Copyright, Containers, and the Court: A Reply to Professor Leaffer

The author finds little with which to be pleased in the Court’s recent copyright cases. The Court seems to be fighting a holding action, fending off the future by resolutely gazing backward. While the Court has not itself enlarged copyright, it has not meaningfully evaluated Congress’s power to do so, and its decisions freeze copyright into a moment in time long past. Until copyright law recognizes that content is no longer container-bound, it will continue to flounder, desperately seeking analogies to the past and missing the significance of the technological changes all around us. That said, the author agrees with Professor Leaffer that the future is not black but gray. The author believes that there is still much that can be done about the expansion of copyright and its increasing concentration into the hands of a media oligopoly, beginning with an awakening of public concern with those vital rights that are eroded as copyright expands. As long as that can happen, there is hope. Sadly, if that does not happen, then the author does not think either Congress or the Court will save us from ourselves

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act: A Bird\u27s-eye View

It is the goal of this article to provide a brief reference to the multitude of changes in the law wrought by SOX. The author\u27s hope is that this will be of use to students, scholars, and practitioners seeking an overview of the extensive changes resulting from this legislation. The discussion is broader than it is deep; indeed, a work attempting to examine SOX in depth would soon become a treatise and not just an article. The remainder of this article, then, will seek to provide a big-picture view of SOX: Part II of this article will address SOX regulation of professionals, including accountants, lawyers, and securities analysts. Part III will address SOX\u27s attempts to enhance corporate disclosure. Part IV will examine SOX\u27s efforts to reform corporate governance. Part V will examine SOX\u27s provisions dealing with enforcement of the law. Finally, Part VI will provide a brief conclusion

Quantifying how DNA stretches, melts and changes twist under tension

In cells, DNA is constantly twisted, bent and stretched by numerous proteins mediating genome transactions. Understanding these essential biological processes requires in-depth knowledge of how DNA complies to mechanical stress. Two important physical features of DNA, helical structure and sequence, are not incorporated in current descriptions of DNA elasticity. Here we connect well-defined force-extension measurements with a new model for DNA elasticity: the twistable worm-like chain, in which DNA is considered a helical, elastic entity that complies to tension by extending and twisting. In addition, we reveal hitherto unnoticed stick-slip dynamics during DNA overstretching at 65pN, caused by the loss of base-pairing interactions. An equilibrium thermodynamic model solely based on DNA sequence and elasticity is presented, which captures the full complexity of this transition. These results offer deep quantitative insight in the physical properties of DNA and present a new standard description of DNA mechanics. © 2011 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved