I wish Spotify would do more to facilitate the connection between listeners and artists - i.e. show that the artists is playing nearby, or add links to buy music. It's early days, so maybe this will happen eventually.
To a certain extent it does both of these already - the Songkick app will show you that artists you listen to are touring, and there are links beside songs and albums that let you buy them (OK, not all albums, and it's done through Spotify AKAIK, and the prices are too high - but it is there).
The judgment specifically argues that this isn't libel tourism, because:
"[Cairns] went to school in England, as did his children, and he played county cricket in England for Nottinghamshire in 7 seasons during a period of 15 years. [Modi] has since mid-2010 been resident in England. A trial in India would have involved very long delays. No application was made to stay the proceedings on "forum shopping" grounds, and if it had been I consider that it would have failed. The case is properly before the court in England."
I think the key point there is that Modi's solicitors didn't even try to get the trial moved ("no application was made to stay the proceedings...").
Then there's the question of how different New Zealand and Indian libel law is from English law. Given that NZ and Indian law draws heavily on English law, I'd suggest that there isn't much of a difference.
Which all suggests to me that this isn't as egregious as say a Russian suing a German in England.
There's basically three ways laws come into force:
1. The Act specifies "this Act comes into force on 1 April 2012" [all of these methods apply to sections of Acts as well, for example in the UK the Companies Act 2006 had sections coming into force in 2007, 2008, 2009]
2. The Government brings it into force by a Regulation. (Parliament doesn't get to vote on this; it's purely an Executive branch thing, although a Parliamentary Committee has oversight of regulations, and there's a process that has to be followed to bring them in).
3. The Government brings it into force by an "Order in Council". The Order is a very short document just saying that the Act is now in force. It's signed off by the Governor-General as representative of the Queen (who's still NZ's head of state). It's a formality that takes a few minutes, but the Minister has to actually go through with it, it doesn't happen automatically. That's the method that the disconnection rule will come into force in NZ.
Basically she said Labour supported the Bill only because they had negotiated some safeguards against the three strikes, which she criticised. She said that, if Labour hadn't negotiated these safeguards, the Bill would have passed in worse form. So on the face of it, it seems consistent to now be criticising it. (Worth noting that, as AC suggested at 8:09am, there's an election coming up).
To put this in context, Labour are in opposition and don't have a lot of power in this instance. Unlike the USA, it is incredibly rare for politicians to vote against the party line - you won't get a Bill passing with 30 Labour MPs in favour and 10 against.
The specific safeguard that she claims Labour negotiated is that the three strikes provision isn't actually in force. It's in the law, but a Government Minister would have to take a specific action in order to bring it into force. Parliament wouldn't be able to stop this happening, but it would mean the individual Minister would have to face the adverse publicity of doing so.
The whole debate is interesting if you have time. Depressing to read Katrina Shanks' comments where she calls herself computer-savvy but doesn't have any idea about torrenting...
That this has already happened; at least in the UK. Facebook handed over log-in information, which proved that a particular defamatory page had been created from a certain computer.
websites state 'don't link to us without permission', although this tends to be sites that want people not to deeplink to individual pages/articles. When I'm preparing newsletters at work, I sometimes get asked if we can link to articles on the free web. Not copy all their text, just link to them.
I personally think this is nonsense, and not considered common courtesy by most web users, but it's certainly a minority opinion out there.
On the government/opposition divide, it can be confusing in Westminster systems: whereas the Americans would talk about the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of Government, Brits and Kiwis (etc) talk about the Government when they mean the Executive. So from one way of looking at it, the opposition are part of the government (because they're part of the legislature); from another, they're not (because they're not part of the executive, which includes Ministers, and government departments)
The Ministerial selection process is constitutionally under control of the Prime Minister. In practice, the PM will want support from his/her own party caucus, which means that they have to include a range of Ministers (e.g. from different parts of the country, male/female, the right and the left of the party). [This is why Lange had Douglas and Prebble in his Cabinet; the Labour right wanted them and he risked a leadership challenge if he sacked them].
I think the Constitution is less flexible than you do, as well: while NZ is one of the few countries in the world to not have a specific written constitution, we do have several documents that make up the constituion: everything from the Bill of Rights Act and the Constitution Act to the Cabinet Manual and Standing Orders (and inherited bits like the Magna Carta and Bill of Rights). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_New_Zealand
Still not a good move, IMO. Seems like the free, ad-supported model was a good one.
I have a paid subscription, mainly so I can use Spotify on my phone. Best £10 I spend each month. And Mike's right: I don't pirate anymore. Why would I need to? I turn on my PC or my phone, and almost anything I want is right there. I even buy CDs of stuff that I can get on Spotify, to support the artists or to get a physical memento of a gig. Spotify is a big win/win for the labels; even the free subscription is a gateway to their music, a chance for people to discover their artists. I can't believe they are so short-sighted on this issue.
The issue here is that the Bill was put through under urgency, when there's no apparent need for that to happen (there's an election due later this year, but plenty of time before then to pass this legislation following due process).
"corruption appears to be so bad, that bribes are being paid to receive government services that are entitled".
Basically this, yes. Been a while since I was in India, but I was talking to an American cafe owner there, when he said 'sorry, got to go, need to get back to the shop - the police are coming round for their bribe'. It's just endemic. And seemingly not just for legitimate services, but to avoid being hassled.
(Also heard anecdotally that police must pay big bribes to get plum jobs, e.g. Goa - where they can shake down tourists and take bribes in exchange for ignoring drug offences).
So this seems like a good idea - though paying police and other officials more would reduce the demand for bribes, presumably.
Can I be the first librarian pedant to mention that most libraries haven't used card catalogs for around 20 years? We've had online catalogs for quite a while ;-)
Not quite so pedantically, what Google Books offered is kind of different, because it's full-text searching vs the metadata searching that you'd get in a catalog. Both have different uses, both valuable in their place (and to be clear, I think that Google Books is amazing from a technical/usage point of view, notwithstanding problems with the settlement...)
He *was* also responsible for releasing some amazing music back in the 80s - Primal Scream, My Bloody Valentine, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Super Furry Animals, Teenage Fanclub, many more. (I kinda like *some* early Oasis as well, but I see your point...)
That's what makes me sad about this article. McGee was genuinely an independent voice, releasing stuff that other people wouldn't, that's still worth listening to today.
(untitled comment)
To a certain extent it does both of these already - the Songkick app will show you that artists you listen to are touring, and there are links beside songs and albums that let you buy them (OK, not all albums, and it's done through Spotify AKAIK, and the prices are too high - but it is there).
Not really libel tourism....
"[Cairns] went to school in England, as did his children, and he played county cricket in England for Nottinghamshire in 7 seasons during a period of 15 years. [Modi] has since mid-2010 been resident in England. A trial in India would have involved very long delays. No application was made to stay the proceedings on "forum shopping" grounds, and if it had been I consider that it would have failed. The case is properly before the court in England."
I think the key point there is that Modi's solicitors didn't even try to get the trial moved ("no application was made to stay the proceedings...").
Then there's the question of how different New Zealand and Indian libel law is from English law. Given that NZ and Indian law draws heavily on English law, I'd suggest that there isn't much of a difference.
Which all suggests to me that this isn't as egregious as say a Russian suing a German in England.
Re: Re: Here's what Curran said at the time
There's basically three ways laws come into force:
1. The Act specifies "this Act comes into force on 1 April 2012" [all of these methods apply to sections of Acts as well, for example in the UK the Companies Act 2006 had sections coming into force in 2007, 2008, 2009]
2. The Government brings it into force by a Regulation. (Parliament doesn't get to vote on this; it's purely an Executive branch thing, although a Parliamentary Committee has oversight of regulations, and there's a process that has to be followed to bring them in).
3. The Government brings it into force by an "Order in Council". The Order is a very short document just saying that the Act is now in force. It's signed off by the Governor-General as representative of the Queen (who's still NZ's head of state). It's a formality that takes a few minutes, but the Minister has to actually go through with it, it doesn't happen automatically. That's the method that the disconnection rule will come into force in NZ.
Re:
Here's what Curran said at the time
Basically she said Labour supported the Bill only because they had negotiated some safeguards against the three strikes, which she criticised. She said that, if Labour hadn't negotiated these safeguards, the Bill would have passed in worse form. So on the face of it, it seems consistent to now be criticising it. (Worth noting that, as AC suggested at 8:09am, there's an election coming up).
To put this in context, Labour are in opposition and don't have a lot of power in this instance. Unlike the USA, it is incredibly rare for politicians to vote against the party line - you won't get a Bill passing with 30 Labour MPs in favour and 10 against.
The specific safeguard that she claims Labour negotiated is that the three strikes provision isn't actually in force. It's in the law, but a Government Minister would have to take a specific action in order to bring it into force. Parliament wouldn't be able to stop this happening, but it would mean the individual Minister would have to face the adverse publicity of doing so.
The whole debate is interesting if you have time. Depressing to read Katrina Shanks' comments where she calls herself computer-savvy but doesn't have any idea about torrenting...
Sounds like she could be mentally ill
Worth noting
I've certainly seen...
I personally think this is nonsense, and not considered common courtesy by most web users, but it's certainly a minority opinion out there.
Re:
(I do like the Twitter comments "will she be flying Ryanair?" - seems like a clever and not-so-subtle way of naming the person involved.)
Re: Re: Re: Re: NZ Party Politics
The Ministerial selection process is constitutionally under control of the Prime Minister. In practice, the PM will want support from his/her own party caucus, which means that they have to include a range of Ministers (e.g. from different parts of the country, male/female, the right and the left of the party). [This is why Lange had Douglas and Prebble in his Cabinet; the Labour right wanted them and he risked a leadership challenge if he sacked them].
I think the Constitution is less flexible than you do, as well: while NZ is one of the few countries in the world to not have a specific written constitution, we do have several documents that make up the constituion: everything from the Bill of Rights Act and the Constitution Act to the Cabinet Manual and Standing Orders (and inherited bits like the Magna Carta and Bill of Rights). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_New_Zealand
Re:
Still not a good move, IMO. Seems like the free, ad-supported model was a good one.
I have a paid subscription, mainly so I can use Spotify on my phone. Best £10 I spend each month. And Mike's right: I don't pirate anymore. Why would I need to? I turn on my PC or my phone, and almost anything I want is right there. I even buy CDs of stuff that I can get on Spotify, to support the artists or to get a physical memento of a gig. Spotify is a big win/win for the labels; even the free subscription is a gateway to their music, a chance for people to discover their artists. I can't believe they are so short-sighted on this issue.
Re: It wasn't attached to other legislation.
relate to one subject area only.", available here http://www.parliament.nz/NR/rdonlyres/81D0893A-FFF2-47A3-9311-6358590BEB3D/100828/standingorders2008 _5.pdf (PDF 841kb)).
The issue here is that the Bill was put through under urgency, when there's no apparent need for that to happen (there's an election due later this year, but plenty of time before then to pass this legislation following due process).
Re: Re:
Basically this, yes. Been a while since I was in India, but I was talking to an American cafe owner there, when he said 'sorry, got to go, need to get back to the shop - the police are coming round for their bribe'. It's just endemic. And seemingly not just for legitimate services, but to avoid being hassled.
(Also heard anecdotally that police must pay big bribes to get plum jobs, e.g. Goa - where they can shake down tourists and take bribes in exchange for ignoring drug offences).
So this seems like a good idea - though paying police and other officials more would reduce the demand for bribes, presumably.
(untitled comment)
Not quite so pedantically, what Google Books offered is kind of different, because it's full-text searching vs the metadata searching that you'd get in a catalog. Both have different uses, both valuable in their place (and to be clear, I think that Google Books is amazing from a technical/usage point of view, notwithstanding problems with the settlement...)
Re: Re: Re: Dear Alan McGee,
That's what makes me sad about this article. McGee was genuinely an independent voice, releasing stuff that other people wouldn't, that's still worth listening to today.
He's completely wrong here though.
(untitled comment)
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