Equivalent of &quot;illegal&quot; for violating civil law If "illegal" is typically used for criminal law, what adjective or adjectives are generally used for breaking civil law?
The term "illegal" is also often used for actions that the law prohibits, but that give rise to civil liability, rather than criminal prosecution. We see such use a lot in questions on Law.SE. One also says that a person "is liable" when there are grounds for a civil suit against that person. One might also say that such a person "has commited a tort" or "has civil liability" or "could be held liable". In the specific cases of copyright, trademark, and patent law, one says that a violator "his infringed" or has committed infringement" and that an act contrary to those laws "is an infringement".
In the United States, you can always choose to (try to) flee police. If the police subsequently assert that they tried to detain you, then they can choose to charge you with a number of crimes (which vary by jurisdiction). The assertion that you did not (or could not) in fact hear or perceive a lawful order to stop is a defense that you could raise in response to such charges. It is up to the triers of fact to determine whether, given the specifics of the case, they accept that defense.
Some jurisdictions have laws which make it illegal to create a software which is intended to commit crimes (usually computer-related crimes). For example, the German criminal law §202c StGB makes it illegal to create (or sell, convey, etc.) a program which has the purpose to commit crimes against the previous paragraphs 202a (stealing data) or 202b (intercepting data). The constitutional court later clarified that this law is only to be used against programs which serve no other purpose than to commit crimes and not against &quot;dual use&quot; tools which can also be used for legitimate purposes. So if one were accused of committing the crime of creating such a program, then a possible defense strategy could be to convince the court that they never intended for their program to be used to commit crimes.
Very few terms have a single "legal" definition or meaning that applies to all laws, and can be looked up as if in a dictionary. Rather, when a specific meaning is needed in connection with a particular law, that law will include a definition. But that definition will often not apply to the use of the same term in other laws or other contexts. Here I suspect that the OP has found the definition section of a US Federal law regulating commercial transport in interstate commerce. Obviously in such a law, those terms would be defined in the context of commercial transport. That does not mean that the same meanings will be applied in other laws. Driver's licenses and other traffic and motor vehicle regulations are largely matters of state law in the US. Definitions from a federal law, or indeed any law but that state's Motor Vehicle Code (or whatever a given state calls such a body of law) will simply not be relevant. The argument sketched in the question simply does not follow.
In general, a ToS document for a web site or online service is simply a contract or agreement. Normally violations of such an agreement are possible grounds for a civil suit, but are not crimes. Moreover, some terms that some TOS documents claim are not legally enforceable. For example some insist that a user waive a right that the law says cannot be waived. The kind of terms mentioned ion the question are probably enforceable in most jurisdictions. If a person intentionally supplies false information to a site operator or service provider, with the intention of gaining some financial benefit that would not be available without the false statements, under circumstances where it would be reasonable for the site operator to rely on the statements, that would be fraud in many jurisdictions. Fraud is often a matter for a civil suit, but in some cases it can be a crime also. Those cases vary in different jurisdictions, and the question does not specify any particular jurisdiction. Criminal fraud is the only case where I can think of where a ToS violation would be a crime. Some TOS documents prohibit things which are already crimes. For example a communication site might include in its ToS that users are not to use it to assist in committing a crime, or to unlawfully harass someone. If a user violated those provisions, they would also be committing a crime, but only because those actions would be crimes even if the TOS had never mentioned them. It is a crime to plan a murder via a chat site, whether the TOS says so or not. But that is because it is a crime to plan a murder in general, with nor without the chat site. There are some specifically online crimes. For example, posting so-called &quot;revenge porn&quot; is a crime in many jurisdictions. But that is a crime because of a law against it, not because of a TOS that prohibits it. In all usual cases, a ToS violation will be dealt with via a civil suit, or by limiting or canceling the user's access, if it is dealt with at all. CFAA In the united-states the Computer fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), specifically 18 U. S. C. §1030(a)(2), makes it a crime for anyone who ... intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access ... The recent case of Van Buren v. United States, 593 U.S. ___ (2021) dealt with the &quot;exceeds authorized access&quot; language. (See the Wikipedia article) In that case, Van Buren, a police officer, accessed official databases to determine id the holder of a given license plate was in fact an undercover police officer. Van Buren thought that this information was being provided to a criminal, and was paid $6,000 for it. Van Buren knew that the access policy prohibited access for &quot;personal use&quot; or any &quot;non-official purpose&quot;. He was charged with a felony violation of the CFAA on the ground that he accessed information with an &quot;improper purpose&quot;, although he would have been authorized to access that same information with a proper purpose. After a long discussion of the meanign of the words &quot;so&quot; and &quot;entitled&quot; in the stsatute, the court opnion says: If the “exceeds authorized access” clause criminalizes every violation of a computer-use policy, then millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens are criminals. Take the workplace. Employers commonly state that computers and electronic devices can be used only for business purposes. So on the Government’s reading of the statute, an employee who sends a personal e-mail or reads the news using her work computer has violated the CFAA. Or consider the Internet. Many websites, services, and databases—which provide “information” from “protected computer[s],” §1030(a)(2)(C)—authorize a user’s access only upon his agreement to follow specified terms of service. If the “exceeds authorized access” clause encompasses violations of circumstance-based access restrictions on employers’ computers, it is difficult to see why it would not also encompass violations of such restrictions on website providers’ computers. And indeed, numerous amici explain why the Government’s reading of subsection (a)(2) would do just that—criminalize everything from embellishing an online-dating profile to using a pseudonym on Facebook. ... ... For example, one police department might prohibit using a confidential database for a non-law-enforcement purpose (an access restriction), while another might prohibit using information from the database for a non-law-enforcement purpose (a use restriction). Conduct like Van Buren’s can be characterized either way, and an employer might not see much difference between the two. On the Government’s reading, however, the conduct would violate the CFAA only if the employer phrased the policy as an access restriction. An interpretation that stakes so much on a fine distinction controlled by the drafting practices of private parties is hard to sell as the most plausible. In sum, an individual “exceeds authorized access” when he accesses a computer with authorization but then obtains information located in particular areas of the computer—such as files, folders, or databases—that are off limits to him. This case clearly says that a person who has authorization to access a computer, but does so for a purpose prohibited by system policy, perhaps as expressed n a TOS contract, is not subject to criminal prosecution under the CFAA. It does not directly deal with the case where, as a condition of access, a person must furnish truthful ID information, or comply with some other condition, and whether violating such a condition would constitute a crime under the CFAA. But it casts significant doubt on any interpretation of the CFAA which would treat that as a crime
The distinction is a question of culpability, not just the harm caused. The law, at least in the criminal law context, is not fundamentally consequentialist in its philosophy. The end consequence of an act for which someone is at fault in some way isn't the only thing that matters in criminal law. Instead, there is basically a two dimensional grid. On one axis is the seriousness of the harm caused on the "eye for an eye" theory of proportionality between punishment and the harm caused. Thus, homicide is more serious than causing serious bodily injury or raping someone, which is more serious than causing bodily injury that is not serious or sexual in nature. Grand theft is more serious than shoplifting. It doesn't make economic sense to spend $70,000 a year to incarcerate someone for many years to prevent people from stealing $15 items, unless very extreme aspects of the person's criminal history suggest that this seemingly minor incident demonstrates a high risk of future offenses that are far more serious because it proves that a hardened criminal hasn't reformed himself or herself. On the other axis is basically a measure of how evil and malicious someone would have to be to do such a thing which is called culpability. At once extreme, first degree murder, for example, is calculated, premeditated harm to another. At the other extremes are completely non-culpable conduct (either due to lack of any fault-worthy conduct or because someone is mentally incapable in the eyes of society of engaging in culpable conduct like a baby or someone with dementia or someone having hallucinations relevant to the conduct that kills someone, ordinarily negligent conduct that kills someone, and criminally negligent conduct that kills someone. In between