Comment by JumpCrisscross
2 years ago
> Scarlet Johansson is threatening legal action against OpenAI for this
Scarlet Johansson cannot prosecute anyone. She can sue them, in civil court, for civil damages. Prosecution is done in connection with crimes. Nobody is alleging any crimes here.
prosecute: to officially accuse someone of committing an illegal act, and to bring a case against that person in a court of law
Source: Cambridge's dictionary (but any other would work as well)
> From Cambridge's (or any other) dictionary
Where did you get this? I'm seeing "to officially accuse someone of committing a crime" [1]. Criminality is esssential to the term. (EDIT: Found it. Cambridge Academic Content dictionary. It seems to be a simplified text [2]. I'm surprised they summarised the legal definition that way versus going for the colloquial one.)
You have to go back to the 18th century to find the term used to refer to initiating any legal action [3][4].
[1] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/prosecut...
[2] https://www.cambridge.org/us/cambridgeenglish/catalog/dictio...
[3] https://verejnazaloba.cz/en/more-about-public-prosecution/hi...
[4] https://www.etymonline.com/word/prosecute
Scroll down on that site, literally. Words have more that one meaning.
Here's what I get from MacOS's dictionary: institute legal proceedings against (a person or organization).
I can also be pedantic and insist that, even under the strict interpretation you are vouching for ...
>Looking/sounding like somebody else (even if its famous) is not prosecutable.
... is a correct argument.
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I think it’s still common informal usage to prosecute a (moral) case. Maybe more common in the UK where you can bring a literal private prosecution.
Although I think what lawyers say these days is that it’s not colorable.
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Go away with the “well, actually”.
It’s a civil dispute.
The term "prosecution" applies to civil cases as well as criminal ones.