Posts by Matthew Poole
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This thread is remarkably long, and I've come into it late (only got back from a last-minute trip to PNG on Sunday night), so I'm not sure if this has been covered, but as a cyclist we're put into contradictory legal positions. We're required to ride as far left as practicable, but we're not allowed to pass vehicles on the left.
This wonderful contradiction caught me as I was riding through Otahuhu this morning, in fact. A van turned left ahead of me, and trundled up the road. No braking or indicating left, so I assumed that it was just a slow-on-the-uptake driver and stuck to the left. Shortly thereafter I was sticking to the left side of the van, as he proceeded to pull into a kerbside park (without indicating) right in front of me. I wasn't even entirely sure who was at fault, but I'd certainly have argued to a cop that I was given no reason to expect that following my legal obligation to keep left was going to be a problem. The driver surely didn't let me know that he was going to pull into a parking space, and he'd already done one bit of risky driving by turning left ahead of a vehicle travelling straight ahead.Fortunately I wasn't going particularly fast, and the angle of intersection was such that I braked hard and got away with a friction burn on my arm from the side of the van. Wouldn't have taken much for it to be a lot nastier, though.
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Hard News: Staying Alive, in reply to Lisa Black,
I'd be pretty surprised if the judge is correct in that reading of the passing on the left rule. For one thing it only applies to drivers.
Not sure if anyone has pointed this out yet, but the regulations say:
driver means a person driving a vehicle; and includes the rider of an all terrain vehicle, a motorcycle, a moped, a cycle, a mobility device, or a wheeled recreational device
Which means that it includes cyclists. The judge's reading is absolutely correct.
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Hard News: The Mega Conspiracy, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
Why would you assume that the charge couldn’t be under s 131, with a maximum of 5 years?
Ah, bugger, I'd missed that section. I thought I'd seen all the bits on criminal infringement, too.
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Hard News: The Mega Conspiracy, in reply to Dylan Reeve,
I can’t see any situation where they would be required to remove any more than specifically what they were notified of. As I understand it they had automated removal systems for publishers, I believe Universal were able to automatically remove 5,000 links a day, for example.
Dylan, you know as well as I do that a link is not the content, though. The DMCA requires that the content be removed on notification of infringement, not that a link to the content be removed. The allegations are that MU was removing only links, not the infringing content, thus they knowingly allowed infringing content to be hosted because they didn't remove it.
If I remove an HTML file which contains a link to a copyrighted MP3, I haven't removed the infringing material unless I also delete the MP3. -
Hard News: The Mega Conspiracy, in reply to Tom Semmens,
I was shocked at the level of state force used in the raid – 76 armed police and two helicopters to arrest four geeks with no history of violence.
76 police officers, some of them from the Armed Offenders Squad, and two helicopters, to search and contain this place. I just cannot get my rage on at that number of officers being used on such a massive property. It’s fucking enormous, and with this being about digital offending it’s not an unreasonable concern that the suspects might try and erase evidence if they weren’t apprehended promptly.
Also, as has been observed, Dotcom was eventually cut out of a panic room which contained a firearm. Presumably he has a firearms licence, and that information would have been weighed when deciding to utilise the AOS. That the shotgun was in a safe is irrelevant, as its very presence in a panic room would be prima facie evidence that it was owned for self-defence and that’s not considered a lawful purpose.
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I'll point out that any extradition will not be because of the copyright issue. The Extradition Act 1999, s4(2), does not allow extradition for an offence where the maximum penalty for that offence under NZ law is less than 12 months, and s198(4)(b) of the Copyright Act 1994 provides for a maximum penalty for criminal copyright infringement (being infringement for commercial gain) of three months.
Extradition therefore must be for one of the "criminal" matters, and is still up for decision and appeal through the courts. Extradition is a judicial process, not an administrative one, and unlike others I'm not really willing to credit our judiciary with a deep-seated desire to supplicate before corporate American dosh.
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OnPoint: Association of Community…, in reply to bmk,
Or it might be that every bit of home-grown tobacco I have ever smoked has been foul. Maybe if somebody could produce a quality product that might be different.
I refer you to Tuo Lei's post above:
That’s all very well, but how does a home grower add all of those things that make cigarettes just so more-ish and delicious.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_additives_in_cigarettes
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Thanks for posting that, Graeme, it was certainly a delight to read. As others have observed, if all judgements were as well-written, the country (and, indeed, the entirety of the planet reliant upon the common law system) would possibly be a better place. Law schools therein would most certainly be somewhat brighter institutions.
An electoral petition would certainly be interesting in this case, given the potential for a change in the result (it wouldn't take too many reversals of decisions on what sounded like evenly-split ambiguous votes to flip the balance), but the money is huge for such an uncertain outcome.
As for Peter Kiely, it'd be nice if he'd admit to the Herald that his comment about the 393 votes cast by people not enrolled anywhere was inflammatory. Or, if he was misreported (not likely, given that he's a very influential lawyer), for the Herald to clarify the situation. The implication in his reported comment was that there was massive voter fraud going on in Waitakere, and that Bennett clung on against a determined attack by malignant influences. The reality, as expressed so clearly by Judge Adams, is that the votes weren't even opened, never mind counted.
Have to say, not in the least bit surprised to find out that the judge has a creative writing degree. They ought to be a mandatory conjoint for law students :P
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Legal Beagle: Paula's Peril; or The…, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
It's a lawsuit. Lawsuits cost. The judicial recount is the point where the citizens get their low-cost intervention by the judiciary. After that, you're talking about tying up a High Court justice for a period of time, lawyers, the whole works.