the extremes is conduct that is reckless or is impulsive or carried out in the heat of passion or by someone with diminished capacity. Only moderately culpable conduct is punishable only by a civil lawsuit for compensatory damages, and non-culpable conduct isn't even punishable in a civil lawsuit in the absence of special circumstances in which strict liability is imposed in lieu of proof of culpability. Less culpable conduct commands less serious sentences, and more culpable conduct commands more serious sentences. Why single out culpability? Basically, this is a crude way a predicting, based upon someone's past actions, the risk that the pose in the future. (Our evaluation of culpability is further refined and adjusted by factors related to the individual defendant and not the particular offense involved, like a criminal defendant's status as a juvenile or adult, and the individuals history of prior criminal convictions.) Conduct that constitutes first degree murder corresponds more or less to psychopathy, an incurable psychiatric condition in which someone lacks all empathy and takes selfish delight in harming others out of boredom or for personal gain. Psychopathy is a technical term that is modern abnormal psychology's closest synonym to saying that someone is unredeemable and evil, and conduct for which the death penalty is available, mostly in conduct that is most highly diagnostic of psychopathy, since the usual goal of incarceration, to return someone to the community once they are no longer an appreciably elevated threat to it, can never be achieved in the case of someone who is unredeemable and evil, because their condition is an incurable part of who they are as a person and their lack of empathy makes them incapable of emotionally distinguishing between right and wrong or feeling guilt. This intuition bears out. The more culpable an offense is, the more likely it is that the offender scores high on standardized measures of the extent to which someone displays signs of psychopathy that are exemplified in serial killers and the worst con men. Intermediate levels of liability correspond more or less to impulsivity that can turn violent (which is associated with a variety of incurable psychiatric conditions and also with the developmental states of adolescence and young adulthood and with instances of excessive intoxicant consumption, especially in men), in which someone knows what they are doing is wrong but lacks sufficient self-control to prevent themselves from acting until it is too late and they have calmed down, at least until they "age out" or or take steps to treat the symptoms of the conditions or addictions or intoxicated excesses. Their lack of self-control makes them a potential risk to others even though they empathize and feel guilt, but not like the risk associated with a psychopath who just doesn't care at all if they are doing something that violates intuitive moral codes of conduct. Negligence, i.e. inattentiveness and carelessness pose even less of a threat to the community and while it could be due to something like attention deficit disorder, could also be due to extenuating circumstances like sleep deprivation or being overwhelmed with too much at once to keep track of everything at once. Negligence harm generally isn't even momentarily malicious due to loss of control and the person who harms someone negligently will often immediately regret the harm that they caused and will try to refrain from doing so again and will try to make things right. Such a person is far less of a future threat to society, but still more of a threat than someone who doesn't harm others in the first place in any manner in which they are at fault. Who decides? Reasonable people (and even reasonable judges) can and do have differences of opinion on the relative importance of seriousness of harm and culpability in determining a sentence for a conviction of a particular course of illegal conduct. The difficulty in balancing the apples and oranges factors of seriousness of harm (which, in part, reflects a person's capacity to inflict serious harm in the future and also reflects society's judgment about how serious it is to do something with ill intent) and culpability. To insure that these factors are balanced in a predictable and fair way, we embody the weighing of those two factors in a collective legislative judgment codified in a state or national penal code, rather than a case by case decision making process by judges. The modern trend towards giving more weight to culpability. If anything, the tendency at the present is for legislative judgment to give more weight to culpability than it has in the past as social science methods in criminology have demonstrated that culpability demonstrated in criminal conduct actually carried out by a person is indeed highly predictive of that person's future dangerousness to society For example, cruelty to animals is an offense which reflects very high levels of culpability despite often involving relatively modest amounts of harm viewed in a human-centric way. But, cruelty to animals is increasingly being upgraded from a misdemeanor to a felony, because it is a very diagnostic litmus test for psychopathy in an individual and very frequently eventually escalates to causing serious harm to humans. Similarly, drunk driving when it is charged based upon a traffic stop, rather than an accident that occurred while someone was driving drunk, is a very low harm offense, just like any other traffic offense, and historically has only been a misdemeanor. But, in cases where someone is repeatedly convicted of drunk driving, the culpability is high and the conduct tends to reflect a very difficult to self-regulate addiction and substance abuse problem that is highly likely to recur and to eventually result in a high harm accident. Repeated convictions are what distinguish an incident where someone is basically just criminally negligent in driving when they should have known that they shouldn't, from the far more serious case where someone recklessly and with indifference to the well being of others drives drunk knowing full what the risk that they are exposing other people to. And because repeat drunk driving convictions are more culpable and reflect a personal character of the offender that shows a high likelihood of causing future harm to others, many states are starting to upgrade repeat drunk driving from a misdemeanor to a felony even though the actual harm from the specific incident of drunk driving that only gives rise to a traffic stop is still just as low the fifth or sixth time someone is convicted as it was the first time. Conclusion So, in sum, assigning different penalties to different levels of culpability is a way to allocate limited correctional and punishment resources in a manner proportionate to the future risk of dangerousness that the current conviction provides undeniable evidence of in a non-arbitrary manner. Indeed, most people simply internalize the notion that more culpable conduct deserves more serious punishment because it is wrong, without conceptualizing in the more theoretical abnormal psychology informed and utilitarian framework in which I have described it above to demonstrate the implicit logic and wisdom behind the gut instinct that more culpable conduct should be punished more seriously, especially when its cause is not a passing incident that is unlikely to recur.
Criminal negligence pertains to criminal acts, which are prosecuted by the government and where a defendant can be convicted and punished. There will be a statute explaining where "criminal negligence" is relevant and when it is applicable. Here is the section in Washington law about criminal negligence: A person is criminally negligent or acts with criminal negligence when he or she fails to be aware of a substantial risk that a wrongful act may occur and his or her failure to be aware of such substantial risk constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would exercise in the same situation. There are a number of criminal offenses where being "criminally negligent" in doing the thing is sufficient, for example mistreatment of a child or manslaughter. First degree murder requires "premeditated intent to cause the death of another person" which does not does not include "criminal negligence" (there is a separate clause about "under circumstances manifesting an extreme indifference to human life" which is different from criminal negligence). "Gross negligence" can arise in a number of other non-criminal circumstances, and is defined (and discussed) here. Gross negligence is the failure to exercise slight care. It is negligence that is substantially greater than ordinary negligence. Failure to exercise slight care does not mean the total absence of care but care substantially less than ordinary care. This concept arises under numerous laws such as the gross negligence of government officers in fish and wildlife matters, where the game wardn can be sued and found civilly liable for gross negligence in performance of duties. He can't be imprisoned (it's not a crime), but he can be fired or forced to compensate the damaged party. There is no clear difference in what level of negligence we are talking about, instead the difference has to do what what kind of law we are concerned with. Usually (?), crimes are intentional acts where the prosecution has to prove that the defendant intended to do so-and-so. But laws are also written so that certain levels of bad behavior also punishable, such as tricking a person into falling to their death as part of a jackass stunt. One use of "gross negligence" in a civil case is that certain act may be immunized against liability arising from simple negligence (Good Samaritan law for example), but not gross negligence.
What is the status of songs that glorify illegal activity in different countries? germany Depends on the crime and the lyrics. For historical reasons, glorifying genocide is banned. Calling for crimes to be committed against individuals is banned. More generic 'gangster rap' pretending to a criminal lifestyle is allowed. The exact dividing line between the two comes out in court precedents, which weigh the freedom of expression against the freedom from insults and criminal threats. Are there any countries where my question would be illegal to write? Sure. Consider North Korea, where those lyrics would be evidence of decadent Western speech patterns and get punished by two years to life (or more, if the police has a quota to fill).