Who owns the ancient alien bases hidden underneath Antarctica? I know most of you don't believe in &quot;aliens,&quot; but my friend John MacQuoid believes there are underground ancient alien bases in Antarctica. Yeah, I know this sounds ludicrous, but according to John, an ancient alien species built several bases in the southern hemisphere hundreds of thousands of years ago. These bases now lie there, waiting for someone to discover them. My question is: who becomes the owner of the ancient alien bases once they're are discovered? Is it the person or country that discovered them, the Antarctic Treaty signatories, or the aliens themselves?
The Antarctic Treaty doesn't establish ownership or sovereignty Article IV of the Antarctic Treaty makes clear that the Treaty is not a renunciation by any contracting party of any basis of claim to territorial sovereignty in Antarctica. And &quot;[n]o acts or activities taking place while the present Treaty is in force shall constitute a basis for asserting, supporting or denying a claim to territorial sovereignty in Antarctica or create any rights of sovereignty in Antarctica.&quot; So, while the Antarctic Treaty establishes an arrangement for cooperative shared use of the areas, it is not about sovereignty or ownership. Territorial claims There are (were) however territorial claims to various areas of Antarctica. These have not been resolved at international law. Who owns the centre of the earth? A traditional common-law property rule is that ownership extends to the center of the earth (see generally, John G. Sprankling, &quot;Owning the Center of the Earth&quot;). Sprankling notes that this was never taken literally until after it was introduced by Blackstone and argues that its time is near an end. But in any case, I think the correct starting point is that the owner of the surface owns what's underneath, at least to an extent. Who owns the alien bases, and what would that mean? Applying Earth law, ownership of the alien bases would be disputed among those nations who are willing to assert territorial claims to the surface under which the alien bases are found. However, if these bases are cultural heritage property (which their age suggests they might be), the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property could prevent the import, export, or transfer of any of the material from the bases. The &quot;owning&quot; country (if that is ever resolved) might have obligations under international law to preserve the bases. Further, if the dispute over the property results in armed conflict, the competing states could have obligations under the 1954 Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict to avoid damaging the cultural property. Is Earth law the applicable law? If we take this hypothetical at face value, it implies we are not alone and in relationship with other extra-terrestrial culture(s). If members of those cultures were to reach out, that should at least bring us to consider that our law is not supreme. Our law would need to coexist with other law; other law that potentially has very different conceptions of ownership and rights.
Say I build myself a faraday cage/wave screen around my house, potentially resulting in poor nework coverage for my neighbours. Questions about land property and constructing permits apart, can I be sued for that? By the network operator? by the neighbours? In most countries, the use of the radio spectrum is regulated (who may send what on which frequency, at which power, etc.). As part of these regulations it is usually forbidden to interfere with the reception of radio waves. So if what you do causes your neighbours to have reception problems, then yes, that will most likely be illegal. In France, the government agency responsible for these problems is ARCEP (Autorité de Régulation des Communications Électroniques et des Postes). If someone notices reception problems, they can complain to ARCEP, as explained for example on the page Le traitement des plaintes en brouillage ("Handling of complaints about jamming"). While you will probably not go to prision for jamming reception, you could have to pay a significant fine. This article on cell phone jamming mentions a penalty of "up to six months in prison or a 30,000 € fine" for "selling or installing" a cell phone jammer. In addition to that, anyone harmed by the reception problems could sue you in civil court and try to collect financial damages (how much that would be will be up to a judge to decide). That said, note that a faraday cage around your house should not hinder reception outside your house. A faraday cage only influences reception inside the cage, not outside. However, that is off-topic here :-).
There is no case law as yet However, the most likely situation is that there is no copyright in the original works because they are computer-generated. There is certainly copyright in the code that created the art but the output of that code, the art itself, would probably not be subject to copyright. Copyright only exists in art created by humans. The US Ninth Circuit has held that animals cannot create copyrighted works. Subsequently, the US Copyright office has rejected applications for registration (a prerequisite to a suit in the US) of computer-generated art because it “lacks the human authorship necessary to support a copyright claim.” While this position has not been tested in the courts, I don't think they are any more likely to grant copyright to a program than they were to a monkey. What's going on? The OP states that there is litigation: there isn't. What there is, is a DCMA takedown request from Larva Labs. If this is complied with that will be the end of the matter; if it isn't then there may be litigation. However, before Larva Labs could sue CryptoPunks in the US they would first need to get a writ of mandamus to force the USCO to register it. If they try and fail then there will be a legally binding court decision that Larva Labs don't own the copyright in any of their computer-generated art. Which kills their business model and, presumably, them. This would be a very high-risk move. They may choose to sue in a jurisdiction where registration is not a prerequisite, however, that court would still need to be satisfied that there was a copyright that could be breached. So that's just a different take on the same problem. I have ignored the issue of NFTs as these are legally problematic in their own right and irrelevant to the main question. However, the NFT and the artwork are not the same thing.
This is a live political issue. Currently, the various datasets are incomplete and have known accuracy issues. Considering a particular parcel of land: It might not be in the Land Registry at all. About 85% of land in England and Wales is registered, and less in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Scottish registered land might only appear on the paper &quot;Register of Sasines&quot;, as opposed to the more recent electronic database, or potentially in even older county-specific sasine registers. The owner might be a company, partnership, trust, etc., rather than a natural person. The ownership and control of that company (etc.) can be hard to trace. Companies House data is not verified; companies can be incorporated overseas; the trusts register is not publicly searchable; things can be muddled. Raw data might not show that a dozen properties, each owned by a single company that owns nothing else, are in fact ultimately controlled by a particular person of interest. Different people may own the freehold, or a leasehold, or have various other forms of ownership or control. Even a long-term tenancy may be of interest for database purposes. Because of continuing interest in anti-money laundering, tax evasion, and general accumulation of wealth, there have been plans to have a new &quot;register of beneficial ownership&quot;. Such a register would record, for each plot of land, the name of the human beings who actually own and control it in the end. In the anticipated structure, each of those people would have an identifying number, and so we would get your proposed reverse index where you could look up a person and see what they owned. The register introduced by the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022 is the &quot;Register of Overseas Entities&quot; (ROE). However, as the name suggests, it only covers companies/partnerships/etc. from outside the UK. It's operated by Companies House. Overseas entities who have dealt in UK land since 1999/2014/2022 (depending on which part of the UK the land was in) have to list their beneficial owners. Because this is new, it is also not very complete yet: it only went live on 1 August 2022 and no penalties apply until the deadline of 31 January 2023. In Scotland, the &quot;Register of Persons Holding a Controlled Interest in Land&quot; (RCI) is meant to do the same but not just for overseas entities. It is live since 1 April 2022 and the initial registration period ends on 1 April 2023, so again it may not be very complete just yet. There will likely be more political tussle over potential creation of a more extensive UK-wide register. Until that exists, this is a known problem with the extent of current data. You can get a partial view but even that will be frustrating when it comes to the most interesting chunks of property.
Reading some background on Stefan Molyneux (Wikipedia) would indicate that he is a (Canadian) right-wing provocateur (Merriam-Webster) and there is no legal logic to his claim that anyone involved with the migrant caravan - either as a refugee or a person giving aid - is committing an act of treason. Provocateurs - on the political left or right - seek to incite arguments and/or movements on social or political issues with emotion and not on legal frameworks or logical discussion. Provocateurs use words and phrases that can be identified as Dog-whistles (Wikipedia). Calling out "treason" and accusing one of being a traitor are examples of dog whistles. The legal reasoning against leveling calls of treason against anyone helping the caravan members are many; the migrants are not (from the U.S. Constitution:) levying war against them (the US), or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.... because: • None of the countries of origin of the migrants are currently in armed conflict with the U.S. • None of the migrants - alone or as a whole - are armed to engage the U.S. or are a threat to the U.S. • The refugees are easily identified as economic migrants, political refugees or those fleeing violence (domestic, communal, sectarian). • According to Refugee law (Wikipedia) and US Federal law, migrants have a right to due process at the border. • There is no clear proof of an ulterior motive or funding for the migrants in the the caravans. There could be - now or in the future - Americans or American-based aid groups helping individuals or the group as a whole with necessities with food and safety while they travel or after they arrive at the border. But the fact remains that each migrant - when and if they reach the US border - will be legally assessed individually as a migrant or refugee. The aid they may have received is really no different than what many NGOs provide who help arrange a refugees' processing through legal immigration channels, in some instances in conjunction with a US Government agency or with an arm of the United Nations. Such aid by an American is not treasonous for the legal reasoning above.
The Iran lawsuit depended on a statute directed against Iran, not applicable to the Chinese government. The Alien Tort Claims Act, which gives US federal courts original jurisdiction for torts "committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States", neither of which is likely to describe the allegation against the Chinese government. The Chinese government probably would not entertain such a suit, and US courts do not have jurisdiction. It is also unclear how much US property is owned by the government of the PRC which could be seized: reports simply talk about "owned by the Chinese" without distinguishing government vs. private ownership.
I would assume that the seller ('Transferor') still owned numbers 7 and 11 at the time of the sale. If so, this clause means that the owners of 7 and 11 (now and in the future) have a right of way on the path coloured blue on the plan. The land still belongs to number 9, but the owners cannot build on it so as to block the path. (As mckenzm comments, "on foot only" is an important qualification; the neighbours do not have a right to install utilities under the path, and the owner can put in obstacles that prevent bringing cycles down it).
Florida bar membership is something that can be determined from public records to see if he is an attorney or not. I would be stunned if he was not. It could be that he was an enrolled patent agent prior to being admitted to the practice of law and has never updated the record. Alternatively, it could simply be that there was a data entry error. No large database is 100% accurate. For most purposes, the rights of an enrolled patent agent and an attorney admitted to patent law practice are the same in PTO practice, so correcting this error (assuming that it is one), even if it was discovered, wouldn't be an urgent priority.