Loophole Abuse/Real Life: Difference between revisions
no edit summary
(Rescuing 1 sources and tagging 1 as dead. #IABot (v2.0beta9)) |
No edit summary |
||
| (33 intermediate revisions by 8 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{trope}}{{needs a grammar pass}}
Examples of [[{{TOPLEVELPAGE}}]] in [[{{SUBPAGENAME}}]] include:
== Subpages ==
{{subpages}}
== Other examples ==
* Anyone that has circled 'X' when teachers told you to find it. [[Mathematician's Answer|Mathematicians will surely applaud such an answer...]]
** Done by
* The ''IOCCC'' (International Obfuscated C Code Contest) has a separate yearly award for "worst abuse of the rules", which is awarded precisely for invoking this trope. Obviously, this means the rules will be amended for the next year. For instance, one year's winner is the world's shortest self-reproducing program, which turned out to be a zero-length program which indeed generates a zero-length output. Therefore, contest entries must now be a minimum of one byte in length.<ref>The entries must build without manual assistance. And they may not bypass the code size limit with makefile define flags. But they can take advantage of the fact that several types of characters like empty space does not count for the main size limit.</ref>
* ''The Real Hustle'' showcased an old hustle which involved betting that some random guy can't do everything you can. Touch your nose. He touches his nose. Lick your glass. He licks his glass. Take some drink. He takes some drink. Spit the drink back out...
Line 18 ⟶ 24:
** Knock on the [[Almighty Janitor|janitor's]] door and offer him the barometer in exchange for telling the student the height of the building.
*** The expected answer is to measure the difference in air pressure (which is how aircraft altimeters work). It should be noted that unlike the more "creative" methods, this one will provide an answer in meters using ''only'' the barometer.
*** The story is often told with Danish Nobel Prize-winner Niels Bohr as the student, but this is an urban legend. [http://www.snopes.com/college/exam/barometer.asp Snopes has a page about it].
* Another joke involves a mathematician being asked to enclose a flock of sheep using the least amount of fence. He builds a small fence around himself and declares, "I define the side I am on to be the outside."
* At one point, the election rules for the [[Absurdly Powerful Student Council|Cambridge Union]] stated that candidates were allowed to put up one poster in the Union lobby but it had to be a certain size and it had to be "monochrome." One [[Amoral Attorney|law student]] complied by putting up a poster of the statutory size... on fluorescent yellow paper. (He got away with it, as a poster that has ''one color'' is technically "monochrome." They changed the rules for subsequent elections.)
Line 32 ⟶ 38:
*** This actually was exploiting a loophole, helped by [[Technology Marches On]] - the Versailles treaty stipulated that the largest battleships Germany was allowed to build had to be no bigger than 10,000 tons, which under 1919 conditions would have meant a slow coastal defence vessel. A decade later, when it had become possible to build large ships by welding steel-plates together instead of using rivets, thus saving weight on the hull and enabling them to install a larger engine, thus creating "pocket battleships" possible, which were in effect small battle-cruisers.
** Shortening the service obligation of soldiers in the army so that, while the army remained small on paper, it was building an unofficial reserve of trained men it could quickly call up in case another war broke out.
*** This had tradition in Germany. When [[Napoleon Bonaparte]] had defeated Prussia, he
*** And when the Nazis came to power they immediately loopholed ''this'' provision—they used the 'Reich Labor Service' to conscript hundreds of thousands of healthy young men and train them as disciplined, military-style work gangs on public service projects such as roadbuilding, as well as marching, living in tents, and other such skills—IOW, soldiers in all but name. But since they weren't actually given any weapons training they weren't technically ''military''... even though, with military-style training already 90+% complete, the Labor Service people could potentially be mobilized as fully trained soldiers almost immediately, just by running them through a basic marksmanship course.
** Developing new weapons systems by subsidiaries in neighboring countries and Russia.
Line 43 ⟶ 49:
** More specifically, the rule was against domesticated pets. [[Everything's Worse with Bears|The bear was wild]].
* Ain't no rule that says [[The Caligula|a horse can't sit on the Roman Senate]].
* Ain't no rule that says [[Everything
** And receive a knighthood
* Ain't no rule a [[Everything's Worse with Bears|bear]] [[wikipedia:Wojtek (soldier bear)|can't enlist in the Polish Army]]. ([[NSFW]] [http://www.badassoftheweek.com/voytek.html version])
Line 52 ⟶ 58:
* Avoided by most Internet services (forums, hosts, etc.) in that their Terms of Use specifically say you can be reprimanded for any reason by the owners/moderators. Effectively seals the "Ain't no rule" loophole.
** Similarly, try reading a software EULA or copyright agreement all the way through. They [[Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness|can be paraphrased as]] saying "We can do whatever we want, whenever we want, and you have no rights whatsoever." The phrase "in perpetuity throughout the universe" is popular.
*** Though ironically, most EULAs are often unenforceable; if the EULA isn't on the outside of the box, it isn't necessarily enforceable by law. This is why, for instance, OM versions of Windows have the EULA on the outside of the packaging. Also, many open-ended contractual things of this nature can be difficult to enforce in court. Also not every copyright law allows to enforce fully EULA. For example in some countries you are allowed to
* Ain't no rule that says [[The Colbert Report|a fictional pundit]] can't run for President. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party of South Carolina decided there ''was'' a rule that said all candidates had to be "serious".
** There isn't a rule about candidates having to be serious in the UK, which resulted in a rock star founding the Monster Raving Loony Party. And harming the political system not at all.
