Fighting the First Sale Doctrine: Strategies for a Struggling Film Industry

The first sale doctrine, codified at 17 U.S.C. § 109, grants the owners of a copy of a copyrighted work the right to sell, rent, or lease that copy without permission from the copyright owner. This doctrine, first endorsed by the Supreme Court in Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus, was established at a time when the owner of a good necessarily had to forego possession in order to sell or lease the item to another.[...] The changes in technology and industry over the past two decades threaten to upend this balance. In today\u27s digital world, an owner of a copy of a copyrighted work need not relinquish his perfect copy in order to sell it. Music, films, software, and video games can be ripped to an owner or lessee\u27s hard drive and accessed indefinitely in their perfect, as-delivered state even after the sale or return of the physical media upon which the copyrighted content was first accessed. The first sale doctrine does not shelter resale or rental of purely digital copies (where no physical media are involved), but continues to protect the resale and rental of physical copies of digital content even after an individual has archived the material. Innovative rental distribution methods, such as Redbox kiosks and Netflix rental-bymail, have depressed revenue for copyright holders by lowering the costs consumers must pay to access video content. There is little doubt that the public has enjoyed short-term benefits from these changes, but the loss of profits for copyright holders portends a future with less content creation. Technological advancements have occasionally required changes to the first sale doctrine. When audiocassette technology enabled the inexpensive duplication of phonorecords, and when home computers made possible the quick duplication of software, Congress took action to protect the music and software industries by limiting for-profit rentals of those works. It did not, however, extend such protection to the film industry despite the introduction of the VCR. As a result, today individuals can cheaply rent DVDs and Bluray Discs from the likes of Netflix and Redbox, illegally rip the information to their digital home library, and retain this illegal copy long after returning the physical disc. This Note argues that, while the first sale doctrine is not solely responsible for declining home video sales, advancements in technology and industry may require a new approach to the doctrine in order to protect the rights of filmmakers in the digital age. Part I of this Note presents an overview of the first sale doctrine\u27s origins as well as recent judicial application of the doctrine. Part II suggests legislative solutions that would revise the first sale doctrine in light of recent technological changes. Part III analyzes untested legal strategies that could allow filmmakers to circumvent the first sale doctrine altogether. Part IV concludes that market-based solutions, including increased digital distribution of content under a licensing regime rather than a sale-based regime, are a more realistic path towards promoting the interests of filmmakers and the public than the other suggested approaches

Molecular systematics of Cercocarpus H.B.K. (Rosaceae)

textCercocarpus H.B.K. (Rosaceae) is a New-World genus comprised of montane xerophytic shrubs and trees found in deserts, chaparral, and montane regions of western North America. Cercocarpus has been shown to be infected by Frankia, a nitrogen-fixing soil actinomycete. Frankia strains provide their hosts with a source of fixed nitrogen, a nutrient that often controls plant growth. This dissertation set out to create molecular phylogenies for Cercocarpus for later studies of coevolutionary relationships between Cercocarpus and Frankia. Only by knowing the evolutionary histories of both lineages can an in-depth study of coevolution proceed. Cercocarpus lacks a consensus classification or phylogeny. Past confusion about the number and circumscription of species within Cercocarpus arose from a lack of clear morphological discontinuities between taxa. Variations in leaf morphology show a continuum within and between taxa, making delineation of species difficult. Due to the variation in morphology, extensive sampling was conducted of all described taxa of Cercocarpus. The external transcribed spacer (ETS) of the nuclear ribosomal DNA was developed in Cercocarpus for the purpose of phylogenetic reconstruction. We document unexpected, deep coalescence of paralogous ETS types in Cercocarpus. This is the first record of the maintainence of ETS paralogues that were not produced by recent hybridization and lack of concerted evolution or pseudogene formation. We produced three phylogenies for Cercocarpus taxa, one based on ETS sequence data, another on AFLP presence/absence data, and a third based on chloroplast intergenic spacer sequences. Areas of congruence between the three trees supports clear taxonomic conclusions. Most notably, C. montanus is distinct from C. betuloides, the two newly described species of Cercocarpus have affinities to C. fothergilloides, and the endangered C. traskiae is more closely related to C. betuloides than C. fothergilloides, as previously thought. Taxon sampling had a great impact on tree topology, highlighting the need to do thorough sampling for closely related plant groups. We also discovered all three independent phylogenies were significantly incongruent, suggesting a complex, reticulating evolutionary history.Biological Sciences, School o

The influence of diet on growth rate, thyroid hormone output, and thermoregulation in laboratory white rats

The physiological effects of the consumption of diets varying in protein and calorie content was assessed using young male Sprague-Dawley rats. Food intake (FI), water intake (WI), body weight (BW), rectal temperature (Tre), oxygen consumption (VO{dollar}\sb2{dollar}), hematocrit (Hct), Hemoglobin (Hb), plasma protein concentration (PP), and plasma levels of thyroxine (T{dollar}\sb4{dollar}), triiodothyronine (T{dollar}\sb3{dollar}), free thyroxine index (FT{dollar}\sb4{dollar}), and thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) were measured. Food intake expressed per g BW was highest in the LP (5% protein) diet group, but body weight gain was the lower in the LP fed group compared to the Control group (22.5% protein). Decreases in dietary protein content were associated with of increased Hct, Hb, T{dollar}\sb4{dollar}, T{dollar}\sb3{dollar}, and heart weight along with decreased liver weight, plasma protein content, and gWI/gFI. The low calorie (LC) diet produced a decreased liver weight and PP, and a faster rise in Tre under cold stress along with a lower overall Tre during heat stress. (Abstract shortened with permission of author.)