Protecting Unsanctioned Street Art Under the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990

(Excerpt) Before 2013, artists and art enthusiasts would flock to a dilapidated building in Long Island City to view and engage with a vast collection of graffiti and street art murals. The site was filled with over two decades\u27 worth of murals created by legendary street artists such as Blade and Lady Pink. The building, with artists having free reign to paint on the walls of the 200,000 square foot space, became a mecca for graffiti and public art. The community would come in droves to experience the vibrant art and watch performances by rappers and dancers from around the world. A once barren building had become a space revered around the world for its contributions to public art. So when word began to spread that the owner of the building planned to raze the 5Pointz building, the artists sued to protect their art. In 2013, before the courts could hear the artists\u27 case, the building\u27s owner whitewashed the art without warning in the middle of the night. Overnight, the site was returned to its previous state as a barren abandoned building and decades\u27 worth of art was destroyed. Today, instead of a bustling and vibrant art scene, the site is home to a gray high-rise luxury apartment building. The events at 5Pointz were met with public outrage as New York City saw a unique and highly regarded forum for street art replaced by yet another luxury building. The case led to intrigue in the legal community as scholars and courts tried to gauge the level of protections that street artists should be afforded under the law. This Note argues that, in the context of street art affixed to buildings, the artist should be granted the moral rights protections embodied in the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 ( VARA ), regardless of whether the artist received permission from the property owner to install the art. Part I of this Note provides a background on the increasing importance of street art and the doctrine of moral rights that is central to VARA. This section also examines the language of VARA and the legislative history that prompted Congress to enact it. Part II of this Note explains the insufficiencies of VARA as it is applies to street art in its current formulation. This section also outlines the problems that federal courts have encountered when analyzing street art under VARA. Finally, Part III proposes a solution to clear up the ambiguity in VARA and provide more clarity and predictability for artists, property owners, and courts. This section argues that unsanctioned street art is a form of art that should be protected under VARA and that this approach aligns with the text and legislative history of VARA. This section also explores the public policy concerns that support this conclusion and addresses the disadvantages to this approach. This Note concludes by proposing the addition of a new provision to VARA that specifically addresses the issue of a building owner\u27s consent for art incorporated into buildings and would clear up the insufficiencies in the current law

Equipping College Students for a Marching Percussion Career in the United States

Despite the traditional American percussion curriculum being valuable to the college percussionist, there is an unclear path toward preparing students for a career in the field of marching percussion. Every year, students graduate with a desire to pursue the marching arts as a vocation without sufficient guidance. This study examined the perspectives of marching band professionals (N=107) who have carved their path in the industry. Guided by Creswell’s research design model, this qualitative inquiry identifies viewpoints from marching percussionists that can create a comprehensive percussion curriculum. Outlooks on performing, teaching, composing/arranging, and the industry have emerged as themes integral to the success of one’s marching percussion employment. Therefore, these motifs are essential learning elements throughout college. Illustrating the experiences of people who have made marching percussion an occupation, surveys will be conducted with many successful marching percussionists to create a list of surfacing motifs represented in their stories. Having a professional’s knowledge and experience is needed to develop a more efficient percussion curriculum that will improve the discipline of marching percussion. Pioneering the field of inquiry in marching percussion has only recently become explored as a valid research model. This project will serve as an example of the intersection of this young genre of percussion mixing with the traditional percussion curriculum. Additionally, this study and the ideas of new percussion curricula could encourage further investigation by other percussionists to apply this growing research method to all styles within the genre of percussion

Genetically Encoded Photo-cross-linkers Map the Binding Site of an Allosteric Drug on a G Protein-Coupled Receptor

G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are dynamic membrane proteins that bind extracellular molecules to transduce signals. Although GPCRs represent the largest class of therapeutic targets, only a small percentage of their ligand-binding sites are precisely defined. Here we describe the novel application of targeted photo-cross-linking using unnatural amino acids to obtain structural information about the allosteric binding site of a small molecule drug, the CCR5-targeted HIV-1 co-receptor blocker maraviroc

A General History of The Most Prominent Banks

A General History of the Most Prominent Banks of Europe Particularly the Banks of England and France, The Rise and Progress of the Bank of North America; A Full History of the Late and Present Bank of the United States to Which is Added, a Statistical and Comparative View of the Moneyed Institutions of New York, And Twenty-Four Other Principle Cities of the United States. Compiled from Various Standard Works, Official Sources, and Private Correspondence. Also, A. Hamilton's Report to Concress on Currency, Presented while Secretary: and McDuffie's Report on Currency, Presented to the Last Congress

DAIRY DISPUTES IN NORTH AMERICA: A CASE STUDY

Agribusiness, International Relations/Trade,

Explanation of the colossal detonation sensitivity of silicon pentaerythritol tetranitrate (Si-PETN) explosive

DFT calculations have identified the novel rearrangement shown here for decomposition of the Si derivative of the PETN explosive [pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN), C(CH_2ONO_2)_4] that explains the very dramatic increase in sensitivity observed experimentally. The critical difference is that Si-PETN allows a favorable five-coordinate transition state in which the new Si−O and C−O bonds form simultaneously, leading to a transition state barrier of 33 kcal/mol (it is 80 kcal/mol for PETN) and much lower than the normal O−NO_2 bond fission observed in other energetic materials (40 kcal/mol). In addition this new mechanism is very exothermic (45 kcal/mol) leading to a large net energy release at the very early stages of Si-PETN decomposition that facilitates a rapid temperature increase and expansion of the reaction zone

Software Extensions to UCSF Chimera for Interactive Visualization of Large Molecular Assemblies

SummaryMany structures of large molecular assemblies such as virus capsids and ribosomes have been experimentally determined to atomic resolution. We consider four software problems that arise in interactive visualization and analysis of large assemblies: how to represent multimers efficiently, how to make cartoon representations, how to calculate contacts efficiently, and how to select subassemblies. We describe techniques and algorithms we have developed and give examples of their use. Existing molecular visualization programs work well for single protein and nucleic acid molecules and for small complexes. The methods presented here are proposed as features to add to existing programs or include in next-generation visualization software to allow easy exploration of assemblies containing tens to thousands of macromolecules. Our approach is pragmatic, emphasizing simplicity of code, reliability, and speed. The methods described have been distributed as the Multiscale extension of the UCSF Chimera (www.cgl.ucsf.edu/chimera) molecular graphics program

Ligand Lone-Pair Influence on Hydrocarbon C-H Activation: A Computational Perspective

Mid to late transition metal complexes that break hydrocarbon C-H bonds by transferring the hydrogen to a heteroatom ligand while forming a metal-alkyl bond offer a promising strategy for C-H activation. Here we report a density functional (B3LYP, M06, and X3LYP) analysis of cis-(acac)_2MX and TpM(L)X (M=Ir, Ru, Os, and Rh; acac=acetylacetonate, Tp=tris(pyrazolyl)-borate; X=CH_3, OH, OMe, NH_2, and NMe_2) systems for methane C-H bond activation reaction kinetics and thermodynamics.We address the importance of whether a ligand lone pair provides an intrinsic kinetic advantage through possible electronic d_π-p_π repulsions for M-OR and M-NR_2 systems versus M-CH_3 systems. This involves understanding the energetic impact of the X ligand group on ligand loss, C-H bond coordination, and C-H bond cleavage steps as well as understanding how the nucleophilicity of the ligand X group, the electrophilicity of the transition metal center, and cis-ligand stabilization effect influence each of these steps.We also explore how spectator ligands and second- versus third-row transition metal centers impact the energetics of each of these C-H activation steps

Methanation of CO over Ni catalyst: A theoretical study

Theoretical methods (generalized valence‐bond calculations) were used to examine the bond energies and geometries of numerous species chemisorbed onto Ni clusters representing Ni surface. These results were used to obtain thermochemical information and to examine various mechanisms for the methanation of CO over Ni: CO+3H^(→)_(2(Ni)) CH_4+H_2O. It is found that chemisorbed formyl radicals (Ni–CHO) lead to a favorably appearing chain reaction that is consistent with current experimental results. In addition, we find a chemisorbed C_2 species that may be the catalytically active C_(ad) formed from dissociation of CO

Conformal Solutions Of Duality Invariant 2D Magnetohydrodynamic Turbulence

We consider possible conformal field theory (CFT) descriptions of the various inertial ranges that exist in $2d$ duality invariant Magnetohydrodynamics. Such models arise as effective theories of dyonic plasmas in 3 dimensions in which all fields are independent of the third coordinate. We find new constraints on the allowed CFT's compared to those that may describe turbulence in $2d$ plasmas of electric charges only. The predictions from CFT concerning equipartition of energy amongst the electric and magnetic fields are discussed, and quantities exhibiting universal scaling are derived.Comment: Latex, 8 page