A legal payment for a product, but obtaining it at illegal place I'm in the US, and I was looking for the legal ways to watch English Premier League. Unfortunately, most of the legal streaming services do not support Linux, and I have a Linux. Technically, I could watch on my phone with a much smaller screen, because Android is supported. Also, I could install windows or android emulator on my system and use a browser from there to watch games. But all of these are complicated, hence the question: Can I pay legally for a service to watch a game, and then use illegal websites to watch it? Is it legal? Probably I am not gonna do that, but what is the answer?
Because of the nature of online distribution, &quot;watching&quot; a show involves copying, so you need permission from the copyright holder to make those copies. You get permission indirectly, when you access a show via a legal licensee who has permission to distribute. A pirate site has no permission, therefore you cannot legally sub-license the show, and in so doing, you infringe copyright. The issue is not whether you &quot;paid for it&quot;, it is whether you have obtained proper permission. Under copyright law, a rights holder can simply arbitrarily deny you permission to copy the work.
I don't think the issue is that it is a violation of a law, but rather that it is a violation of the terms of service you agree to when you sign up for the site - which is a breach of contract. You can be sued for breach of contract, if the site can prove any damages based on your breach. So if you use a bot to make money on a site, in violation of the site's license agreement, then I believe the site could indeed sue you to get the money back. Also, the phrasing of your question ("creating a robot") raises a separate issue. It is not actually creating the bot that is illegal, but using it where not allowed can be a violation of contract. Suppose person A makes a poker bot, just as a programming exercise, and doesn't use it. But then suppose person B uses the robot created by person A on a site that forbids it. Although this could be a gray area, I do not believe the site would have any recourse against person A (even though they probably would against person B).
IANAL, just a programmer with an interest in legal rules. Due to the very permissive nature of the MIT license, no, it does not appear that anything illegal has been done. Specifically, the section to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software (emphasis mine) grants everyone the right to modify your code and share those modifications, provided one includes the license. Since this person has included your license (including your copyright notice), they have followed the conditions of the license and are able to share your stuff. Legally. Ethically, I still think its ****. This might be a good starting point in selecting a license (note the Modification column). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_free_and_open-source_software_licenses The CC-BY-SA license family, as mentioned by Ron Beyer in comments is on this list, for example. TL;DR: You unfortunately granted a more permissive license than what you wanted/needed to. This was a BadThing(TM), analogous to giving too broad of access rights to a method or class. Determine your desired permissions, then select a license that matches what you'd like to grant.
Yes, they are. A business can decide not to do business with someone for pretty much any reason. The obvious prohibited reason is due to your race. But I don't see how eBay would even know your race. Some State laws might protect you, but I don't think there's any that applies in this case. For example, California might give you a means of appeal if someone stole your identity and they performed those transactions, not you. But I don't know of any Federal or State law that would change the very, very basic principle of law that a property owner gets to decide who can and cannot access their property. eBay owns eBay. One key benefit of ownership is precisely that you can make decisions that other people consider to be unfair, discriminatory (other than the specifically prohibited categories) and draconian. Other people don't have to agree with your decisions for them to be lawful.
I suspect this relates to the UK TV Licencing provisions as listed here, Specifically : Can I watch TV on my mobile phone without a TV Licence? If you’re using a mobile device powered solely by its own internal batteries – like a smartphone, tablet or laptop – you will be covered by your home’s TV Licence, wherever you’re using it in the UK and Channel Islands. However, if you’re away from home and plug one of these devices into the mains and use it to watch live on any channel, TV service or streaming service, or use BBC iPlayer*, you need to be covered by a separate TV Licence at that address (unless you’re in a vehicle or vessel like a train, car or boat). I've said &quot;I suspect&quot; as I don't know for certain what Starbucks are doing, but it looks like this is means that either they are not providing you with use of their Licence at those premises, or that they don't have one for those premises (particularly likely if they're not in the UK, also possible if they are). Without mains power connection (ie. batteries only) it would be the user's home Licence that was relevant. TV Licencing is covered by Part 4 of the Communications Act 2003. [Edit : The official source of the summary at my first link can be found at Schedule 1 paragraph 2(c) of the Statutory Instrument. Thanks to Carcer for the comment.]
