Posts by Matthew Poole
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It's the data losses that scare me about systems like this. The more data there is in one place, the greater the consequences of a breach. And when they manage to lose memory sticks with system architecture and authorisation details, that's well beyond abjectly terrifying.
It doesn't matter that these breaches and losses have happened because people haven't followed policy. It doesn't matter if the policy was handed down on stone tablets by a divine hand, even. The breaches have happened, and will continue to happen. It happens here, and the main saving grace is that it's explicitly forbidden for agencies to use a common identifier. That the IRD loses rubbish bags full of unshredded records, or MoJ has files full of convict details deposited on park benches, isn't quite so serious when the information therein cannot be used for a wholesale beach of a person's identity as recognised by government departments.
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I've always taken that to mean people with an existing criminal record, being charged with new offenses.
Presumption of innocence even extends to them, Kyle. Unless a person has a history of offending while on bail, they're entitled to exactly the same access to bail as someone who's got a history as pure as driven snow.
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So if you're contemplating relocating to London - considered by many a city of opportunity and financial rewards - it may be worth totalling the true costs of such a move.
I smell a Tui billboard.
A friend of mine is firmly of the opinion that so long as he can travel to wherever he wants, it doesn't matter what a country wants from him in terms of details. Long-term consequences? What're those. I once put it to him that my objection to travelling to the US through all those ludicrous border controls was a principled objection in the face of things that will potentially be much, much worse by the time I have kids who want to travel. His response was pretty much "I care about me, and don't give a damn about others in the future." Which, I suspect, is a fairly prevalent attitude. And that means that many people won't look any further than the immediate benefit to themselves before making travel decisions. -
It wouldn't matter how many people claim to have been involved in the upbringing.
Unrelated people have no rights to access to children. Parents have primary rights. Extended family have minor rights.
And if all the members of the marriage are on the birth certificate as parents? Or have all adopted the child?
All you're doing is reinforcing the point that a shift from monogamous marriage to bigamous/polygamous marriage is an enormous migration in all kinds of societal thought and legal institutions. The ramifications are breathtaking in scope, reaching far, far beyond a few sentences in the Marriage Act and the Civil Union Act. I just had a quick nosey at the Care of Children Act, and that Act would require a fair bit of rewriting too. The Property (Relationships) Act is another. I'm sure there are many more.
If NZ society decides that it's an institution that should be considered, then so be it. It can be accompanied by reasoned discourse (har har har!), and some expert legal opinions as to the ramifications, and as a society we can try and debate it thoroughly. However, the fact that our current institution of marriage requires that immigrants "divorce down to a single spouse" isn't something that can or should be changed just because of that single point. It's too massive a change for that.
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Both parents have equal legal rights now, who is doing most of the caregiving doesn't matter.
Yes, I know that. But we're now discussing a hypothetical polygamous marriage where there are three, or potentially more, people who all have claim to having been involved in the child's upbringing.
Plus, my comment was directly related to the presence/absence of a father's name on the birth certificate. That he is(n't) named has no impact on any rights the courts may be willing to grant in terms of access in the event of a custody battle.
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Children aren't dealt with via marriage/divorce, they're dealt with via parentage in NZ. That shouldn't be complicated, unless for some reason there was a refusal/inability to identify one father on the birth certificate.
Or if all the parties to the marriage adopted the child, which would be the logical step. Either that or only list the natural mother on the birth certificate, which doesn't resolve the issue in any more-satisfactory way in the event of a relationship dissolution since the courts are less concerned with the legal niceties of parentage and much more concerned with the actualities of who's been raising the child.
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Or do they make money off selling their listings?
Bingo. Because they have copyright, they can make money off allowing publishers access to the timetables and show summaries. I think the summaries are actually supplied by the show creators, too, so they're not even the work of the TV stations.
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I guess the real issue then is how information about what is on television does not count as a fact.
I think the legal community's view (at least for those who disagree with the situation) is that a court misapplied the "sweat of the brow" test. The simple summary of "sweat of the brow" in such cases is that any compilation involving facts (such as a database, encyclopaedia, telephone book, etc) can be copyrighted because another person could go out and do the work to produce their own work of the same type. You're not allowed to rip off Telecom's White Pages to produce your own telephone directory, but there's nothing to stop you going out and knocking on doors to gather the information yourself.
The way that that's been applied to a TV schedule is that the programmes don't just miraculously organise themselves into timeslots. It takes work, and that work, it seems, gives rise to a copyrightable product. I understand the reasoning, but that doesn't mean it's actually sensible. Maybe it made sense in the days when the only way to know what was on TV was to look in the paper, but now that we've got EPGs and the like it just gives an unjust monopoly power that stifles competition and innovation.
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Only objection is, as mentioned, that it's going to get very, very complicated in terms of messy divorces.
Ohhhhh yes. Divorce is messy enough now, without adding that extra level of complication. We have no tradition of polygamous marriages in this country, or in any of the countries whose courts we use as points of reference, so no legal tradition on which to fall when it comes to trying to decide how relationship property and children are handled in a divorce.
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The Monty Python thing is exactly how copyright holders should be responding to YouTube rip-offs of their material. Offer much-better-quality copies (and, let's face it, the only thing better than broadcast-quality is high-def broadcast-quality, which the Monty Python guys ain't going to have), and use it to pitch sales of your recorded works.
Suing your fans doesn't work. All it does is do away with an advertising stream, and alienate them. Embrace them, offer something better, and try to get them to buy your shit. That's smart business.
Of course, being British, they've got far less interest in lawsuits and lawyer-grams than the equivalent American troupe (yes, I know, American "humour") would.