Re: to the point/Latin mutterings

Don Berman writes:
>
>First, one should recognize that violations of certain laws carry no
>moral implications - a teacher is not a "bad" person if she miscalculates
>about the extent of the fair use exception. Second, many of these so
>called violations would not be so deemed by a court when interpreting
>the many exceptions to unlawful infringement. Finally, as Mark points
>out, the law can't forsee all permutations and combinatins that may
>arise. This is clearly reflected in the history of equity. In the
>criminal law we have doctrine of prosecutorial discretion, jury
>nullification, pardon, etc. And we shouldn't forget the general doctrine
>that a court need not enforce a law that has fallen out of use. I'm
>sure we can think of many more. Rather than seeing this as citizens
>"breaking" laws I prefer to see the problem as the law adjusting to
>excuse conduct that society does not believe warrants civil or criminal
>liability.

I agree. Do you however, see the adjustments of the law coming about by increasingly more complex codification, with all sorts of exclusions and ifs and buts and things tacked on to the legislation, or just through the general doctrines of interpretory(?) discretion you describe above. Does our copyright act get longer and longer, or will the same questions (and possibly litigation) occur over and over?

Cheers,

-Mike Lean
<m.lean[_at_]qut.edu.au> Received on Thu Nov 17 1994 - 22:45:45 GMT