High Court Grants Leave to Appeal in iiNet Case

High Court Grants Leave to Appeal in iiNet Case

On 12 August the High Court granted special leave to appeal in the iiNet case.  Unsurprisingly I predicted that it would go to the High Court when the case first came to trial. The case is about whether an ISP who is told about infringements occurring through its infrastructure is under a positive obligation to take steps to stop that infringement.  In the case in point the infringement in question was “communicating to the public”.  Which, as the Copyright Act has its own peculiarities, doesn’t actually mean communicating.  It means making available online.  So the infringements that iiNet are supposedly authorising occur when a person puts a file into the sharing folder of their p2p application (or, a person’s act of turning on their computer if the file is already in the folder!)

The parties will be filing their submissions at the moment, with a hearing to be held sometime later.

Russian Coup on Usenet

It’s the 20th anniversary of an attempted coup in Russia in 1991.  I remember “watching” the proceedings on Usenet news at the time.

Supercede v Supersede (Merriam Webster v OED)

Supercede v Supersede (Merriam Webster v OED)

Update: apparently it’s supersede – no contest.

According to the Shorter OED (5th Edition):

“supersede: Also (earlier) -cede L15.  [Old French superceder, later -seder, from Latin supersedere (in medieval Latin freq. -cedere) set above, be superior to, refrain from, omit formed as SUPER- +sedere sit.]”

Merriam Webster (online) asserts:

“Supercede has occurred as a spelling variant of supersede since the 17th century, and it is common in current published writing. It continues, however, to be widely regarded as an error.”

So, both prefer -seded, and this is closer to the root. MW admits common usage then sort-of asserts -cede to be an error.  OED just says -cede is a variant (not an error).

Microsoft Word, by the way, marks it as an error.

[Update: Merriam corrected]