Flexible copyright: the law and economics of introducing an open norm in the Netherlands

This study analyses the law and economics of introducing flexibility in the system of exceptions and limitations in Dutch copyright law. Such flexibility would exist in an open norm, on the basis of which the courts can decide whether certain uses of copyrighted material are permissible or not, instead of explicitly defining this in the law. First, it assesses problem areas where the lack of flexibility creates legal disputes and potential barriers to innovation and commercialisation. Second, it analyses the economic rationale and economic effects of introducing flexibility. The study was commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture & Innovation. Research methods used are literature review and in-depth interviews. The study includes a case study of Israel, where a fair use exception was introduced in the Copyright Act in 2007. Exceptions and limitations in the current copyright system are meant to balance the protection granted to rights owners with the public interest’s need to make certain unauthorized uses. However, this report identified a number of situations that do not fit well within the current set of exceptions and limitations and attributes this to a lack of flexibility. Among these uses are the activities of search engines, the use of works in User Created Content, cloud computing, data mining, distance learning, and transformative uses by, for instance, documentary filmmakers. Several of these problem areas have given rise to court proceedings with varying outcomes. The interpretation given by courts to existing exceptions and limitations - such as the quotation right, the exception for transient and incidental copying, the private copying exception, and the incidental use exception - is usually too narrow to respond to new technological developments, new developments in the creation process, or new commercialisation models. These types of uses generally do not ‘fit’ the narrowly defined exceptions and limitations and therefore lack legal basis. The same is true for things not yet invented. Because the law is not flexible in itself, courts have increasingly found inventive ways to create legal space for uses that are not covered by the exhaustive list of exceptions. In these cases flexibility with specific evaluation criteria could have been more satisfactory from a legal perspective. Flexibility could be obtained by introducing an open norm in the copyright system. This report defines such an open norm for the purpose of analysing the effects of more flexibility in copyright law. The norm has two main properties. First, it would coexist with the exhaustive list of exceptions and limitations in the current Dutch Copyright Act. Second, a use of a work would only benefit from the open norm if it passes the so-called three-step test, which takes the interests of the author or right holder into account. The first category of economic effects of introducing an open norm is that for some known uses that otherwise require licensing, the open norm would allow unlicensed use. Thispotentially reduces the reward to the creator of a work and therefore decreases the incentive to create. By contrast, it is also likely to reduce the creator’s costs of using another work as an input when producing a new work, and therefore to increase the incentive to create. It is difficult to predict which of these two opposing effects ultimately turns the scale in specific markets. Traditional creators generally worry about the negative effect on their reward and seem to believe that the first effect dominates. For businesses that use large numbers of protected works as an input for their services, such as Google, the opposite is true. They emphasise the benefits of reduced input costs and are likely to improve their legal position with an open norm. Collective rights management organisations in turn fear that their bargaining power vis-à-vis users like UCC-platforms, such as YouTube, would suffer from an open norm. However, given the design of the open norm, it is unlikely that rewards for creators are significantly affected. The application of the open norm by the courts tests for adverse effects on the business model of the rights holder (the previously mentioned three-step test). In case of severe adverse effects on the rights holder, the open norm does not apply. The shift in bargaining power from rights holders to user (platforms) is limited to cases that are currently licensed and where parties are sufficiently confident that the use benefits from the open norm. The second category of economic effects of introducing an open norm is that the legal delineation between infringement and permissible use becomes capable of accommodating developments in technology and society. This enables entrepreneurs to develop new products and services that rely on currently unforeseen use of protected material. On the downside, flexibility may reduce legal certainty in the short run, until jurisprudence on the practice of flexible copyright has developed. The countries that have recently introduced an open norm in their copyright laws have not produced any ex-ante or ex-post studies on the magnitude of these economic effects. The case study of fair use in Israel shows that the change may decrease legal certainty in the short run (as case law needs time to develop), but improve legal certainty in the longer run, as the legal position of acts that do not ‘fit’ a rigid system with an exhaustive list of static exceptions is being clarified. In sum, the main effects of introducing an open norm seem to be of a legal nature: it changes the legal position of some businesses and therefore affects the costs these businesses make to comply with copyright. ‘Tomorrow’s inventions’ are likely to be facilitated by an open norm. Since most businesses seem currently not chilled by the lack of flexibility, the effect on products and services available in the market is likely to be secondary to the legal effects

Actions of Calcium on Smooth Muscle a

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72185/1/j.1749-6632.1988.tb33358.x.pd

Beyond mobile phone displays: Flat panel display technology for biomedical applications

Organ-on-Chips (OoCs) have emerged as a human-specific experimental platform for preclinical research and therapeutics testing that will reduce the cost of pre-clinical drug development, provide better physiological relevance and replace animal testing. Yet, the lack of standardization and cost-effective fabrication technologies can hamper wide-spread adoption of OoCs. In this work we validate the use of flat panel display (FPD) technology as an enabling and cost-effective technology platform for biomedical applications by demonstrating facile integration of key OoC modules like microfluidics and micro electrode arrays (MEAs) in the standardized 96-well plate format. Individual and integrated modules were tested for their biological applicability in OoCs. For microelectrode arrays we demonstrate 90–95% confluency, 3 days after cell seeding and >70% of the initial mitochondrial cell activity for microfluidic devices. Thus highlighting the biocompatibility of these modules fabricated using FPD technology. Furthermore, we provide two examples of monolithically integrated microfluidics and microelectronics, i.e. integrated electronic valves and integrated MEAs, that showcase the strength of FPD technology applied to biomedical device fabrication. Finally, the merits and opportunities provided by FPD technology are discussed through examples of advanced structures and functionalities that are unique to this enabling platform

