I believe the age of consent is either 16 or 18, so the 21yo will be prosecuted as a rapist regardless of the actual details of the case. The law says that he's a rapist, therefore he'll be tried as one. The law also says that the 15yo is a victim in this particular crime.
2. $40 and a bottle of alcohol changed hands explicitly to purchase this encounter.
That's prostitution: sex happened + payment. The 15yo being a minor makes this child prostitution which I believe is seriously illegal. Again, the 15yo will be explicitly named as the victim. If the 17yo so much as was given a sip from the bottle, she profited from it, so therefore she'll be named an accomplice or pimp or whatever and get fingered for child sex trafficking or something similar.
Now I'm sure that what happened is that all three were acquaintances and: - the 15yo wanted a sexual experience - the 21yo was happy to oblige - the 17yo set it up as she'd done with some other acquaintances - the 21yo gave the cash and booze as a thank-you gift and finally - the 17yo made a joke on Facebook about it
However the law is pretty explicit about stuff like this and as far as it's concerned, everyone's done something wrong so everyone's going to get dragged through the courts here.
As I see it, there's two issues here:
1. whitehouse.gov isn't 508 compliant / usable by blind people. A technical issue that must be fixed. I believe there are captcha implementations that are blind accessible, surely it'd be an afternoon's work to swap their current implementation out for a better one.
2. Because of 1, it's not getting the signatures it should.
I'm sure they're aware of #1 - and promoting this piece and others like it will help raise awareness of the issue and prompt them to action.
As for #2, solving that is simple: you've already signed the partition, right?
Maybe it should be written into law that contracts based on patents must, through some mechanism, grant the people involved the right to sue for some compensation over invalidated patents. - of course the trolls will inevitably find a way around this, but it's a start.
So this way if Company A pays up, then Company B fights and wins and the patents are declared invalid, Company A has grounds to sue the troll for compensation. Of course they'll never get back the full amount they paid up as they'll have to shell out some cash for lawyers and stuff, but in the end it'll be another cost for the troll.
(Telstra is one of the major telcos in Australia. They used to be shockingly expensive and unreliable but have cleaned up their act and tried to become "hip" and "trendy")
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by SkUrRiEr.
Re: Victimless crime
The facts of the case are:
1. A 15 year old and 21 year old had sex.
I believe the age of consent is either 16 or 18, so the 21yo will be prosecuted as a rapist regardless of the actual details of the case. The law says that he's a rapist, therefore he'll be tried as one. The law also says that the 15yo is a victim in this particular crime.
2. $40 and a bottle of alcohol changed hands explicitly to purchase this encounter.
That's prostitution: sex happened + payment. The 15yo being a minor makes this child prostitution which I believe is seriously illegal. Again, the 15yo will be explicitly named as the victim. If the 17yo so much as was given a sip from the bottle, she profited from it, so therefore she'll be named an accomplice or pimp or whatever and get fingered for child sex trafficking or something similar.
Now I'm sure that what happened is that all three were acquaintances and:
- the 15yo wanted a sexual experience
- the 21yo was happy to oblige
- the 17yo set it up as she'd done with some other acquaintances
- the 21yo gave the cash and booze as a thank-you gift
and finally
- the 17yo made a joke on Facebook about it
However the law is pretty explicit about stuff like this and as far as it's concerned, everyone's done something wrong so everyone's going to get dragged through the courts here.
I signed it
As I see it, there's two issues here:
1. whitehouse.gov isn't 508 compliant / usable by blind people. A technical issue that must be fixed. I believe there are captcha implementations that are blind accessible, surely it'd be an afternoon's work to swap their current implementation out for a better one.
2. Because of 1, it's not getting the signatures it should.
I'm sure they're aware of #1 - and promoting this piece and others like it will help raise awareness of the issue and prompt them to action.
As for #2, solving that is simple: you've already signed the partition, right?
Re:
Maybe it should be written into law that contracts based on patents must, through some mechanism, grant the people involved the right to sue for some compensation over invalidated patents. - of course the trolls will inevitably find a way around this, but it's a start.
So this way if Company A pays up, then Company B fights and wins and the patents are declared invalid, Company A has grounds to sue the troll for compensation. Of course they'll never get back the full amount they paid up as they'll have to shell out some cash for lawyers and stuff, but in the end it'll be another cost for the troll.
Shockingly
Shockingly, they look just like Telstra stores!
http://www.stratel.com.au/images/telstra-shop-5.jpg
http://www.clarendoncentre.com.au/media/5945/testra%20image%20img_0041.jpg
(Telstra is one of the major telcos in Australia. They used to be shockingly expensive and unreliable but have cleaned up their act and tried to become "hip" and "trendy")