Hail to the thief: a tribute to Kazaa

THIS PAPER CONSIDERS THE ONGOING LITIGATION against the peer-to-peer network KaZaA. Record companies and Hollywood studios have faced jurisdictional and legal problems in suing this network for copyright infringement. As Wired Magazine observes: “The servers are in Denmark. The software is in Estonia. The domain is registered Down Under, the corporation on a tiny island in the South Pacific. The users—60 million of them—are everywhere around the world.” In frustration, copyright owners have launched copyright actions against intermediaries—like against Internet Service Providers such as Verizon. They have also embarked on filing suits against individual users of file-sharing programs. In addition, copyright owners have called for domestic- and international-law reform with respect to digital copyright. The Senate Committee on Government Affairs of the United States Congress has reviewed the controversial use of subpoenas in suits against users of file-sharing peer-to-peer networks. The United States has encouraged other countries to adopt provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act 1998 in bilateral and regional free-trade agreements

Bloomsday: copyright estates and cultural festivals

Copyright estates have been unduly empowered by the extension of the term of copyright protection in Europe, the United States, Australia and elsewhere. The Estate of the Irish novelist, James Joyce, has been particularly aggressive in policing his revived copyrights. The "keepers of the flame" have relied upon threats of legal action to discourage the production of derivative works based upon the canonical texts of the novelist. The Estate has also jealously guarded the reputation of the author by vetoing the use of his work in various scholarly productions. Most radically of all, the grandson Stephen Joyce threatened to take legal action to prevent the staging of "Rejoyce Dublin 2004", a festival celebrating the centenary of Bloomsday. In response, the Irish Parliament rushed through emergency legislation, entitled the Copyright and Related Rights (Amendment) Act 2004 (Ireland) to safeguard the celebrations. The legislation clarified that a person could place literary and artistic works on public exhibition, without breaching the copyright vested in such cultural texts. Arguably, though, the ad hoc legislation passed by the Irish Parliament is inadequate. The Estate of James Joyce remains free to exercise its suite of economic and moral rights to control the use and adaptation of works of the Irish novelist. It is contended that copyright law needs to be revised to promote the interests of libraries and other cultural institutions. Most notably, the defence of fair dealing should be expanded to allow for the transformative use of copyright works, particularly in respect of adaptations and derived works. There should be greater scope for compulsory licensing and crown acquisition of revived copyrights

Information Feudalism: Who Owns The Knowledge Economy? A Book Review

In Information Feudalism: Who Owns The Knowledge Economy?, Peter Drahos and his collaborator John Braithwaite reprise and expand upon the themes first developed in that article in 'The Information Society'. The authors contend: "Information feudalism is a regime of property rights that is not economically-efficient, and does not get the balance right between rewarding innovation and diffusing it. Like feudalism, it rewards guilds instead of inventive individual citizens. It makes democratic citizens trespassers on knowledge that should be the common heritage of humankind, their educational birthright. Ironically, information feudalism, by dismantling the publicness of knowledge, will eventually rob the knowledge economy of much of its productivity." ...In this engaging and accessible book, Drahos and Braithwaite trace the deal-making at the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) that led to intellectual property becoming a part of the World Trade Organization

Crystal Palaces: Copyright Law And Public Architecture

This paper investigates copyright law and public architecture in the context of cultural institutions of Australia. Part 1 examines the case of the Sydney Opera House to illustrate the past position of architects in respect of copyright law. It goes onto consider the framework laid down by the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000 (Cth) to resolve copyright disputes over moral rights and architecture. Part 2 considers the argument over the proposed renovations to the National Gallery of Australia between Dr Brian Kennedy and the original architect Colin Madigan. Part 3 finally deals with the allegations that Ashton Raggatt McDougall, the architects of the National Museum of Australia, plagiarised the designs of Daniel Libeskind for the Jewish Berlin Museum

The alchemy of junk: patent law and non-coding DNA

This article considers the recent international controversy over the patents held by a Melbourne firm, Genetic Technologies Limited (GTG), in respect of non-coding DNA and genomic mapping. It explores the ramifications of the GTG dispute in terms of licensing, litigation, and policy reform, and—as a result of this dispute—the perceived conflict between law and science. GTG has embarked upon an ambitious licensing program with twenty seven commercial licensees and five research licensees. Most significantly, GTG has obtained an exclusive licence from Myriad Genetics to use and exploit its medical diagnostics in Australia, New Zealand, and the Asia-Pacific region. In the US, GTG brought a legal action for patent infringement against the Applera Corporation and its subsidiaries. In response, Applera counterclaimed that the patents of GTG were invalid because they failed to comply with the requirements of US patent law, such as novelty, inventive step, and written specifications. In New Zealand, the Auckland District Health Board brought legal action in the High Court, seeking a declaration that the patents of GTG were invalid, and that, in any case, the Board has not infringed them. The New Zealand Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Economic Development have reported to Cabinet on the issues relating to the patenting of genetic material. Similarly, the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) has also engaged in an inquiry into gene patents and human health; and the Advisory Council on Intellectual Property (ACIP) has considered whether there should be a new defence in respect of experimental use and research

Virtual Countries: Internet Domain Names And Geographical Terms

This paper examines the dispute between the Seattle company Virtual Countries Inc. and the Republic of South Africa over the ownership of the domain name address southafrica.com. Part 1 deals with the pre-emptive litigation taken by Virtual Countries Inc. in a District Court of the United States. Part 2 considers the possible arbitration of the dispute under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Process of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. It considers the wider implications of this dispute for the jurisdiction and the governance of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Part 3 evaluates the Final Report of the Second WIPO Internet Domain Name Process

