[Bradford] Fw: It Happened

[Robert Burrell Donkin]

On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 9:43 AM, Nick Rhodes <nick at ngrhodes.co.uk> wrote:

<snip>
lots of good stuff
</snip>

> In both UK and US as soon as money gets involved it becomes a more completed
> situation (including profiting from add on tracker listing sites),
> potentially criminal, but I've never been able to fathom the exact
> legalities for UK or US in for-profit circumstances.

Digital Britain was *really* close to being lost during wash-up (I
think if a few more people with Labour MPs had contact them, Labour
would have been forced to withdrawl it), and many of the technical
criticisms we made over the drafting appear to have been taken into
account by the civil service when drawing up regulations and by their
glacial implementation of some provisions. In the country, it is often
easier to force through poorly thought-through legislation than it is
to get the enforcement to stick.

I suspect that the current state of UK law is now deeply ambiguous at
best. Given DB did not attempt to reconcile it's innovations with
existing bodies of statues and case law, my best guess is that the Law
Lords will one day need to clarify a lot stuff including the issues
raised by Nick.

So yes, the authorities much prefer to be able to use the clear,
well-tested, predictable criminal law. Given current budget
constraints at the Crown Prosecution service - and the wide
confiscation powers enjoyed by the police - I would think very
carefully before choosing using a criminal case to clarify the law.

In theory, I could be banned for download software to which I own the
copyright. In this case, I might consider contesting the case but I
would first need to dispose of all my movable assets, quite my job and
defend myself in person.

Robert