The Film Collector, the FBI, and the Copyright Act

We are presently in the early middle stages of a media revolution which will reach its climax when films, in one form or another, will be found in people\u27s homes and under consumers\u27 control in much the same way as books and phonograph records. Although the availability of home videotaping equipment represents a giant step forward in the process, the revolution began long before the invention of the Betamax. For well over twenty years hobbyist film collectors, currently between 20,000 and 120,000 in number, have been purchasing sixteen and thirty-five millimeter prints of both copyrighted and public domain films, and have been screening these prints in their own homes for the private enjoyment of themselves, their family, and friends. When a collector grows tired of a particular film, he customarily swaps it for another print in someone else\u27s collection, or sells it to another collector and uses the money to buy an additional print. Unfortunately, collectors have been subjected to a great deal of legal harassment in recent years, not only in the form of actual and threatened civil suits for copyright infringement but also in the form of warrantless and totally illegal print confiscations by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). This Article will analyze current developments in both the civil and criminal law as they relate to the hobby of film collecting

The Film Collector, the FBI, and the Copyright Act

We are presently in the early middle stages of a media revolution which will reach its climax when films, in one form or another, will be found in people\u27s homes and under consumers\u27 control in much the same way as books and phonograph records. Although the availability of home videotaping equipment represents a giant step forward in the process, the revolution began long before the invention of the Betamax. For well over twenty years hobbyist film collectors, currently between 20,000 and 120,000 in number, have been purchasing sixteen and thirty-five millimeter prints of both copyrighted and public domain films, and have been screening these prints in their own homes for the private enjoyment of themselves, their family, and friends. When a collector grows tired of a particular film, he customarily swaps it for another print in someone else\u27s collection, or sells it to another collector and uses the money to buy an additional print. Unfortunately, collectors have been subjected to a great deal of legal harassment in recent years, not only in the form of actual and threatened civil suits for copyright infringement but also in the form of warrantless and totally illegal print confiscations by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). This Article will analyze current developments in both the civil and criminal law as they relate to the hobby of film collecting

RX for Copyright Death

This Article examines the effect of the copyright law on three situations. In the first, the author of an underlying work licenses the creation of a derivative work for a fixed period. In the second, the contract between author and licensee is silent on whether it continues through the underlying work\u27s renewal period. And in the third situation, although the contract continues through the renewal period, the author of the underlying work dies before the renewal term begins. In all three cases, the principle of discontinuity between the initial and renewal terms of copyright protection mandates the same result: the derivative work becomes unavailable to the public, suffering what is here termed copyright death

Asymptotics and local constancy of characters of p-adic groups

In this paper we study quantitative aspects of trace characters $\Theta_\pi$ of reductive $p$-adic groups when the representation $\pi$ varies. Our approach is based on the local constancy of characters and we survey some other related results. We formulate a conjecture on the behavior of $\Theta_\pi$ relative to the formal degree of $\pi$, which we are able to prove in the case where $\pi$ is a tame supercuspidal. The proof builds on J.-K.~Yu's construction and the structure of Moy-Prasad subgroups.Comment: Proceedings of Simons symposium on the trace formul

Molecular cloning and transcriptional activity of a new Petunia calreticulin gene involved in pistil transmitting tract maturation, progamic phase, and double fertilization

Calreticulin (CRT) is a highly conserved and ubiquitously expressed Ca2+-binding protein in multicellular eukaryotes. As an endoplasmic reticulum-resident protein, CRT plays a key role in many cellular processes including Ca2+ storage and release, protein synthesis, and molecular chaperoning in both animals and plants. CRT has long been suggested to play a role in plant sexual reproduction. To begin to address this possibility, we cloned and characterized the full-length cDNA of a new CRT gene (PhCRT) from Petunia. The deduced amino acid sequence of PhCRT shares homology with other known plant CRTs, and phylogenetic analysis indicates that the PhCRT cDNA clone belongs to the CRT1/CRT2 subclass. Northern blot analysis and fluorescent in situ hybridization were used to assess PhCRT gene expression in different parts of the pistil before pollination, during subsequent stages of the progamic phase, and at fertilization. The highest level of PhCRT mRNA was detected in the stigma–style part of the unpollinated pistil 1 day before anthesis and during the early stage of the progamic phase, when pollen is germinated and tubes outgrow on the stigma. In the ovary, PhCRT mRNA was most abundant after pollination and reached maximum at the late stage of the progamic phase, when pollen tubes grow into the ovules and fertilization occurs. PhCRT mRNA transcripts were seen to accumulate predominantly in transmitting tract cells of maturing and receptive stigma, in germinated pollen/growing tubes, and at the micropylar region of the ovule, where the female gametophyte is located. From these results, we suggest that PhCRT gene expression is up-regulated during secretory activity of the pistil transmitting tract cells, pollen germination and outgrowth of the tubes, and then during gamete fusion and early embryogenesis

HPV infection and immunochemical detection of cell-cycle markers in verrucous carcinoma of the penis

Penile verrucous carcinoma is a rare disease and little is known of its aetiology or pathogenesis. In this study we examined cell-cycle proteins expression and correlation with human papillomavirus infection in a series of 15 pure penile verrucous carcinomas from a single centre. Of 148 penile tumours, 15 (10%) were diagnosed as pure verrucous carcinomas. The expression of the cell-cycle-associated proteins p53, p21, RB, p16INK4A and Ki67 were examined by immunohistochemistry. Human papillomavirus infection was determined by polymerase chain reaction to identify a wide range of virus types. The expression of p16INK4A and Ki67 was significantly lower in verrucous carcinoma than in usual type squamous cell carcinoma, whereas the expression of p53, p21 and RB was not significantly different. p53 showed basal expression in contrast to usual type squamous cell carcinoma. Human papillomavirus infection was present in only 3 out of 13 verrucous carcinomas. Unique low-risk, high-risk and mixed viral infections were observed in each of the three cases. In conclusion, lower levels of p16INK4A and Ki67 expressions differentiate penile verrucous carcinoma from usual type squamous cell carcinoma. The low Ki67 index reflects the slow-growing nature of verrucous tumours. The low level of p16INK4A expression and human papillomavirus detection suggests that penile verrucous carcinoma pathogenesis is unrelated to human papillomavirus infection and the oncogenes and tumour suppressor genes classically altered by virus infection.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio