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Showing results for tags 'law'.
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Valve Corporation, the company behind the Steam PC distribution platform, has been found guilty of breaching Australian Consumer Law due to Steam’s lack of a refund policy, as ruled by the Australian Federal Court and reported by Kotaku Australia. Steam did not have its current refund policy in place when proceedings commenced in 2014, involving allegations that Valve was in direct breach of Australian law which states: "It is a breach of the Australian Consumer Law for businesses to state that they do not give refunds under any circumstances, including for gifts and during sales." Today, the Australian Federal Court ruled that Valve had made "false or misleading representations in the terms and conditions contained in three versions of its Steam Subscriber Agreement and two versions of its Steam Refund Policy". These include: Consumers were not entitled to a refund for digitally downloaded games purchased from Valve via the Steam website or Steam Client (in any circumstances); Valve had excluded statutory guarantees and/or warranties that goods would be of acceptable quality; and Valve had restricted or modified statutory guarantees and/or warranties of acceptable quality. Although Valve sells games to Australian consumers through Steam, it does not have a physical presence in the country, which was a major cause of contention. Kotaku Australia reports that Valve stated that it did not officially trade in Australia, but only provided online access to video games through a client, which they felt did not fall into the definition of 'goods' as it is defined in Australian Consumer Law. Valve also stated that its Steam Subscriber Agreement is based in the law of the State of Washington, USA, and not that of Australia. Today, Justice Edelman ruled that Valve was indeed conducting business in Australia, due to the three aforementioned representations in the Subscriber Agreement, which involve conduct in Australia. In a press release, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission Chairman Rod Sims stated that: "The Federal Court’s decision reinforces that foreign based businesses selling goods and/or services to Australian consumers can be subject to Australian Consumer Law obligations, including the consumer guarantees." "This is also the first time Courts have applied the extended definition of 'goods' to include "computer software" in the ACL. It will provide greater certainty where digital goods are supplied to consumers through online platforms.” "Consumer issues in the online marketplace are a priority for the ACCC and we will continue to take appropriate enforcement action to hold businesses accountable for breaches of the ACL." Kotaku reports that a hearing on relief is currently scheduled for April 15, but there is no set amount for liability. Source http://www.gamespot.com/articles/valve-found-guilty-of-breaking-australian-law-with/1100-6436074/ -
French supermarkets banned from throwing away and spoiling unsold food'Supermarkets will be obliged to sign a donation deal with charities' Supermarkets in France have been banned from throwing away or spoiling unsold food by law. The stores are now required to donate unwanted food to charities and food banks. To stop foragers, some supermarkets have poured bleach over the discarded food or storing binned food in locked warehouses. This law was voted unanimously by the French senate on Wednesday after a petition was launched by Courbevoie councillor Arash Derambarsh. It will apply to any supermarket with a footprint of 400 square metres or larger. If companies flout the law they coud incur fines up to 3750 Euros. Jacques Bailet from Banques Alimentaires, a network of Food banks, told the Guardian: "Most importantly, because supermarkets will be obliged to sign a donation deal with charities, we’ll be able to increase the quality and diversity of food we get and distribute France Become the first country to force all supermarkets to give unsold food to needy Source : http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/french-law-bans-supermarkets-throwing-away-and-spoiling-unsold-food-giving-them-to-food-banks-and-a6855371.html Hope it will inspire other countries to do the same !!
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So... I've been brainstorming about my master thesis for a while. I have to choose a subject next year and I want to do something useful and original. Many people who study law just make some summation about an existing subject. I want to do something different, but it has to be good. Also important: a professor of the law school has to agree on being the promotor of the thesis. So what I thought of after watching a documentary on automation and robotics, is to make something about law and automation. There are many lawyers and there always will be, but I want to do some research on the possibility of automating certain things. I would have to review theoretical aspects: has this been done before, how far has science evolved here? But maybe I could also do something more practical. Since I don't know shit about program language I'm here to ask you... Do you think it's possible to learn programming in a year and develop a simple automatic law program? Vaguely it would mean... A client fills out a form. The program will, based on the key words, select a subject and show the client which lawyer office he should consult. This or a program that actually solves a very specific problem automatically. For example in heritage matters you just fill in who gets heritage from who in the family and the program tells you what you receive if there is no testament. So my questions to you guys: do you think it's feasible in a year (it's worth a half working year so it can take some work)? Do you have any recommendations on which programming language to learn? Should I take lessons or can I do this by self-learning? Do you think I could sell this idea to a professor? Thank you in advance. One of those advantages of being in a large community is this
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A higher regional court in Hamburg, Germany has reportedly ordered file-sharing service RapidShare to proactively filter pirated content from its site. The decision echoes those of a number of lower courts, which ruled that the site had not done enough to prevent piracy taking place on its servers. The ruling comes after January's MegaUpload debacle, which saw the popular file-sharing service shut down, along with others of that ilk. However, RapidShare's business model is dramatically different to that of MegaUpload, which offered a financial reward to uploaders of popular files. According to initial reports (a written account of the court's ruling has yet to be released) the site will have to monitor its users files for copyright infringement before they are made available for download on the site. As it would be near-impossible to undertake such a feat manually, it's likely that RapidShare will have to develop a software-based solution to filter content. The content industry has long wanted such a pre-vetting policy to be standard across the internet, forcing sites, rather than copyright owners, to take responsibility for pirated material. At present, video-sharing sites like YouTube merely give copyright owners tools to search for and notify the site of infringing material. TorrentFreak is reporting that the ruling goes against that of the European Court of Justice which last month decreed that Social Networking site Netlog shouldn't be forced to proactively check content as it would violate the privacy of its users. RapidShare lacks Netlog's social elements though, and as such may not be privy to such protection. The site may yet appeal this latest decision however, and the company has recently made changes to try to prevent piracy taking place on its servers. Just last month the company limited the speed of unverified downloads to 30Kbps, forcing uploaders that want to share their files with non-paying users to give up their anonymity to lift the limits. The site argues that most users that are downloading or uploading pirated material prefer not to pay in order to avoid being linked to illegal activity. It remains to be seen if this action will appease the content industry, but it's undoubtably a step in the right direction for a file-sharing site actively seeking legitimacy. source thanks for reading says DJ
