Apparently, the Shetland Islands could not actually be part of Scotland, being pawned to the Scots crown in 1469 as part of a long term loan by King Christian of Denmark, and never intentioned to become a permanent part of Scotland.
Not much chance of succeeding in the case I’d think, but it does give an amusing thought – how much would Denmark have to pay now to clear the debt and get them back?
Via a link on Boing Boing, a post on Gizmodo about research on the ownership of content bought for e-readers such as the Kindle and Sony Reader. It brings up the issue that it would appear that you’re only licensing the content of the books, not buying them in the traditional sense of having outright ownership, with the associated the right to sell on and lend to others.
As the authors of the original research (access appears to be subscription only, but the Gizmodo post includes the article summary) conclude though, if it appears to be a sale, even if it calls itself a licence, it’ll be regarded as a sale.
But you couldn’t sell a copy of your document (some small thing called copyright!), you would have to sell the physical storage device the file was downloaded to. Or perhaps find a way of getting the downloaded file off the reader, leaving no trace / copy of it behind. And as someone points out in the comments, there’s no requirement that says the publishers have to make that process easy for the downloader….
The research is based on US law, and, not being a lawyer, I can’t comment on whether the “first sale” doctrine has an equivalent in the UK.
From CILIP, to me!
After having had my portfolio since September, it missing the October and January Chartership Board meetings, and having no hope of hearing anything until after the April meeting…
I passed!
On a meeting on the 19th of March, bizarrely!
I’m Chartered! – I can put MCLIP after my name!
It’s a bit of an anticlimax now, after submitting it 8 months ago, and all the incredibly ridiculous problems caused by CILIP, and all the fighting to try and get things moved along…
Although one friend has said that she can’t help reading MCLIP as McCLIP….maybe that’s the Scottish version? 😀
You know, I thought the UK political situation could be difficult. The Welsh Assembly, Scottish Government and Northern Ireland Assembly all having different levels of devolved powers. Knowing who can do what, and where that power comes from can be a nightmare. Each piece of secondary legislation has to be double checked to see if it applies to all the parts of the UK, or only some, and even the ones that only apply to some parts may have some importance in general to the parts they’re not actually in force in. For instance, the pleural plaques compensation is currently UK wide legislation, but the Scottish Government disagrees with the decision, and is planning to create its own legislation under its devolved health remit.
But the Belgian situation makes all those niggles easy to deal with. They’ve only just managed to swear in a government…after elections in June 2007! And it may still collapse in July 2008.
At least in the UK we only have one language to have to cope with in negotiations. Well, actually, there’s Welsh in Wales…and Gaelic in Scotland…hmmm, that could get tricky if you get people who want to be difficult!
Dumpling in a Hanky 