Line 71 ⟶ 77:
** Thus, "XYZ" was ditched, the channel flailed for awhile, getting by with reruns of ''[[Whose Line Is It Anyway?]]'', ''[[7th Heaven]]'', and ''[[Gilmore Girls]]'', along with reality shows that were rightfully rejected by every other network, until a smart marketer realized that if you made the network's slogan "A new kind of family" and emphasized it as much as the network name, you could easily wiggle around what Pat thought of as a "family" and expand the definition. Thus the network was finally able to program for more than two kids and two parents, and now programming like ''[[Pretty Little Liars]]'' can easily lead into ''The 700 Club'', which Pat Robertson can't do anything about.
** Meanwhile ''The 700 Club'' has so many notices, warnings and roadblocks before the show on [[ABC Family]] that remind you Disney doesn't endorse his views at all that it is pretty much treated as the [[Old Shame]] of the network. It isn't even mentioned at all on the network's website.
* There wasn't a rule for a lot of things in the US Army, [https://web.archive.org/web/20131109164111/http://skippyslist.com/list/ until Skippy came along]. And some where he was quite surprised to find there ''was'' a rule.
* In 1980s Japan, there was a rule banning the uncensored display of the penetration of a vagina by a penis. However, there was no rules against [[Naughty Tentacles|phallic tentacles]] doing so, or anything made of plastic, or even a ''non-human'' penis...
** And before that, censorship laws only forbade the display of pubic hair; ''genitals'' were, technically, okay. You can see where this is going...
** Likewise, the used schoolgirl panties started being sold in vending machines because there wasn't a law on the books restricting it.
*** At least one creative jurisdiction managed to regulate their sale under laws governing "Artifacts and used goods."... which just meant pawnshops and similarly licensed
*** When
* After the devastating casualties suffered from the use of poison gas in World War I, a treaty was signed banning the use of chemical weapons, the deadliest weapons of the day. However, this treaty failed to keep up with technology, and after protests against bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was noted that there ain't no rule against using nuclear weapons.
** The US had, at the time and until very recently,{{when}} never actually signed a treaty banning production and use of chemical weapons (including that section of the Geneva Conventions). It wouldn't have been a treaty violation even if it had been chemical weapons being used.
* In a campaign in Northern Africa during [[World War II]], the Germans were upset to find a particular branch of [[Scorched Earth]] strategy: every oasis they came to had a sign in English stating that the oasis had been poisoned by the British army. When they complained that poisoning water constitutes a war crime, the British pointed out that there was absolutely nothing forbidding ''putting up false signs.''
* In [[World War I]] preexisting treaties banned the use of poison gas shells, but did not ban the deployment from canisters, which had not been considered at the time of writing. The later blanket bans closed this loophole.
Line 86 ⟶ 92:
* The [[wikipedia:Washington Naval Treaty|Washington Naval Treaty]] of 1922, was negotiated in the wake of [[World War I]] by the remaining major naval powers (Britain, the United States, Japan, France and Italy) to prevent another naval [[Arms Race]] like the one preceding the war (and believed by many to have contributed to it). It was extended with few changes by the London Naval Treaty of 1930. With few exceptions it entirely prohibited battleship and battlecruiser construction for 10 years, and carefully prevented aircraft carriers (which had yet to be developed into truly viable combatants) from being constructed as battleships in all but name. As a result, cruisers became the primary focus of the world's major navies. Much effort was put into avoiding loopholes, but a significant one was overlooked by the negotiators (but ''not'' by the naval designers): while both heavy cruisers (defined as being armed with 8-inch guns or smaller) and light cruisers (armed with 6.1-inch or smaller guns) were limited in size, only heavy cruisers were limited in number, and the size limit was the same for both types. As a result, the three largest navies (US, British and Japanese) all decided that, once they reached their limits on heavy cruisers, they would built very large "light" cruisers, using essentially (or in Japan's case, entirely) identical hulls to the heavy cruisers, that would make up for their smaller guns by carrying [[More Dakka|a lot more of them]]. While heavy cruisers were armed with an average of 9 8-inch guns, the US and Japanese "light" cruisers were armed with ''15'' 6-inch or 6.1-inch guns. The British "light" cruisers were originally going to as well, but were cut to 12 6-inch guns late in the design process to save money.
** The Treaty also encouraged loophole abuse of a different sort, with the US at least. The US had few aircraft carriers at the time of the treaty, and the limit on them was rather high. The limit was unofficially increased, since the US could pass off at least a few of these carriers as "experimental" vessels, on which there was no limit. As a result, the US began spamming carriers—a development only encouraged when (after the end of the treaty) many of the Navy's Pacific Fleet battleships were destroyed at [[World War II|Pearl Harbor]]. And that, indirectly, is why the United States has as many aircraft carriers as the rest of the world ''combined''.
** For the sake of the colonial powers who needed longer range vessels, the treaty definition of displacement excluded the weight of provisions, including water. Cue the British trying to use water tanks as armor.
* The American Music Awards abused a loophole of their own in 2009—the nominations are based on radio airplay and album sales, and the winners by an online fan vote. Thus, [[Michael Jackson]] and his album ''Number Ones'' got five nominations and ultimately four wins. The abuse? ''Number Ones'' was a [[Greatest Hits Album]] released in '''2003''', and the '''only''' reason Jackson got all that airplay and sales was because he had just died, but there's apparently no rule preventing old material from getting nominations. [http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2009/10/michael-jacksons-american-music-awards-nominations-unfair.html Complaints] that nominating Jackson wasn't fair to artists who had brought out successful new material in the eligibility period and that the AMA's were piggybacking on his death for press and ratings were shouted down by fans saying that the AMA rules were rules and this just proved Jackson's superiority.
* ''[[Humans
** This is the same concept behind Part 1 of All The Tropes' [[All The Tropes:Terms of Service|Terms of Service]], "You promise not to be a huge jerk on our site."
* [http://www.cracked.com/article_18753_the-6-most-creative-abuses-loopholes.html Cracked] has some examples.
* This is probably the reason why there are so many "dumb laws"; laws in areas like "no pet crocodiles on the street" or "it's illegal to bathe a donkey". Someone abused a loophole, and the city/county/etc. had to implement a law that would make future generations wonder "wtf"?
