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Rachel's Bits and Briefs

Here are a few legal "shorts" to keep you busy over a (hopefully) warm long weekend:

• France Passes First Bill to Cut Internet Connection of Illegal Downloaders - Yaboo Canada News reported Tuesday that legislators in France have passed a bill to form what may be the first government agency to track and discipline online pirates. The bill proposes to cut the Internet service of those who frequently download films and music illegally:

?International music labels, film distributors and artists have hailed the bill as a decisive step in combating online piracy in France, where CD and DVD sales have plummeted 60 per cent in the last six years.

Some critics contend that users downloading from public Wi-Fi hotspots or using masked IP addresses might be impossible to trace. They say the law also misses the point by targeting traditional downloads at a time when online streaming is taking off, for example.?

• Busted for Boppin? - Twenty-five years after the release of the classic dance film ?Footloose? The Chillicothe Gazette reports that a 17 year-old Ohio student, who attends a Christian School that has banned dancing, has been ?busted for boppin?? at another High School?s prom dance. This deceptive dancing has resulted in suspension. Kevin Bacon would be proud.

• ?Norman? ? Another Wal-Mart Lawsuit - Canoe Canada News reports that a resident of Louisiana, New Orleans recently received quite the shock while shopping at her local Wal-Mart:

Rebecca White says in her lawsuit that employees at a Wal-Mart in Abbeville let a rat-tailed rodent known as a nutria run loose and scare her. She says that not only did employees know it was in their store, but gave it a pet name, Norman, and failed to warn shoppers.

For those of us who don?t know what Nutria are, the report paints a vibrant picture:

Nutria have bright orange buck teeth and can weigh up to 18 pounds. Would-be fur farmers in 22 states imported them in large numbers in the 1930s and ?40s, then released them when they proved unprofitable. They proliferated in south Louisiana.

White is asking for compensation for suffering, pain, fear, mental anguish, disabling injuries and medical expenses currently totaled at $2,000.00.

• Queens Park Commits Funds to Save 9,000 Daycare Spaces - Before most Canadians had heard of Stephen Harper (January 2006) they had heard of child-care funding. Parent Central reports that more than $63 million in federal child-care funds are set to run out next March 31^st, 2010. No promise of continuing funding was made in the recent federal budget. According to Parent Central, "child-care operators were reluctantly preparing to chop spaces starting next fall.? Queen?s Park recently announced that the Provincial Government will step up with an additional $18 million in funding, estimated to save as many as 9,000 Provincial child-care spaces.

• Ontario Attorney General Goes Higher Tech - Ontario's A.G. recently updated its website's ?List of Ontario Court Addresses.? The page now provides location maps (powered by Google) to show the exact location of each court address. In addition, users may now choose to search by Municipality, and the site provides a hyperlink to each address, that when clicked on, links users to a map of the Court and general information including the telephone numbers of each court office.

• Ontario Justice of the Peace Accused of Sexual Assault - The Toronto Star recently reported that a Brampton, Ontario Justice of the Peace alleges she was sexually assaulted by another J. P. at the Court:
  

  It was a deliberate full-hand grab and squeeze," she told a commission of inquiry yesterday. "By the time I had turned around he retreated to his office. A public hearing is determining if Justice of the Peace Vernon A. Chang Alloy should be removed from office or otherwise disciplined for his alleged conduct.

Enjoy the weekend.

- Rachel Spence, Legal Assistant, Toronto

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Full post as published by Wise Law Blog on May 14, 2009 (boomark / email).