For clarity, a mandatory arbitration agreement is when a consumer or customer must "agree to have their case reviewed by a third party—called an arbitrator—and to be bound by the arbitrator's decision." The intent is that you waive your right to sue (in a regular court of law) the party you're entering this agreement with. But these agreements can, in some cases, be ruled as invalid by a court. The examples I've seen apply to the US, but I'd be interested in examples from other countries.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who's been noticing how out of hand it's becoming to see these statements plastered in Terms of Service and several other locations.

The most newsworthy example recently was Disney claiming that a statement like this in their Disney+ ToS also applied to a wrongful death case on one of their properties. As the linked article says, they backpedaled on this, but it's still disgusting and disturbing they even tried it in the first place.

The most recent example I've seen is this post on Mastodon where it was included on the packaging of a supplement.

I can't help but wonder if this is just a way to deter people from seeking litigation in the first place, especially if they aren't wealthy enough to hire a legal team that could poke holes in the legitimacy of their mandatory arbitration agreement.

I'm sure there's a nearly endless supply of examples of this, especially in software service agreements. But is there anything that can be done about it? Or is this just one more way corporations get to have more power than people that won't ever change?

My initial reaction to cloud_loud's post about the upcoming Winnie the Pooh slasher movie was viscerally negative - my gut feeling is that my life would be objectively better without a movie like this in the world tainting a treasured childhood memory for millions of people.

Then I thought back to my reaction to the Wednesday Addams trailer and it became immediately clear to me that it was just a 'me problem' - I had no sentimental ties to the Addams Family as a kid, but Winnie the Pooh was one of my mum's bedtime story staples. I trust Tim Burton based on his track record to bring a high-quality rendition of Wednesday to the screen, but these nameless & faceless filmmakers were suddenly antagonists in my mind for turning an innocent story about a talking teddy bear into a trashy slasher. But apples & oranges comparison aside, just like how there will be people against the idea of Burton's vision of the Addams family or Tom Hanks' portrayal of Mr. Rogers, there most likely will be people who enjoy this movie when it releases - it just won't be my cup of tea.

I then started thinking about the implications of franchises reaching public domain like in this scenario - for better or worse, creators can now build upon, remix or bastardize the world and characters of Winnie the Pooh. I recently had a conversation here on Tildes about the necessity of copyright, patent and intellectual property law where @archevel raised the question of whether a person/entity should be able to 'own' an idea, and on the surface the immediate answer is a resounding "no". But thinking deeper about it (especially in this context) pushed me down a different path, calling someone's creation simply an 'idea' is very reductionist. To me, an idea is 'a honey-obsessed talking teddy bear' - there's no characterisation to that, no soul, no story, no sense of being. An idea is a I-V-VI-IV chord progression (and thus holds no legal protections), but shouldn't the artistic integrity of Journey's Don't Stop Believing be protected even after the creators are gone? Why are we so indifferent towards parodies like this when it could just as easily be something more offensive like this that can harm the legacy of the creator just by association? I've always been a proponent of free speech/freedom of expression but thinking about it from this perspective is fascinating to me.

That's not inherently an issue of something becoming public domain though, it's an issue of preserving the creator's legacy. Copyright doesn't just protect the creator's means to compensation, it protects their right to control their creations - the right to control their artistic integrity and the legacy they leave behind. Knowing that Milne and Shepard created Pooh to entertain children in a wholesome way, I think it's fairly safe to say they would not be happy with a slasher adaptation if they were still alive. If these filmmakers were using Pooh's likeness to parody Xi Jinping and push a communist agenda, would we care more about preserving Milne's legacy then?

All that brought me to the question of decency - whose moral compass should we guide ourselves by? Where is the line between socially-acceptable satire and obscenity? Western culture has been extremely cagey about some of the most natural things like nudity and sexuality, but here in Australia our government has no issue plastering billboards, bus stops and cigarette cartons with images of nicotine-stained teeth, abscessed mouths and diseased organs in an attempt to warn people of the dangers of smoking & excess sugar consumption - all in the name of public health. Everybody has genitals, why is our government happy to tell us that seeing boobs on a billboard could be potentially shocking for children to see when kids are exposed to NSFL images just by walking past the cigarette shelf in a store or a discarded carton in the street? When our cultural morality is so cagey about something as innocuous as a natural human body, why are we so unconcerned when someone perverts the life's work of a creator just because it's turned public domain? Should the creator have the right to protect their work from beyond the grave?