* Adam Hills, a comedian, has an artificial foot. He can drive, but his license stipulates that he "must wear [his] artificial right foot" while doing so. As Adam points out: "...doesn't say where."
* An [http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE69E33320101015 ingenious German man] has gotten around the EU's ban on high wattage lightbulbs by importing and selling them as "heaters"; since 95% of the bulbs' actual
** That particular loophole was intentional, to allow for heat-lamps for terrariums and such. He's still abusing the hell out of it, though.
** He did not get away with it. They called him out on the similarities of his so called heating-device with lightbulbs.
* All who auditioned for [[Mila Kunis]]' role in ''[[That '70s Show]]'' were required to be [[Dawson Casting|at least 18 years old]]; she was 14 at the time, so she told the casting directors she’d be 18 on her birthday, but didn't say ''which one''. Though they eventually figured it out, the producers still thought she was the best fit for the role.
* In 1992, a sixteen year old high
** In fact, most posts in US elections have only the barest minimum of requirements. Residency is usually the only one, with age being second most common. Technically, anyone who fills these requirements is "qualified" to run for the office.
*** Though this comes from one of the basic ideas that anyone can and should be able to run for office rather than limiting office to nobility or what have you. However, many such positions, such as attorney general and judge, do have additional requirements, such as "must have actively practiced law for at least X years prior".
** There are, in fact, no qualifications whatsoever to be
** Similarly, there is no qualification necessary to be elected Pope except being a Roman Catholic male. The Papal Conclave would never elect anyone other than a Cardinal, but there's nothing stopping them from electing some random Catholic man as the Pope.
* The [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-aaron/the-fccs-guide-to-losing_b_795061.html "Net Neutrality"] bill.{{context}}
* One exercise used in the Canadian Forces Officer Training Course from time to time setting up a rope bridge across a river consisting of a single rope to walk on and another to hold on to. As can be imagined, getting across such a structure is difficult. In one case, the officer in charge of evaluating the officer-cadets was a [[The Neidermeyer|jerk]] who insisted the entire group get across even thought the ropes were stretching to the point it was nearly impossible, and if someone slipped (but was held up by their safety carabiner), they were to be hauled back by their safety line and forced to try again. One cadet who slipped halfway across, before he could be hauled back, pulled his legs up over the top rope and pulled himself across the rest of the way. Realizing they were only told to get across the rope bridge, not that they had to ''walk'' across it, the remaining cadets were very quickly dragged across as they hung from the upper rope.
* US federal tax law requires that whenever a gambler wins $1,200 or more on a single bet on any casino gambling machine, the win must be paid by hand and both the casino and the winner must fill out tax forms regarding the money won. Slot machines are often designed to make things easier by modifying the pay tables to replace all instances of $1,200 with $1,199. (For example, if a certain combination pays $400 for a $1 bet, the same combination on a $3 bet would pay $1,199 instead of $1,200.)
* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachinko
* The ATF used to define a machine gun as a gun that fires more than one bullet per pull of the '''trigger'''. The [[wikipedia:Sputter Gun|Sputter Gun]] has no trigger. The ATF caught on and changed the wording. Also, they sometimes tried to "catch" what obviously is a faulty semi-auto (some mechanisms can shoot twice when worn—not that they're safe enough to be useful at this stage) under this.
** Every now and again some [[Sarcasm Mode|bright]] [[Too Dumb to Live|spark]] tries to exploit the current law concerning machine guns. Under U.S. law, it is illegal for a
*** That's still an [https://web.archive.org/web/20150113025337/http://jpfo.org/common-sense/cs55.htm understatement].
* The Filipino programmers charged with the creation of the highly-destructive ILOVEYOU virus were not charged with anything by Philippine state prosecutors because there were no laws in the Philippines regarding malware at the time. So, yes, they got away with crippling ''millions'' of computers and caused '''billions''' of dollars in damages worldwide because the Philippine justice system was behind the times—something Filipinos old enough to remember the hubbub view with a peculiar mix of misplaced pride and sheepish embarrassment.
* Broadcaster [[Keith Olbermann]] "barely graduated" from Cornell after realising that he needed to take 28 credits in his last semester. The university authorities assumed there was a rule against this - there wasn't, but he was the first person mad enough to try it.
{{quote|''(waiting to hear if he graduated)'' Did you know you can sweat from your eyelids?}}
* In 2020 the Philippine government through the National Telecommunications Commission ordered [[ABS-CBN]] to shut down its broadcast operations, a draconian and underhanded move (especially considering the state of affairs during the [[COVID-19 pandemic]]) suspected to be having more to do with [[Rodrigo Duterte]]'s [[Large Ham|firery rants]] against the station being allegedly critical of his policies than with any and all corruption charges the company may have been involved with. The shutdown covered terrestrial broadcasts through ''traditional television'' as well as ''radio'', but it technically did not cover ''internet streaming'' and their TV Plus freemium digital television service, so a number of programmes such as MOR Radio and ''TV Patrol'' simply resumed their usual coverage. Not to mention that a number of previously-aired programmes such as ''[[May Bukas Pa]]'' had all of their episodes uploaded on their YouTube channel for free viewing.
* In Japan gambling is illegal. So you can't exchange the balls you win in a Pachinko parlor for cash. But technically, the parlors only let you exchange the balls for various items which can be taken to another nearby store who would then "buy" the items.
** Heck, that's why poker chips, slot-machine tokens, and paper tickets won at fairs were invented in the first place: they're a way to sidestep gambling laws.
* Wanna bribe a politician, but don't want to go to jail? Simple! Lobbying. It's been said that there are ten ways to bribe a crooked politician, and a hundred ways to bribe an honest one.
* During the 1980s, [[Ronald Reagan]] enacted a law which imposed a 49.4% tariff on overseas goods, among them those so-called "metric" motorcycles (Metric meaning they use fasteners and other parts sized in metric units, an oddity considering the United States being the lone holdout with imperial measurements) such as those from Honda whom [[Cool Bike|Harley-Davidson]] felt wasn't playing fair with them (though to the Japanese manufacturers' credit, Harley's build quality during the AMF era was [[The Alleged Car|spotty]] to say the least, and even [[Sonny Barger]] of [[All Bikers Are Hells Angels|Hells Angels]] fame admitted to it in an interview). As such, Harley lobbied the government into restraining the Japanese from competing against them in the heavyweight (750cc and up) motorcycle segment. There was however nothing technical or legal that prevented the Japanese from manufacturing a slightly-detuned motor, so they came up with variants of their existing bikes that are modified somewhat with shorter strokes and/or cylinder bores to get around the tariff restrictions. Ironically enough, the [https://ultimatemotorcycling.com/2020/02/18/honda-vf700c-magna-one-of-the-hondas-that-harley-built-tariff-bike/ VF700C Magna] produced in response to the tariffs had ''somewhat more horsepower'' than the non-compliant model.
* The advance of technology allows crazy abuses when the law fails to predict certain acts could ever be possible. Example: it is currently{{when}} legal to program a computer to buy and sell stock for you. Therefore, it is legal to program it to buy stock in New York and immediately sell in Chicago during the split-second intervals when the two exchanges are out of sync on that stock's value.
* A British schoolboy was annoyed when he found out that boys weren't allowed to wear shorts in hot weather, so he looked up the uniform rules, and found
* No rule says a woman can't be a yeoman: http://www.navygirl.org/navywomen/navy_women_history_page.htm
** On ''[[Star Trek]]'' anyway, it seems that ''only'' women can be yeomen.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20140223143624/http://www.komonews.com/news/archive/4004466.html No rule says a woman can't be prom king
*
*
* In US states where the minimum gambling age is 21 (including Native American casinos), there are bingo variety slot machine casinos where you only have to be at least 18 to play (same as tournament bingo). The slot machines' winning combination is determined by the outcome of your current bingo card rather than just the slot spin meaning that you're playing the bingo card upon activation of a spin, thus lowering the legal age.
* There are a number of blind spots where some places in the
* The [[Troper Tales]] for [[Complaining About Shows You Don't Like]] was removed from [[TV Tropes]] because it became nothing but huge complaints and was often one big [[Flame War]] after the next. Several other tropes devolved into [[Complaining About Shows You Don't Like]] in the [[Troper Tales]] section. So people turned to the [[Headscratchers]] (At the time called "It just bugs me") and let the complaining and [[Flame War|flame wars]] begin.
* In medieval Germany serfs couldn't carry swords, but as a sword was defined as (among other requirements) being double bladed, nothing stopped [[Knife Nut|really big knifes]], as long as they were single bladed.
* Ain't no rule saying states [[wikipedia:National Popular Vote Interstate Compact|can't award all their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote]].
** There is, however, a rule that States can't form Compacts or Agreements without the consent of Congress.
** 29 states plus the District of Columbia also have laws forbidding electors to vote for anyone other than the majority vote winner of that particular state, although those laws have never actually been taken to court yet.
** For that matter, there ain't
* Israel once offered awards to "Heroine Mothers," women who gave birth to 10 or more children. There was no rule, however, that said the mothers had to be Jewish. The practice was stopped after Arab women kept winning, threatening Israel's status as a Jewish state.
* This is how the American legal system works. The law code does not cover what is legal; it only defines what is illegal. If the law say nothing about something, then you can technically do it legally.
Line 136 ⟶ 145:
* A joke involving a particularly unpopular village head goes thus: One day, while he was walking around the village at night, a young man bumped into him, and claimed that he couldn't see him because it was too dark. The next day the head passed a rule saying, everyone walking on the streets at night must carry a lantern. That night, the same man bumped into him again, and showed the lantern to the annoyed village head and pointed out that there is no rule that the lantern should have a candle. The village head made an [[Obvious Rule Patch]] the next day, saying that the lantern must also have a candle. That night, the man bumped into him again, and this time the Loophole Abuse was that the rule doesn't say the candle has to be lit. The embarrassed head cancelled the rule on the following day.
* [[wikipedia:Filibuster|The filibuster]], in which a politician prevents a bill from being voted on by extending debate indefinitely. It's actually [[Older Than They Think|as old as the Roman Republic]].
* In the United Kingdom, there used to be [[wikipedia:Rotten borough|rotten boroughs]] that had representatives in Parliament even though they had a very small population - the district lines hadn't been been changed in centuries, and what were once large population centers were now tiny villages. It was very difficult to get rid of them because it required an act of Parliament to redraw the district lines. This is why the U.S.
* [[wikipedia:Gerrymandering|Gerrymandering]].
* The Westboro Baptist Church basically does this to be real life trolls.
Line 162 ⟶ 171:
* In online auctions (primarily eBay), it's not uncommon to find automated pieces of software that were programmed to monitor the auction and always bid with the absolute minimum price without the person having to ever actually be at the computer.
* Whenever something is released under a "pay what you like" plan (Such as the Humble Bundle Indie Bundle) a lot of people select the minimum price, especially if it's as low as $0.01. (And plenty of people still pirate it anyways.)
* On art sites like ''[[DeviantArt|deviantART]]'', pornographic content is against the TOS. However, Artistic Nude isn't considered pornographic at all, so naturally if you look in that section, be prepared to see a ''lot'' of pornography that's labeled as "Artistic Nude".
** Likewise, icons often aren't handled by the mature filter. Some trolls on those sites regularly put pictures of asses or stuff that normally would be placed under "mature" to shock people with the mature filter on. It was less common in ''deviantART'' where the icon size was limited to only 50x50 pixels, but on other art sites with bigger avatars....
** For that matter, "Photo-dumping" is not allowed on some art sites...but people love to take these and then place them under a "Photograph" categorization so they get away with it.
* Related to the above, there were people who had done the Loophole Abuse on ''[[Fur Affinity]]'' before an update to the terms of service said that
* An old Irish joke takes advantage of this:
{{quote|Murphy and Flannery hated each other with a burning passion. To help end the fighting, God sent an angel down to Murphy to help nudge him to repentance and reconciliation. The Angel said to Murphy: "Murphy, m'boy, God has told me that you may pray for any one thing you wish, and you will receive it. However, whatever you get, Flannery will get twice as much." "So, angel, lemme get this straight," Murphy replied. "Does this mean that if I ask to be the head of one dockside union, Flannery will be the head of two?" "Yes." "And if I win the Irish Sweepstakes once, Flannery will win it twice?" "Yes." And if I get a brass band following me, he'll..." "Have one in front of him
Murphy thought for a moment. "All right, angel, I've made my decision. '''I'd like a glass eye!'''" }}
** Of course, there's further Loophole Abuse to be had when you realize that Murphy [[Exact Words|never specified]] that the glass eyes had to ''replace'' the real eyes. The angel could just as easily make glass eyes appear and hand them over.
Line 173 ⟶ 182:
** Other variations of the joke (usually with the person getting double being a Lawyer) have Murphy asking for a ton of money, a ton of success, and then to be scared ''half'' to death.
*** Or to be shown something so funny he'd laugh himself half to death.
*** Or be beaten half to death.
*** Or to donate a kidney.
* More legal Loophole Abuse, Wal-Mart. While this practice is ''hardly'' unique to Wal-Mart, they just happen to be the most well-known example of it. The practice in question are to skirting around labour laws.
Line 189 ⟶ 199:
* California gun laws stipulate that you cannot have a removable magazine on a firearm with "assault weapon" features, such as pistol grips, collapsible stocks, flash hiders, etc. However, California defines a "removable magazine" as one that can be removed without a tool. To get around this, gun manufacturers made the "bullet button" magazine release. All you have to do is get an unfired round, press it against a tiny button that is flush against some housing so you can't use your finger, and the magazine pops out. This gets around having removable magazines on "assault weapons" because you're technically using a tool to remove the magazine.
* In the United States, it is illegal to sell fully-automatic weapons to private citizens. However, there's no law that says you can't sell a "weapon kit": selling all the parts necessary along with the instructions on how to assemble it. Some gun manufacturers have done this.
* When TV execs want to cancel a show but ratings are high, they can move it to [[Friday Night Death Slot|a time slot where hardly anyone can watch it]], so ratings go down. Once the ratings drop they have a reason to cancel it.
* There's no rule I can't create an example of this trope here. (Is there?)
* British solicitor [[Amoral Attorney|Nick Freeman]] has made it a specialty to get his celebrity clients [[Off on a Technicality]]. In response the British press has nicknamed him 'Mr. Loophole'. Freeman's response? [[Refuge in Audacity|He had the name trademarked]].
Line 195 ⟶ 205:
** And then they took the trope [[Up to Eleven]] with the ''Admiral Kuznetsov'' class, which is a full-sized aircraft carrier with an absurd amount of anti-shipping and anti aircraft missiles, and Point Defense Systems.
* In a part of the [[Holy Roman Empire]], peasants were legally obliged to pay their lord a certain percentage of their grain harvest. So when in the 18th century the potato became a new food staple in Germany, the crafty peasants decided to switch from wheat and rye to potatoes so they could keep the entire harvest and resulting profits themselves. The lord tried to get them to pay a portion of the potato harvest, but in vain; the Imperial Court (Reichsgericht) in Wetzlar found that the peasants were in the right. The case is fairly well known in Germany, as one of the officials in charge of the case in Wetzlar was a young Johann Wolfgang Goethe.
** A similar problem occurred earlier in 8th century Japan. As taxes were officially based on rice fields, other grains, especially when grown where rice couldn't be, proved harder to tax.
* Loophole Abuse was what made [[The Knights Templar]] the richest organization in Medieval Europe. As a Holy Order, the Templars were technically bound by a Vow of Poverty, and so technically could not earn money or own property. However, they were able to accept "donations" from patrons and parishioners, and they were able to finagle a distinction between "owning" wealth and "investing" it: managing their donations "on behalf" of their patrons, becoming wealthy as an organization while still technically being able to claim they owned none of it themselves. In the process they created the modern concept of banking.
* In most of the United States, prostitution is illegal. You'd think this would put the kibosh on porn movies where paid performers have sex. However, technically pornographers ''don't'' pay their actors to have sex; the pay for the right to ''film'' the actors having sex, while the sex act itself is something the actors theoretically do of their own accord. Yes, this line of reasoning actually held up in court.
** Meanwhile, up in Canada, solicitation for prostitution is illegal, but prostitution itself isn't, leading officially recognized loophole abuse: if a prostitute and customer can arrange a sex-for-money deal without either one actually proposing a sex-for-money deal, no crime has been committed.
* On [[Yahoo!]] Answers, there's no such rule that you cannot vote for your own answer. This makes it a paradise for [[Trolls]] who can easily score 13 points by writing ''nonsense''. 2 points for the answer, 1 point for the vote, and 10 points if the answer gets selected as the best by voters (which is often just one).
* Infamous "director" [[Uwe Boll]] routinely abused a loophole in German tax law that rewards investments in film. The law allowed investors in German-owned films to write off 100% of their investment as a tax deduction; it also allowed them to invest borrowed money and write off any fees associated with the loan. The investor was then only required to pay taxes on the profits made by the movie; if the movie loses money, the investor would get a tax
{{quote|'''Uwe Boll:''' Maybe you know it but it's not so easy to finance movies in total. And the reason I am able to do these kind of movies is I have a tax shelter fund in Germany, and if you invest in a movie in Germany you get basically fifty percent back from the government.}}
* [[Rule 34]] on most art-sites is often ignored...unless it violates site policies in some way. A notable one is that characters who're canonically underage. Cue people drawing the characters as young adults so they could upload rule 34 of them.
Line 210 ⟶ 221:
** Three: If a program contains some "educational and informative" information, they can legally count as an "E/I". Many talk shows got away with this because some provide information to the viewers.
* While profanity is strictly monitored on cable and broadcast television, it has to count if heard but [[Getting Crap Past the Radar|not mouthed off]]. This means, if a character lip sync the swear word without having it heard or replace it with an animal sound like a dolphin chirp or the classic bleep, a TV Network can get away with it.
* Many teenagers at a school in Mustang, OK got around the drug policy by using [https://web.archive.org/web/20140502005256/http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2010-06-30/health/sfl-digital-drugs-063010_1_drug-abuse-miami-dade-county-public-schools-sounds so-called "digital
* While is banned alcohol in prisons, the materials to make a kind of alcohol known as [[wikipedia:Pruno|Pruno]] are still legal because prisons are required to make sure
* '''[[wikipedia:First Amendment to the United States Constitution|The First Amendment of the United States Constitution]]''': ''Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise there of; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.''
** Noticed a major loophole… it states congress, which consist of United States House of Representatives and United States Senate. However, it doesn’t mention school officials, state governors, city mayors, local officials, and even the President.
*** Many students reporters keeps getting screwed by this issues, with one exception... see below.
** '''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_agencies_of_the_United_States_government Independent agencies]''' aren’t
*** [[Howard Stern]] also got screw by the FCC thanks to this loophole.
* If you’re a high school student and want to run school newspapers, you should [https://web.archive.org/web/20120806072801/http://www.firstamendmentschools.org/freedoms/faq.aspx?id=12818 anticipate censorship by the schools] unless you don’t have them sponsor it. Make it an [https://web.archive.org/web/20130513034618/http://www.splc.org/news/report_detail.asp?id=1230&edition=37 independently run] and offer it off-campus either having it available a news stand on public grounds or publish it online. There’s nothing the schools can do if the work is off-campus thanks to the Fourth Amendment since it would be considered private property.
** Better yet, if you happen to have a business license,<ref>this varies by state</ref> it’s seen as a form of insurance since city officials would likely allow “clean” businesses to continue just as long the license is valid.
* When the Birther Movement demanded evidence that Barack Obama is a natural born of the United States, they failed to realize there are three loopholes in the law on meets the definition of "'''''natural born'''''". While the movement was correct on the rule about being born in United States, which Hawaii became in 1959… two years before Obama was born, [[wikipedia:Birthright citizenship in the United States|here are the rules they missed]]:
Line 223 ⟶ 234:
** '''Two''': If both parents are U.S. citizens, the child is a "natural-born citizen", which is how Milder got around this since her parents are New Jersey along with the rule mentioned above.
** '''Three''': If a child is born outside the United States and one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year, the child would still be declared a natural-born. Even if he was born in his father's native of Kenya, [http://ivn.us/2013/08/13/defining-natural-born-citizen/ Obama] was still been allowed to become US President because his mother, Ann Dunham, was born in Wichita, Kansas.
* In 2010, [http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/05/us/massachusetts-upskirt-photography/ Michael Robertson] was arrested in Boston for voyeurism after he was caught taking pictures of women with his
* The phase “Keep Your Hands to Yourself” is an open door invitation for a loophole since other body parts aren’t
* Electric cigarettes were patented in 1963, but it wasn't put into production until 2004… ten years before they were released into the market. While tobacco adverts were banned from airing on American TV in 1971, RJ Reynolds got around it since there wasn’t anything on electric versions. [http://kdvr.com/2013/11/11/loophole-allows-tv-advertising-of-e-cigarettes/ Needless to say] congress caught wind of this and begun to work on a bill to [[Obvious Rule Patch|fix it]].
* If a story is banned from being released in one country, a reporter with the forbidden story can just get it to another country and have it publish online to make it viewable in the forbidden country anyways.
* When it comes to prisons, there are reasons why guards have to perform searches for weapons since inmates often can get crafty while confined in their cells. While having a weapon is illegal, the materials to make one aren’t often the case. The most common of prison-made weapon is a knife-like device known as a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiv_%28weapon%29 shiv]. The materials to made them are easy to find, making a shiv is simple, and it can be hidden almost anywhere with an easy reach. This makes stabbing a common form of attacks behind prison walls, both inmates and guards are fair game.
* Prisons are sadly not alone when it comes to stabbing. Schools are also at-risk for this. Although actually blade weapons like knives are banned and violators can face a harsh punishment for bringing one in, writing tools like pencils and pens are still allowed. This Nebraskan man [http://www.kcra.com/news/turlock-boy-stabbed-in-throat-with-a-pencil-at-school/24871574 learned of this] loophole when his son was stabbed by a pencil. Needless to say, the guy filed a police complaint when he learned the school
* A bar owner in [https://web.archive.org/web/20140416182030/http://gazette.com/bar-owner-finds-long-sought-smoking-ban-loophole/article/95320 Colorado] was looking for a way to
* '''Averted''', [http://www.leagle.com/decision/1979743285Md458_1697.xml/THOMAS%20v.%20STATE This detainee], facing a robbery charge, sent a letter to a friend, requesting the killing of anyone willing to
* The concept of '''time shifting''', recording of programming to a storage medium to be view and/or listen on a different time, itself is a loophole. The famous '''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America_v._Universal_City_Studios,_Inc. Betamax case]''' was an
* When it comes to some local city ordinances regarding pets, there are some who got around many loopholes in them. This was meant to control the pet population, mostly to due resources and health codes.
** When it comes to dogs, those who have them as a pet outnumber those who has a cat for a pet because due to laws limiting how many dogs one can have. As a result, many housing tenures locations, both private and public housing, have their own pet policies to keep the amount in check.
**
** Some housing locations would permit pets that can be confined in their personal homes, like a pet cage. However, there aren’t many rules against letting them out for awhile since many veterinarians do recommend this to allow them to be outside of the cage. This is mostly for their mental health to be kept in check, not to mention exercise.
** When it comes to dogs and cats, most places do have a policy against them unless they happen to be service animals. If a tenant requires a pet dog or cat for medical needs, like guide dog, they can be excuse to have one.
Line 243 ⟶ 252:
* When it comes to ripping audio file from an audio-CD because this loophole only applies if you own the product, making this '''subverted'''. As seen on a TruTv program, “'''''Caught Red Handed'''''”, one person can rip audio files on a CD, perhaps as a copy for MP3 Player device. As Loss-Prevention pointed out, it doesn’t count as shoplifting if someone is ripping the audio files from a CD as long they put the CD back. However, they were able to catch a male audio pirate when they noticed how he was opening the CD cases, a razor-blade. Because owning a razor-blade was a procession of a burglar tools and opening CD cases in the store was consider destruction of public propriety as both were felony offenses, Loss-Prevention were able to get police involve though they admit how the guy got away with shoplifting was one of the smartest things they ever saw.
* This [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eFkaB0ztmI video] explain how many people attempted to get a tax deduction, in [https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tools/tax-tips/Tax-Deductions-and-Credits/Top-10-Oddball-Tax-Deductions/INF12065.html some cases], they got away with it.
* There was a case in New York back in 2008 where two men try to cash in on the social security check on another guy. However, this ended up being '''subverted''' thanks to clerk, who left the room so he can call the police. Why the problem: the third guy was already dead. The police did show up but didn't charge the men with homicide after it was determined the third guy died of natural causes. [http://www.foxnews.com/story/2008/01/09/men-wheel-dead-roommate-to-check-cashing-store-arrested-for-trying-to-cash-his/ Top it off]{{Dead link}}; there wasn’t a law in New York that makes it illegal to bring a deceased body to any check-cash location. Yet, the duo was still charge with fraud, which was illegal.
* Speaking of Social Security, it appears that if the recipient dies, it suppose to be reported. This could explain why some people who depend of the deceased party, never report it and exploit this loophole. You can images the attempts in hopes to avert this.
** This [http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/brooklyn-man-impersonates-dead-mother-collect-115-000-social-security-rent-subsidies-article-1.374545 Brooklyn] man impersonated his deceased mother for nearly a decade to cash-in on her checks, with help from a friend of his.
Line 254 ⟶ 263:
** Of course, many, mostly in the video game industry, have came up with ways to fight back since they’re aware of the problem and got creative with [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vl1eDbnijA some genius ideas].
* This [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEXd5enML5Q video] has of activities that are surprisingly legal. One such case was in 1992 when [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Dahmer Jeffrey Dahmer] was convicted of murder, but not for cannibalism. In most US States, there no clear law against cannibalism, but there is a law against necrophilia in Wisconsin.
* There is actually no federal laws against [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_counting card counting] despite the casinos' attempt to deter the practice. However, casinos are private property, and there's also no law saying they have to do business with a card counter.
* “[[Don't Try This At Home]]” is often used to advise people that the dangerous stunts are done by those who are trained and aware of the risks. However, [[Meat Loaf]] pointed out a loophole… there's no mentioning of doing it outside of home.
* Australian gun-laws restrict pump-action shotguns. Enter Adler Hunting Arms Company with a ''lever'' action shotgun.
* The American NFA unconstitutionally{{verify}} regulates firearms that shoot more than one bullet per pull of the trigger. Finding ways around it is an industry onto itself. The most common is "bumbfire" where recoil pushes the trigger back, after which it is pushed forward into a stationary finger. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE3KVOQ54IE It also doesn't cover] bullets shot by ''releasing'' the trigger.
** The NFA has very weird definitions for "pistol" (No shoulder stock only a single vertical grip), "rifle" (Pistol, but has a shoulder stock and/or two vertical grips) and "shotgun" (smoothbore designed to fire shot. Grips and stocks are irrelevant). This means a pistol with a stock duct
** "Firearm" shotguns are shotguns (in the sense that they are designed to fire shot) are short longarms that are not legally "shotguns" because they were not built with a shoulder stock and the NFA's definition of "Shotgun" (and by extension its definition of short barreled shotgun) only covers weapons originally designed with shoulder stocks. They are not Any Other Weapon because they are too long.
* Between the two World Wars international regulations prevented export of firearms with shoulder-stocks to warlord heavy China. For this reason, pistols and [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alpefGkv2VI machine pistols] capable of mounting a shoulder stock became massively common. It also fueled Chinese manufacture of firearms, which gives examples of Chinese [[Shoddy Knockoff Product]]s decades before the the concept entered public conception.
* One of the favorite categories for attempted Loophole Abuse is submitting travel expenses to be reimbursed by your employer. The crowning example is a National Guard officer who, after every month's drill, submitted his routine request for travel expenses from his current home of record to his drill site (which is paid as a certain
** And to cap this off his actual travel cost every month was effectively zero, as he simply made the trip by travelling as air crew in a company plane.
* Back in 2009, and yes a clip of the case can be found [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVyg_IBZGKE here], a teenager in Texas had trouble getting her car started and didn't want to be late for school. Luckily for her, she happened to have a horse since there wasn't any rule on what kind of mode of transport a student can take to school. This ended up a bit subverted, as the principal demanded to know why a horse was being brought in the first place after being asked.