Many products can be used for illegal purposes, so selling something that could be used for illegal purposes won't generally result in liability for the producer. Think of software used for computer system and network security testing; it's both useful for legitimate testing and securing systems, but of course it can be used by hackers to find and exploit security holes. Clorox can be used to clean the bathroom or poison someone. If you look at the Terms of Service for https://donotpay.com/learn/terms-of-service-and-privacy-policy/ , you'll see DoNotPay is Not a Law Firm DoNotPay provides a platform for legal information and self-help. The information provided by DoNotPay along with the content on our website related to legal matters (&quot;Legal Information&quot;) is provided for your private use and does not constitute advice. We do not review any information you provide us for legal accuracy or sufficiency, draw legal conclusions, provide opinions about your selection of forms, or apply the law to the facts of your situation. If you need advice for a specific problem, you should consult with a licensed attorney. As DoNotPay is not a law firm, please note that any communications between you and DoNotPay may not be protected under the attorney-client privilege doctrine. and Your use of the Service is subject to all applicable federal, state and local laws and regulations. Unauthorized use of the Service is prohibited, and violators can be prosecuted under federal and state laws. Virginia law and Federal law will govern the interpretation and enforcement of these Terms. That's for the web service, but it's useful to point out the distinction between a user using DoNotPay for themselves and getting a script to read in court, and the DoNotPay service actually participating in a court appearance representing the user. The reason DoNotPay pulled the plug on the court appearance, as pointed out in the article https://www.businessinsider.com/donotpay-ceo-says-risks-jail-ai-robot-lawyer-used-court-2023-1 is that DoNotPay's AI &quot;robot&quot; lawyer was going to actively argue in court, and the state bar objected, because that's what only lawyers are licensed to do. If the DoNotPay source code was released and someone used it on their own computer to analyze a legal situation and give themselves options and offer decisions, this could probably be seen as little different than someone reading books that analyze the law and strategies and offer options of how to go about representing oneself in a court. The software would be used to make decisions before and after court; the software is not actively arguing and making decisions for the user in court. Of course, in this brand new world of AI, the final assessment of whether or not AI software can be used to give others (or oneself) legal advice - either in court and/or prep for court - will likely have to be finally determined by litigation and courts. The idea of open source or closed source could possibly come into play to determine exactly how the software works, but would not be the sole criteria to determine if the use of the software is legal or not. The software could be simply a &quot;decision tree&quot; (little different than textbooks) that follows a hard-coded if/else script, such as If you get a ticket, go to court; if you plead guilty, this is what happens; if you plead not guilty, these are your options. Or, the software could have true AI aspects, i.e. it develops arguments for being not guilty from your past legal history, and develops and responds to the court's actions with counter arguments, and actually gives opinions to the user on what they should do. If the software is open source, we all see how it works and if it is a decision tree or real AI (and the software can also be modified by users and other developers.) If the software is closed source, we can't see how it works, and we don't know if it is a decision tree or AI, unless it it is opened, possibly through court order during possible litigation to determine if it is giving legal advice. Again, AI is a brand new thing in the legal world.
Note: IANAL Does the placement of a sticker stating, "We accept XYZ credit cards," essentially obligate a business to accept that card? It depends on whether you mean whether they are obligated to provide goods/services to someone who presents the card, or whether, having provided goods/services, they are obligated to accept the card as payment. For the first question, the answer is "no". The credit card brand could theoretically go after them, however, as names of credit networks are trademarks, so claiming to accept a card but not doing so is trademark infringement. For the second, the answer is "pretty much". Since they misrepresented their establishment, there is no mutual assent and therefore no contract. If they try to use "defrauding the innkeeper statutes", those require fraudulent intent. If you fully intended to pay for you meal by a credit card, and it was their choice to refuse payment, then you have no fraudulent intent. The only avenue I can see for them is some sort of equity argument, but that would be problematic, especially if they ask for the retail, rather than wholesale, price, and not worth the hassle of collecting. So, legally, you can just walk out, but in practice if they have a bouncer they might make trouble for you.
it would violate law? It would be very dependent of what your jurisdiction is and what the software does. I would expect most software that would be lawful to install at your home would be lawful to install at your company, but there may be exceptions. To put an hyperbolic example, if you work at the CIA and you install some remote access software that allows you to access your workstation from a non-secure PC through non-secure methods, I am pretty sure that would be illegal, even if you had the best of intentions. A recent scenario taken from real life involves some members an organization who are required to use official e-mail servers for FOIA purposes setting up their own private mail servers. Of course, YMMV. can I purchase it for myself, and then use at workplace Even if the software is legal it does not mean that it is ok to use it at the workplace. Most business have rules about what software may be installed in the PCs, who may install it and how to manage it. Your software could introduce security vulnerabilities that your IT team may need to be aware of, or incompatibilities with other software. It may introduce legal liabilities (you install a "home edition" licence in a corporate environment where that licence is invalid). Your company may discipline you if you breaking those guidelines and install software without authorization, even if there is no harm for them for this action. On top of that, if your actions cause some damage to the company, it can sue you to get you to pay for those damages. Before taking any action you should inquiry about your company's IT policy and, if your company does not have one or if the policy is not clear about allowing you to install the software, ask the people in charge (preferably in writting).