in my understanding means that candidate has already been elected in the general election on Nov. 2nd. Is there any case law?