Authoring Prior Art

Patent law and copyright law are widely understood to diverge in how they approach prior art, the universe of information that already existed before a particular innovation’s development. For patents, prior art is paramount. An invention can’t be patented unless it is both novel and nonobvious when viewed against the backdrop of all the earlier inventions that paved the way. But for copyrights, prior art is supposed to be virtually irrelevant. Black-letter copyright doctrine doesn’t care if a creative work happens to resemble its predecessors, only that it isn’t actually copied from them. In principle, then, outside of the narrow question of whether someone might have drawn from a preexisting third-party source, copyright infringement disputes would seem to have little doctrinal use for prior art.But that principle turns out to be missing a big part of what’s actually going on in copyright litigation today. In this Article, we identify a surprising trend: parties in cases involving music are increasingly discussing anticipatory earlier works, and judges are increasingly holding it against them if they don’t. The concept of prior art, once for inventors only, is now for authors, too.A major cause for this change, we argue, is the influence of a small cadre of expert witnesses. We interviewed several of the most active experts in music copyright disputes, and we analyzed dozens of reports that they have filed over the last two decades. Our data revealed a group that has been focused on authorial prior art since well before the courts were. These experts’ professional self-understanding, moreover, diverges sharply from the traditionally limited role that experts are supposed to play in evaluating copyright infringement. They view prior art research as a major part of their job. And for many of them, that research is important not just because it can sift between copying and independent creation, but also because it informs their normative view of what expression deserves legal exclusivity in the first place. Because of this expert community, prior art isn’t just for patents anymore

Authoring Prior Art

Patent law and copyright law are widely understood to diverge in how they approach prior art, the universe of information that already existed before a particular innovation’s development. For patents, prior art is paramount. An invention can’t be patented unless it is both novel and nonobvious when viewed against the backdrop of all the earlier inventions that paved the way. But for copyrights, prior art is supposed to be virtually irrelevant. Black-letter copyright doctrine doesn’t care if a creative work happens to resemble its predecessors, only that it isn’t actually copied from them. In principle, then, outside of the narrow question of whether someone might have drawn from a preexisting third-party source, copyright infringement disputes would seem to have little doctrinal use for prior art. But that principle turns out to be missing a big part of what’s actually going on in copyright litigation today. In this Article, we identify a surprising trend: parties in cases involving music are increasingly discussing anticipatory earlier works, and judges are increasingly holding it against them if they don’t. The concept of prior art, once for inventors only, is now for authors, too. A major cause for this change, we argue, is the influence of a small cadre of expert witnesses. We interviewed several of the most active experts in music copyright disputes, and we analyzed dozens of reports that they have filed over the last two decades. Our data revealed a group that has been focused on authorial prior art since well before the courts were. These experts’ professional self-understanding, moreover, diverges sharply from the traditionally limited role that experts are supposed to play in evaluating copyright infringement. They view prior art research as a major part of their job. And for many of them, that research is important not just because it can sift between copying and independent creation, but also because it informs their normative view of what expression deserves legal exclusivity in the first place. Because of this expert community, prior art isn’t just for patents anymore

Image statistical frameworks for digital image forensics

The advances of digital cameras, scanners, printers, image editing tools, smartphones, tablet personal computers as well as high-speed networks have made a digital image a conventional medium for visual information. Creation, duplication, distribution, or tampering of such a medium can be easily done, which calls for the necessity to be able to trace back the authenticity or history of the medium. Digital image forensics is an emerging research area that aims to resolve the imposed problem and has grown in popularity over the past decade. On the other hand, anti-forensics has emerged over the past few years as a relatively new branch of research, aiming at revealing the weakness of the forensic technology. These two sides of research move digital image forensic technologies to the next higher level. Three major contributions are presented in this dissertation as follows. First, an effective multi-resolution image statistical framework for digital image forensics of passive-blind nature is presented in the frequency domain. The image statistical framework is generated by applying Markovian rake transform to image luminance component. Markovian rake transform is the applications of Markov process to difference arrays which are derived from the quantized block discrete cosine transform 2-D arrays with multiple block sizes. The efficacy and universality of the framework is then evaluated in two major applications of digital image forensics: 1) digital image tampering detection; 2) classification of computer graphics and photographic images. Second, a simple yet effective anti-forensic scheme is proposed, capable of obfuscating double JPEG compression artifacts, which may vital information for image forensics, for instance, digital image tampering detection. Shrink-and-zoom (SAZ) attack, the proposed scheme, is simply based on image resizing and bilinear interpolation. The effectiveness of SAZ has been evaluated over two promising double JPEG compression schemes and the outcome reveals that the proposed scheme is effective, especially in the cases that the first quality factor is lower than the second quality factor. Third, an advanced textural image statistical framework in the spatial domain is proposed, utilizing local binary pattern (LBP) schemes to model local image statistics on various kinds of residual images including higher-order ones. The proposed framework can be implemented either in single- or multi-resolution setting depending on the nature of application of interest. The efficacy of the proposed framework is evaluated on two forensic applications: 1) steganalysis with emphasis on HUGO (Highly Undetectable Steganography), an advanced steganographic scheme embedding hidden data in a content-adaptive manner locally into some image regions which are difficult for modeling image statics; 2) image recapture detection (IRD). The outcomes of the evaluations suggest that the proposed framework is effective, not only for detecting local changes which is in line with the nature of HUGO, but also for detecting global difference (the nature of IRD)

