From Berne to Beijing: A Critical Perspective

Remarking on the Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performances at the Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law’s Symposium, From Berne to Beijing, Professor Lange expressed general misgivings about exercising the Treaty Power in ways that alter the nature of US copyright law and impinge on other constitutional rights. This edited version of those Remarks explains Professor Lange’s preference for legislation grounded squarely in the traditional jurisprudence of the Copyright Clause, the First Amendment, and the public domain, and his preference for contracting around established expectations rather than reworking default rules through treaties. It continues by exploring the particular costs associated with the Beijing Treaty’s expansion of moral rights into US copyright law. Those expanded rights, viewed in light of previous legislative and judicial expansions of traditional US copyright principles, threaten to erode certain portions of the public domain and the exercise of First Amendment rights. Recognizing that additional rights for some result in a loss of rights for others, these Remarks invite critical reflection on the costs and benefits of the Beijing Treaty, “copyright restoration,” and other well-intentioned alterations to the status quo

Students, Music and the Net: A Comment on Peer-To-Peer File Sharing

As most of the public now know, the recording industry has lately filed civil suits alleging copyright infringement against hundreds of individual defendants across the country, many (I think most) of them college students and campus hangers-on. Hundreds more such suits are said to be in the offing. The nature of the infringements? Peer-to-peer file sharing via the Internet: a kind of piracy, to use the term favored by the industry, or downloading, as it is generally thought of by the students themselves - but from either perspective, the practice of recording music from the Net while making it available in turn to others, using any of a growing number of computer programs designed to make the practice work

From Berne to Beijing: A Critical Perspective

Remarking on the Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performances at the Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law’s Symposium, From Berne to Beijing, Professor Lange expressed general misgivings about exercising the Treaty Power in ways that alter the nature of US copyright law and impinge on other constitutional rights. This edited version of those Remarks explains Professor Lange’s preference for legislation grounded squarely in the traditional jurisprudence of the Copyright Clause, the First Amendment, and the public domain, and his preference for contracting around established expectations rather than reworking default rules through treaties. It continues by exploring the particular costs associated with the Beijing Treaty’s expansion of moral rights into US copyright law. Those expanded rights, viewed in light of previous legislative and judicial expansions of traditional US copyright principles, threaten to erode certain portions of the public domain and the exercise of First Amendment rights. Recognizing that additional rights for some result in a loss of rights for others, these Remarks invite critical reflection on the costs and benefits of the Beijing Treaty, “copyright restoration,” and other well-intentioned alterations to the status quo

Measuring the Expansion of the Universe Through Changes in the CMB Photosphere

The expansion of the universe may be observed in ``realtime'' by measuring changes in the patterns of the anisotropy in the CMB. As the universe ages, the surface of decoupling--or the CMB photosphere--moves away from us and samples a different gravitational landscape. The response of the CMB to this new landscape results in a different pattern than we observe today. The largest change occurs at l~900. We show that with an array of detectors that we may envision having in a couple of decades, one can in principle measure the change in the anisotropy with two high precision measurements separated by a century.Comment: 4 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Ap

Ecophysiological adaptations of the lichen genera pseudocyphellaria and sticta to south temperate rainforests

Temperate rainforests are a poorly researched habitat with respect to lichen ecophysiology in comparison to desert and polar regions. The evergreen, broadleaf forests provide a dim, moist environment that is relatively stable throughout the year. Lichens are abundant in both quantity and species diversity with the large foliose genera Sticta and Pseudocyphellaria normally being dominant, visually and in terms of biomass. These lichens exhibit a great diversity of both form and habitat range. Physiological and morphological adaptation has also been demonstrated. Pseudocyphellaria dissimilis shows changes in thallus water storage capacity with evaporative demand and is also highly shade-adapted. The species has the lowest light saturation and compensation values for photosynthesis yet known for lichens (20 and 1-μmol m−2s−1, PAR, respectively). Unexpectedly it is also highly desiccation-sensitive with some thalli being killed after only 20 h exposure to 15% relative humidity. Photobiont versatility is also a feature of these genera. Photosymbiodemes occur, i.e. a single thallus containing both green algal and cyanobacterial sectors. Because the different sectors have the same fungal partner and grow in the same habitat, it is possible to investigate whether particular physiological traits are photobiont determined. The ability to recover photosynthetic activity in humid air is confined to thalli with green algal photobionts whilst the inability of thalli containing cyanobacterial photobionts to tolerate high light stress may be related to their lack of a protective xanthophyll cycle

Diel and seasonal courses of ambient carbon dioxide concentration and their effect on productivity of the epilithic lichen Lecanora muralis in a temperate, suburban habitat

Ambient CO₂ concentration (together with CO₂ exchange and microclimate) was recorded every 30 min for 15 months for Lecanora muralis growing in the Botanical Garden Würzburg (Germany, northern Bavaria), a habitat on the outskirts of the city. Annual mean CO₂ was around 17 ppm higher than the global average reported for the time of measurement (361 ppm; 1995/96), and daily values ranged from 317 to 490 ppm. Diel courses of CO₂ could be classified into three different types. Type A, when CO₂ levels rose overnight and then fell strongly to below global levels during the day, which predominated in the summer (about 75 of days); Type B, irregular diel courses occurred during all seasons with often very rapid changes apparently due to advective CO₂ transport; Type C, CO₂ concentration was typically almost stable at generally between c. 330 and 430 ppm which predominated in the winter (63 of days). Under controlled conditions, CO₂ saturation of net photosynthesis (NP) of L. muralis at optimal hydration and light occurred at around 1000 ppm. NP was also affected by low CO₂ at limiting light and thallus water contents. Based upon these data, we estimated the improvement of NP of L. muralis due to transient increase of ambient CO₂ (as compared with the global average) for one selected combination of environmental factors (nocturnal dew or frost). This combination is an important source of water for the lichen, resulting in 40 of its annual production and, especially in these situations, photosynthesis was increased by high ambient CO₂ in the early morning under prevailing Type A conditions. After dew activation, light compensation point of NP occurred at an average concentration of 413 ppm and diel maxima of NP at 402 ppm. This allows a rough estimate that the transiently elevated CO₂ increased the photosynthetic gain of the lichen after dew of 7, or an improvement to its annual carbon balance of about 3. Conditions, especially interrelationships between lichen hydration, light and CO₂ are so complex that we are not yet able to extend our estimates to other environmental situations of photosynthetic activity of L. muralis