* "Antique firearms" <ref>Short version:
* Going back on the ''BetaMax'' issue, the concept of home videos introduced a new market for many indie studios since the rating system only dealt with films released in the theaters at the time thanks to children being part of those going to them. However, it was often seen as a form of censorship, and [https://web.archive.org/web/20160918115853/http://www.filmadvisoryboard.com/ratings/ rating system] for the DTV market wasn't around. This lead to many to simply release their films as DTV, but it meant a film meant for adults could end up in the hands of children. If you ever heard of [[Video Nasties]], well, you can thank
* The [https://www.cdc.gov/ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] has released a graphic [https://www.cdc.gov/cpr/zombie/novel.htm novel] about zombies while United States Department of Defense Strategic Command CONOP worked on training students in military planning, by using zombies. This was to due to another country could take the US military plans as a declaration of war. Since zombies were "fictional", both groups used this in order to inform the public on disease control and civil breakdown. [http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2014/images/05/16/dod.zombie.apocalypse.plan.pdf CONOP 8888] listed in the link.
* The semi-protection rule on MediaWiki sites such as [[Wikipedia]] in theory should deter if not prevent newly-registered vandal accounts from defacing articles protected under said rule, on the grounds that they should make a dozen or so legitimate edits to be given access to protected articles. However, enterprising trolls can take advantage of the sandbox feature by making innocuous edits for their account to count towards an autoconfirmed status, and thus be able to vandalise even supposedly-protected pages. This caused an issue when pages on contentious topics such as the state of [[Israel]] and [[The Holocaust]] became a prime target for vandalism and anti-Semitic sentiment even from autoconfirmed accounts, forcing Wikipedia to [[Obvious Rule Patch|adopt]] what is called an extended-confirmed protection rule where pages receiving heavier-than-normal vandalism or those that pertain to controversial subjects (by way of arbitration enforcement by Wikimedia staff) can only be edited by established accounts, as while giving the pages full protection (i.e. only admins can edit) would have been anathema to the site's principle of a "free encyclopedia", they wouldn't want to see anti-Semites, racists and trolls savage articles on Jewish subject matter and other controversial topics either.
* While the Volstead Act during the [[Prohibition]] era banned the production, sale and distribution of alcohol in the United States, it wasn't without its loopholes: the act allowed grape farmers to sell grape concentrates "on the legal fiction that it was a non-intoxicating fruit-juice for home consumption"; while there was a warning advising drinkers not to let the grape concentrate sit for too long as it would otherwise ferment, many simply ignored the warning especially as it was merely there to allay any legal suspicion. Besides the sale of grape concentrates which were surreptitiously fermented into actual wine, some posed as religious organisations or clergymen in order to take advantage of an exemption allowing the use of sacramental wine.
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGEicwdjI3U Episode 6] of ''Bargain Racement'' by [[Bad Obsession Motorsport]] details the efforts made by mechanic/racers Nik Blackhurst and Richard Brunning to navigate the "grey areas" of the British Racing and Sports Car Club's regulations for the [https://citycarcup.co.uk/ City Car Cup] after their car came in second in the inaugural race.
* The Church of Latter-Day Saints stipulates that its members should not take part in any sort of vice, be it drinking, smoking or gambling. There is, however nothing keeping Mormons from ''investing or working'' in casinos so as long as they're not directly placing bets or partaking in any related vices themselves. It is through this that one YouTube documentary argued that it was ''Mormon investors'' and not the Italian-American Mafia who built [[Las Vegas]].
* City councilors in Manila, Philippines passed an ordinance banning ''[[The Da Vinci Code]]'' for sacrilegious and offensive content towards Christians, with cinema operators and (bootleg) home media sellers facing jail terms and fines should they insist on screening the film. Not that it kept Manileños from buying a pirated copy of the film elsewhere and smuggling it to their home in Manila though, as the film was only banned in Manila and theatres owned by SM Supermalls.
* Roger Neilson, ice hockey coach, is known for among other things, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tonxd_9_lY exploiting loopholes].
* While political advertisements are naturally subject to regulation, there's nothing keeping those running for public office in the Philippines from putting up thinly-veiled ads ''prior'' to the actual campaign period, [[Screw the Rules, I Have Money|for as long as they have the resources]]. The courts ruled in favour of this as a matter of fact, based on the technicality that the COMELEC (Commission on Elections) has no jurisdiction over any publicity campaigns by (would-be) candidates until the actual election season starts.
* On a related note, while those running for public office–particularly actors and other celebrities–are barred from making guest appearances or acting roles in film, television and other media, their prior roles are known to influence election results due to the publicity generated by the shows they appeared in, e.g. with [[Lito Lapid]] and [[Jhong Hilario]] who both appeared in the wildly popular ''[[Ang Probinsyano (series)|Ang Probinsyano]]''. While both Lapid and Hilario were killed off from the series to comply with election guidelines, their roles have gained them enough popularity that they won the election by name recognition alone regardless.
* When Filipino folk singer [[Freddie Aguilar]] (who was 60 at the time) was heavily criticised and ridiculed for his [[Squick|ephebophilic]] relationship with a sixteen-year old in 2013, he was able to skirt things around by converting to [[Islam]], whose Sharia law is recognised in the Philippines: there is nothing keeping Muslim men from marrying a woman for as long as she had her first period regardless of age. Some were understandably upset considering the arguably creepy undertones of the elderly Aguilar's romance with a teenager, while others criticise the latter and her family for merely [[Gold Digger|riding on the singer's fame]].
* In a similar incident to the EA/Porsche example, when the vinyl sticker toy brand Colorforms attempted to license [[Shirley Temple]]'s likeness in the 1970s, the actress refused to grant them the rights to her child star image for reasons unknown. They eventually settled on the Off-Broadway [[Shirley Template|parody]] ''Curley Dimple'' instead, who is basically just Temple in all but name. It unfortunately failed on the market.
{{tropesubpagefooter}}
| |||