A critical analysis of the policing of counterfeit goods in South Africa

The researcher conducted a critical analysis of the policing of counterfeit crime in South Africa. A pure qualitative research design and approach was adopted. A literature review, interviews and observations were conducted to provide an overview of this problem nationally and internationally. Interview schedules were designed with pre-determined open-ended questions, which allowed participants to explain their perceptions, opinions and viewpoints on the policing of counterfeit in South Africa. Some of the designed questions were mailed to respondents. Questions were posed to members of the Specialised Commercial Crime Unit, members of the South African Police Service’s Crime Prevention Unit, members of the Department of Trade and Industry who deal with counterfeit, prosecutors who normally prosecute counterfeit cases, brand owners/holders/representatives, and attorneys who assist in the policing of counterfeit crime. The findings of this study informed the proposed recommendations for preventative and reactive response mechanisms. These proposed recommendations suggest ways of improving efficiency and effectiveness in policing counterfeit in South Africa.Criminology and Security SciencePh. D. (Criminal Justice

Making Small Claims Work for Copyright Law: Why the Decisions of an Unprecedented Judicial Authority Should Hold Precedential Weight

Individual creators increasingly struggle to protect their copyrights, especially in the digital age. It is already often difficult for many creators to make a living, and more often than not, they cannot afford to pay thousands in court and legal fees to bring a copyright infringement claim. With the passing of the Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act of 2019 (the “CASE Act”) in December of 2020, Congress and the United States Copyright Office formed a federal small claims court for creators in such positions to be able to enforce their copyrights. The CASE Act seeks to give small copyright owners a procedurally streamlined and economically feasible forum in which to bring their small copyright claims and avoid full-fledged federal litigation. But substantive complexities that the new legislation failed to address may very well continue to keep small copyright claimants out of court. This note will first give background of the legislative history leading to the enactment of the CASE Act, as well as an overview of how the Copyright Claims Board (“CCB”) operates. Second, it will discuss the difficulties and deterrents for creators of modest means in enforcing their copyrights and the largely procedural ways in which the CASE Act aims to address those barriers. Third, it will point out substantive elements which the CASE Act overlooks—namely, that the decisions of the CCB will be binding to the parties to any particular claim and will have no precedential value for other proceedings in the copyright small claims court, nor within any other court of the United States. Finally, this note will contend that the features of this new copyright small claims court set the stage well for determinations of the CCB to hold precedential weight—or, in the alternative, for the future development of a specialized copyright court akin to the Federal Circuit. Such a narrowly focused court whose determinations are precedential would not only assist small claimants assert their rights against copyright infringement but would also go a long way toward reducing the daunting complexity of the United States’ body of copyright law

Essentials of forensic accounting

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aicpa_guides/2728/thumbnail.jp

Determining the effectiveness of deceptive honeynets

Over the last few years, incidents of network based intrusions have rapidly increased, due to the increase and popularity of various attack tools easily available for download from the Internet. Due to this increase in intrusions, the concept of a network defence known as Honeypots developed. These honeypots are designed to ensnare attackers and monitor their activities. Honeypots use the principles of deception such as masking, mimicry, decoying, inventing, repackaging and dazzling to deceive attackers. Deception exists in various forms. It is a tactic to survive and defeat the motives of attackers. Due to its presence in the nature, deception has been widely used during wars and now in Information Systems. This thesis considers the current state of honeypot technology as well as describes the framework of how to improve the effectiveness of honeypots through the effective use of deception. In this research, a legitimate corporate deceptive network is created using Honeyd (a type of honeypot) which is attacked and improved using empirical learning approach. The data collected during the attacking exercise were analysed, using various measures, to determine the effectiveness of the deception in the honeypot network created using honeyd. The results indicate that the attackers were deceived into believing the honeynet was a real network which instead was a deceptive network

Analysis avoidance techniques of malicious software

Anti Virus (AV) software generally employs signature matching and heuristics to detect the presence of malicious software (malware). The generation of signatures and determination of heuristics is dependent upon an AV analyst having successfully determined the nature of the malware, not only for recognition purposes, but also for the determination of infected files and startup mechanisms that need to be removed as part of the disinfection process. If a specimen of malware has not been previously extensively analyzed, it is unlikely to be detected by AV software. In addition, malware is becoming increasingly profit driven and more likely to incorporate stealth and deception techniques to avoid detection and analysis to remain on infected systems for a myriad of nefarious purposes. Malware extends beyond the commonly thought of virus or worm, to customized malware that has been developed for specific and targeted miscreant purposes. Such customized malware is highly unlikely to be detected by AV software because it will not have been previously analyzed and a signature will not exist. Analysis in such a case will have to be conducted by a digital forensics analyst to determine the functionality of the malware. Malware can employ a plethora of techniques to hinder the analysis process conducted by AV and digital forensics analysts. The purpose of this research has been to answer three research questions directly related to the employment of these techniques as: 1. What techniques can malware use to avoid being analyzed? 2. How can the use of these techniques be detected? 3. How can the use of these techniques be mitigated

Advances in Information Security and Privacy

With the recent pandemic emergency, many people are spending their days in smart working and have increased their use of digital resources for both work and entertainment. The result is that the amount of digital information handled online is dramatically increased, and we can observe a significant increase in the number of attacks, breaches, and hacks. This Special Issue aims to establish the state of the art in protecting information by mitigating information risks. This objective is reached by presenting both surveys on specific topics and original approaches and solutions to specific problems. In total, 16 papers have been published in this Special Issue