Posts by TRT 9611 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Sep 2009
Retrofitting, maybe not possible, but certainly a manhole at the point where a new road spurs off an existing road, with all underground services except sewerage are available. I say sewerage is a separate case because it needs to go deeper, usually runs in the middle of the road, receiving grey water from the left and right drains, and runs down. Everything else is gradient agnostic. Separate manhole for the sewers; I mean, how often is that upgraded? Cleaning access, yes. But it doesn't need to run in a duct, does it?!
All new builds which require an access road constructed that is over 10m long should definitely, by law, have to have easy to access segregated ducting with several empty channels under the pavements (or raised cycleways). And standardised formwork to hold the segregated ducting in a pattern wouldn't go amiss either.
and what's "super fast" and what's "broadband" and what's "dial-up"?
OK, I know what dial-up is. But the other terms are so vague, they might as well be marketing spin-fluff.
I've had 100Mbs for the last year, 70 for about two years before that, 30 for about six years and 10 for... must be going on five years before that!
Now, if I was getting "fast broadband" in 2004... all meaningless. Government not keeping pace with technology, providers not keeping pace with demand. Investment is happening, but slow. Virgin seems to have stopped expanding since they monopolised all the competing cable providers by buying them out soon after their infrastructure was buried. Yet my bill seems to keep creeping up all the time.
The issue here is not so much "Is software 'goods' such that the law clearly applies to this situation and compensation is therefore due to the agent for the residual business done by their principal based on the work of the agent in promoting the principal's product" as more "what do your commercial agents do for your business and why?"
That is to say that if I, as a duly authorised UK agent for Microsoft, promote Windows 10, persuade companies and businesses and individuals in the UK that Windows 10, Office 365 etc etc are the answer to their requirements, that if I send out sales and technical staff to meetings across the land, provide specification sheets, uncover and resolve technical issues prior to the sale of some software, if I build the reputation of the Microsoft brand in the UK and I do so IN EXPECTATION that I would negotiate and broker a deal for Microsoft software receiving reimbursement for my efforts in promoting that software product, and then had that authority and the agreement to be paid commission REMOVED at short notice, I have no legal claim for payment for any of that work? Yet if I did the same for Volkswagen cars, then I would??!!
I provide a service to them under contract, but the protection by law is unidirectional in one case but not the other - if they are providing a service or a non-tangible product no protection. If they are providing a chattel, protection. My work to fulfil my end of the contract is exactly the same regardless of what I am promoting or pre-selling.
Having now read the background to the Commercial Agents (Council Directive) Regulations Act, and the Act itself, it's clear that this is one of the more sloppily worded pieces of legislation that fails to give a definition to the term 'Goods', such as is given in various consumer protection legislative acts. In the other Acts, Goods is defined as a tangible, moveable object but also includes electricity specifically. It's important to note that legislation created AFTER the CA(CD)RA contains separate sections for Goods, Software & Digital Content and Services. The CA(CD)RA concerns the situation where a commercial agent acts to procure business (sales) for a vendor (principal) in return for some form of payment or commission, and relates to payments that may be due following the termination of a contract as a result of the agent's activity, including reputation enhancement. Under the Act, continuation of payments following contract termination are time limited.
The background to the legislation is rooted in EU harmonisation - a directive was issued that member states were to incorporate legislation to harmonise with German commercial law's indemnity statutes, and French commercial law's compensation statutes. These protect commercial agents from loss of revenue resulting from the closure of part of their market following the loss of an agent contract. The EU council directive specifically defined a commercial agent as dealing in goods without a clear definition, even though the corresponding legislation in most other EU countries DID apply to goods (chattels), products and services.
Another example of EU woolliness the Brexit mob can pounce upon!
Given this, and the lack of similar indemnity for the arguable more extensive service industry commercial agent sector, I would have said that software should be counted as a "Goods" under the spirit of the directive, namely the harmonisation required to trade freely in the EU. A massive expansion of Commercial Agencies was going on at the time that the trade barriers were being eliminated.
According to the Business Dictionary, a Commercial Agent is "Agent who solicits and procures business from potential customers on behalf of one or more principals, usually against payment of a percentage of the realized sales revenue as commission."
Soliciting business is a far broader definition than just Goods (as physical chattels).
This is a poor judgment in my opinion. I can see this one rumbling on.
Well the Consumer Protection Act 1987 deals in 'products' rather than 'goods', and helpfully includes a definition which should help one considering the tangibility of articles covered by the Act...
“product” means any goods or electricity and [...] includes a product which is comprised in another product, whether by virtue of being a component part or raw material or otherwise;
The Consumer Rights Act 2015 specifically deals with Digital Content, Services etc. and defines 'goods' as...
“Goods” means any tangible moveable items, but that includes water, gas and electricity if and only if they are put up for supply in a limited volume or set quantity.
that determines its application. If the agent has a physical stock of something, has to find warehousing, find a means of disposal, provide security, provide power etc etc. and thus has incurred an overhead with an expectation that said overhead would be recouped through the sale of the something, then there is a case to say the law applies to protect that investment and recover that outlay when the value is reduced by an outside agency that one has a contract with. Further, that would apply to, say, warehousing digital copies of serial numbers to activate the software - an existing expense that one would expect to recoup.
Consider, then, a loss of expected income when one has expended nothing of monetary value. Was the spirit of the Act to afford protection in this scenario?
This Act is, I think, not applicable to software per se, with it considered as intellectual property and a traceable commodity, but rather to the nature of the relationship between agent, supplier and customer.
I wouldn't like to have to have judged that one.
Just the same as posting down votes rather than actually having to explain or confront exactly what the issue is or how to define limits on, in the case of social media, what IS acceptable censorship and what isn't. You see, on other news sources I'm reading this and seeing "Banning our gun videos is WRONG! We need this information to be able to arm ourselves against the terrorist threat! Those terrorists should be BANNED from YouTube... posting videos of how to make bombs from household chemicals is just inviting mass murder"
And the thing is, I just can't make head nor tail of this.
Mom comes into son's bedroom...
"I was cleaning in your room earlier, and I found this..."
"Mooooommm!"
"You know it's not good you having this kind of dirty magazine lying around. Well, I'm going to just have to teach you how it's done in the real world."
Produces bottle of oil...
and a gun rag.
Shirley they would house the actual data offsite somewhere? I mean, if you were smart enough you could create an entirely innocuous shadow data centre, and with the click of a button, or the swap of a cable, drop in a new set of routes to a detailed analysis of which is the most popular kitten.
Many people under 25 should have experienced IT savvy parents eavesdropping on their social media, hacking their accounts, controlling their internet access and censoring their web browsing. And if you can't trust your parents...
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