Interstellar polarization and grain alignment: the role of iron and silicon

We compiled the polarimetric data for a sample of lines of sight with known abundances of Mg, Si, and Fe. We correlated the degree of interstellar polarization $P$ and polarization efficiency (the ratio of $P$ to the colour excess $E(B-V)$ or extinction $A_V$) with dust phase abundances. We detect an anticorrelation between $P$ and the dust phase abundance of iron in non silicate - containing grains ]_\rm d, a correlation between $P$ and the abundance of Si, and no correlation between $P/E(B-V)$ or $P/A_V$ and dust phase abundances. These findings can be explained if mainly the silicate grains aligned by the radiative mechanism are responsible for the observed interstellar linear polarization.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysic

Does doxorubicin survive thermal ablation? Results of an ex vivo bench top study

PURPOSE:We aimed to test the hypothesis that doxorubicin (DOX) survives thermal ablative heating in an ex vivo model of combined transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) and thermal ablation.METHODS:Fresh porcine psoas major muscle (3 samples, 15×10×3 cm) was submerged in aqueous DOX solution (60 µg/mL, 0.1 M) for 24 hours to passively saturate tissue. DOX-infused tissue was then dried and treated with microwave ablation (MWA) using a 2.45 GHz antenna at 65 W for 2, 5, and 10 minutes. Ablations were repeated in triplicate (9 total). Tissue was then sampled at both ablated and unablated control sites, and DOX concentration was quantified via ultra-high performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS), with samples analyzed in triplicate. Tissue DOX levels in ablation and control groups were compared using one-way ANOVA.RESULTS:Homogeneous DOX uptake into porcine tissue was evident in all three samples. Mean DOX concentration in unablated tissue was 8.0±2.2 µg/mL. MWA was technically successful in all 9 procedures (100%), with tissue heating to 95–100°C. Mean tissue DOX concentration showed progressive reduction with increasing ablation time, measuring 6.7±1.3, 4.9±0.9, and 4.8±1.3 µg/mL in MWA-treated tissue after 2, 5, and 10 minutes, respectively. Differences in tissue DOX levels between unablated tissue and MWA groups were statistically significant (P < 0.001).CONCLUSION:Contrary to the initial hypothesis, tissue DOX concentration progressively decreased after MWA of longer ablation times. These results suggest that TACE followed by ablation may result in lower intratumoral DOX than would otherwise be anticipated for TACE alone

Profound structural conservation of chemically cross-linked HIV-1 envelope glycoprotein experimental vaccine antigens.

Chemical cross-linking is used to stabilize protein structures with additional benefits of pathogen and toxin inactivation for vaccine use, but its use has been restricted by the potential for local or global structural distortion. This is of particular importance when the protein in question requires a high degree of structural conservation for inducing a biological outcome such as the elicitation of antibodies to conformationally sensitive epitopes. The HIV-1 envelope glycoprotein (Env) trimer is metastable and shifts between different conformational states, complicating its use as a vaccine antigen. Here we have used the hetero-bifunctional zero-length reagent 1-Ethyl-3-(3-Dimethylaminopropyl)-Carbodiimide (EDC) to cross-link two soluble Env trimers, selected well-folded trimer species using antibody affinity, and transferred this process to good manufacturing practice (GMP) for experimental medicine use. Cross-linking enhanced trimer stability to biophysical and enzyme attack. Cryo-EM analysis revealed that cross-linking retained the overall structure with root-mean-square deviations (RMSDs) between unmodified and cross-linked Env trimers of 0.4-0.5 Å. Despite this negligible distortion of global trimer structure, we identified individual inter-subunit, intra-subunit, and intra-protomer cross-links. Antigenicity and immunogenicity of the trimers were selectively modified by cross-linking, with cross-linked ConS retaining bnAb binding more consistently than ConM. Thus, the EDC cross-linking process improves trimer stability whilst maintaining protein folding, and is readily transferred to GMP, consistent with the more general use of this approach in protein-based vaccine design

The geoaccumulation index and enrichment factor of mercury in mangrove sediment of Port Klang, Selangor, Malaysia.

Mangrove areas are important to the ecosystem. One of its crucial functions is as a sink of pollutants, especially metal ions. However, the accumulation of metals in mangrove sediment can generate negative impacts on plant growth, microbial activity, and soil fertility. Apart from that, the severity of the impact is highly influenced by the type of metal found in the sediment and the quality of sediment itself. One of the metals that have adverse effects on the environment is mercury. The objectives of this study are to determine the concentration and distribution of mercury and to assess the enrichment of mercury in Port Klang mangrove sediment by using geoaccumulation index and enrichment factor. Sediment samples were collected from 30 sampling points that cover Langat River and Klang River estuaries, Lumut Straits, Pulau Klang, and Pulau Indah. During sampling, water parameters such as pH, salinity, electrical conductivity, and total dissolved solids were measured in situ, whereas the total mercury in sediment samples was determined at the laboratory using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. In this study, mercury was found to be concentrated along Lumut Strait especially in the mixing zone near the confluence of Langat River and at the jetty to Pulau Ketam. The geoaccumulation index and enrichment factor (calculated using logarithmized data of the reference element) found that three stations were enriched with mercury. In addition, geoaccumulation index was also observed to be more objective compared to enrichment factor whose results were influenced by the concentration of reference element used