Blame it on Rio: Biodiscovery, Native Title, and Traditional Knowledge

This article examines the legal responses to protect traditional knowledge of biodiversity in the wake of the Rio Convention on Biological Diversity. It considers the relative merits of the inter- locking regimes of contract law, environmental law, intellectual property law, and native title law. Part 1 considers the natural drug discovery industry in Australia. In particular , it looks at the operations of Amrad, Astra Zeneca R & D, and the Australian Institute of Marine Science. This section examines the key features of the draft regulations proposed under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cth) - model contracts, informed consent, benefit-sharing, and ministerial discretion. The use of Indigenous Land Use Agreements in the context of access to genetic resources is also explored. Part 2 considers the role played by native title law in dealing with tangible and intangible property interests. The High Court decision in Western Australia v Ward considers the relationship between native title rights and cultural knowledge. The Federal Court case of Neowarra v Western Australia provides an intriguing gloss on this High Court decision. Part 3 looks at whether traditional knowledge of biodiversity can be protected under intellectual property law. It focuses upon reforms such as Senator Aden Ridgeway’ s proposed amendments to the Plant Breeder’s Rights Act 1994 (Cth), and the push to make disclosure of origin a requirement of patent law

The Wild West of Robot Law

The new hit HBO television show Westworld is an American science fiction show, which taps into our hopes and fears about robots. The show imagines a technologically advanced Wild West theme park, which is populated by androids and robots who are called ‘hosts.’ Wealthy human ‘visitors’ come to the entertainment precinct to indulge their dreams and fantasies. Westworld is a mediation upon the law, ethics, and social norms in respect of robots. As a disruptive technology, robotics is transforming our society and our economy. Robots have been increasingly deployed in innovation as part of Australia’s “Ideas Boom”. There has been a mixture of hope and anxiety as to how robotics and artificial intelligence will affect jobs, education and employment. This is certainly apparent in the legal profession. In terms of transportation, there are autonomous vehicles, drones, and aquabots. Robots have been deployed in agriculture, hospitals, and the environment. Robots increasingly feature in civilian law enforcement, and the military battlefield. There has been a growing debate about the regulation of robots, across a range of contexts. Policy-makers, lawyers, philosophers, and experts have been grappling with the legal, ethical, and public policy challenges posed by robotics. There has been a concerted effort by academics and scholars to develop the discipline of Robot Law as an organised and systematic field of jurisprudence. There have been regular ‘We Robot’ conferences in North America. The book Robot Law – edited by Ryan Calo, A. Michael Froomkin and Ian Kerr – represents a collective effort to survey the emerging field. In his introduction, Froomkin comments: ‘Like the Internet before it, robotics is a socially and economically transformative technology.’ He observes that ‘the increasing sophistication of robots and their widespread deployment everywhere from the home to hospitals, public spaces, and the battlefield requires rethinking a wide variety of philosophical and public policy issues, interacts uneasily with existing legal regimes, and thus may counsel changes in policy and in law.’ In many respects, robotics remains like the Wild West – a frontier realm, which is as much regulated by social norms and the marketplace, as by legal rules

Who owns Superman? The Man of Steel fights trademark law

Who is Superman’s greatest threat? Evil genius Lex Luthor? General Zod from the Phantom Zone? The doppelganger Bizarro? Super-villain Brainiac? Kryptonite? Or is it intellectual property law

Ingestion of sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) following a fatiguing bout of exercise accelerates post-exercise acid-base balance recovery and improves subsequent high-intensity cycling time to exhaustion.

This study evaluated the ingestion of sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) on post-exercise acid-base balance recovery kinetics and subsequent high-intensity cycling time to exhaustion. In a counterbalanced, crossover design, nine healthy and active males (age: 23±2 years, height: 179±5 cm, body mass: 74±9 kg, peak mean minute power (WPEAK) 256±45 W, peak oxygen uptake (V̇O2PEAK) 46±8 ml.kg-1.min-1) performed a graded incremental exercise test, two familiarisation and two experimental trials. Experimental trials consisted of cycling to volitional exhaustion (TLIM1) at 100% WPEAK on two occasions (TLIM1 and TLIM2) interspersed by a 90 min passive recovery period. Using a double blind approach, 30 min into a 90 min recovery period participants ingested either 0.3 g.kg-1 body mass sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) or a placebo (PLA) containing 0.1 g.kg-1 body mass sodium chloride (NaCl) mixed with 4 ml.kg-1 tap water and 1 ml.kg-1 orange squash. The mean differences between TLIM2 and TLIM1 was larger for PLA compared to NaHCO3 (-53±53 vs. -20±48 s; P=0.008, d=0.7, CI=-0.3, 1.6), indicating superior subsequent exercise time to exhaustion following NaHCO3. Blood lactate [BLa-] was similar between treatments post TLIM1, but greater for NaHCO3 post TLIM2 and 5 min post TLIM2. Ingestion of NaHCO3 induced marked increases (P<0.01) in both blood pH (+0.07±0.02, d=2.6, CI=1.2, 3.7) and bicarbonate ion concentration [HCO3-] (+6.8±1.6 mmo.l-1, d=3.4, CI=1.8, 4.7) compared to the PLA treatment, prior to TLIM2. It is likely both the acceleration of recovery and the marked increases of acid-base after TLIM1 contributed to greater TLIM2 performance compared to the PLA condition.The authors received no external funding for this research. Mr. Steven Rimmer received a small undergraduate research bursary from the University of Derby to fund his contribution to the study