I'm willing to bet when Mickey Mouse turns public domain in 2024 the internet will be flooded with Beeple-style grotesqueries (NSFW) and everyone will get sick of profane parodies very quickly.

Just wanted to post a frame-by-frame analysis of the philosophical rabbit hole I went down today and hopefully stir up a conversation - I know these are fairly deep questions that none of us can really answer definitively but I still love to hear different people's thoughts and perspectives regardless :)

For those not aware, packing the court in this context refers to expanding the size of the U.S. Supreme Court so that whoever's in power can nominate judges they prefer to the newly-created seats, thereby creating a favorable majority for them where there might not have been one previously. It was attempted once in 1937, but failed, and has not been attempted since.

As for term limits, Supreme Court justices have none; the position is for life. The reasoning for this is primarily so that they can't be influenced as easily for political gain, as they've already achieved the final step in their careers.

Personally, the concept of court-packing has worried me no matter who does it, because from what I can tell (though granted I've not researched this), the Supreme Court has thus far done a decent job of avoiding partisanship; I'm concerned packing the courts would damage this precedent. I do believe that term limits could work, though I suspect they'd require a clause prohibiting justices from holding any jobs after their term expires, lest they become politically influenced by down-the-line job offers.

That said, what's your take?

^{(By the way, CGP Grey has a great video on some parts of the Supreme Court if you're interested in learning more about it)}

Another person said that s(he) can't form an opinion because s(he) eats meat, and it is almost the same thing. She feels it's wrong, but at the same time thinks it's prejudice against some religions if we are worried about a couple of animals and continue to kill millions just to eat.

I can agree and disagree with this point, but one thing being wrong doesn't give a pass to other things.

But if we agree that it's constitutional to sacrifice animals, then what certain religions do to women (or any person) should be at the same level.

That's why i disagree at the end. It shouldn't be allowed, period.

The animal being sacrificed didn't chose to be there, nor the human being mistreated.

What are your opinions? Can someone point what i'm thinking wrong here?

PS: Sorry for my poor wording because english is not my first language. I wanted to know the opinion here about morals or what is right or wrong, not the law itself. Of course that any discussion on that is welcome too.

Since Tildes participants generally come from nations with legal systems based on English common law or otherwise requiring jury trial for criminal cases, I'm curious what, if any, experience others have had of serving on juries, trying cases before a jury, or facing a jury as a defendant.

I was unable to participate as fully in this discussion as I would have liked, as I was called to jury service on a child molestation case this week. I'm deeply saddened to say that it was the second time I've served as a juror for judgment on an accused child sex abuser.

That case is now concluded, we returned a guilty verdict today, and I'm at liberty to discuss it if questions arise.

One of the startling things about this case was the huge jury pool called - sixty people, of whom only 8 were seated (6 jurors and two alternates, and we weren't informed as to who the alternates were). The dismaying detail was that of those sixty people, representing a very diverse county, the selected jury pool consisted of 7 white, middle-aged, college-educated, relatively affluent women, and one older white man.

In the U.S., the right to a trial by jury is foundational - it's specified in the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as follows:

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

Though it's not commonly considered as such, the U.S. civic duty to provide service as a juror is on par with military service, as illustrated here: https://www.hqmc.marines.mil/News/News-Article-Display/Article/551818/jury-duty-is-civil-duty/

I am not American but it seems to me that it is an incredibly broken system that 7 judges can essentially halt an entire country's progress. They decided that corporations have rights like a person, they can decide if gay marriage is legal, they can decide basically anything if they wanted as I understand it.

So why does this even exist? Surely such gigantic decisions should be left to a parliament or something.

Hey! I practice IP law with my brothers in Southern California. I primarily do trademark, copyright and litigation work. My brothers do patents and litigation.

I also moderate stuff on Reddit, like IAmA. Ideally, I'd like to host some AMAs here. This is kind of a test to see how it goes at an early stage.

Ask me stuff!

Proof with TruePic

Edit: This was fun. Thank you guys. I'm headed out for a bit. :)