Does Copyright Piracy Pay? The Effects of U.S. International Copyright Laws on the Market for Books, 1790-1920

Does the lack of international copyrights benefit or harm developing countries? I examine the effects of U.S. copyright piracy during a period when the U.S. was itself a developing country. U.S. statutes since 1790 protected the copyrights of American citizens, but until 1891 deemed the works of foreign citizens to be in the public domain. In 1891, the laws were changed to allow foreigners to obtain copyright protection in the United States if certain conditions were met. Thus, this episode in American history provides us with a convenient way of investigating the consequences of international copyright piracy. My analysis is based on copyright registrations, information on authors, book titles and prices, financial data from the accounts of a major publishing company, and lawsuits regarding copyright questions. These data are used to investigate the welfare effects of widespread infringement of foreign works on American publishers, writers, and the public. The results suggest that the United States benefited from piracy and that the choice of copyright regime was endogenous to the level of economic development.

Technological Innovations and Endogenous Changes in U.S. Legal Institutions, 1790-1920

Recent scholarship highlights the importance of institutions to the processes of economic growth, but the precise nature of their relationship bears further examination. This paper considers how the evolution of legal institutions has contributed to, and in turn been affected by, major technological innovations. The first section of the paper examines the U.S. intellectual property system. Patent and copyright laws, and their interpretation and enforcement by the federal judiciary, certainly influenced the course of technical and cultural change, but it is clear that they did not develop independently of the state of technology and of the economy. Both the statutes and their interpretations altered in response to the introduction and diffusion of new technologies. The second section explores in more detail the impact of some of these technological innovations -- including steamboats, railroads, telegraphy, medical technologies, and automobiles -- on the common law, regulation and insurance. Such technological advances often led to institutional bottlenecks, which then required accommodations in legal rules and their enforcement. Although the common law had some capability for economizing on legal adjustment costs through 'adjudication by analogy', the socio-economic changes wrought by major innovations ultimately produced more fundamental change in legal institutions, such as shifts in the relative importance of state and federal policies, and in the degree of reliance on regulation by bureaucracy. In sum, the historical record of the evolution of legal rules and standards in the United States indicates a remarkable degree of flexibility as such institutions responded to changing economic circumstances.

Institutions and Technological Innovation During the Early Economic Growth: Evidence from the Great Inventors of the United States, 1790-1930

Employing a sample of renowned U.S. inventors that combines biographical detail with information on the patents they received over their careers, we highlight the impact of early U.S. patent institutions in providing broad access to economic opportunity and in encouraging trade in new technological knowledge. Through setting low fees and establishing administrative procedures for application, the United States deliberately created a patent system that allowed a much wider range, in socioeconomic class terms, of technologically creative individuals to obtain property rights to their inventions than did European patent institutions. Moreover, by requiring that applications be examined for novelty by technical experts, and by enforcing patent rights strictly, the U.S. system reduced uncertainty about the validity of patent rights, and in that way lowered the cost of transacting in them. Creating secure assets in new technological knowledge and facilitating access to markets in technology in this way both stimulated specialization at invention and further enhanced the opportunities available to technologically creative individuals who would otherwise have lacked the capital to directly extract returns from their efforts. Indeed, we show that until the late 19th century, the 'great inventors' of the U.S. generally had backgrounds that permitted them only limited formal schooling, and made extensive use of their abilities under the patent system to extract returns from trading their patent rights. The usefulness of the 19th century U.S. patent system to inventors with humble origins may have implications for the design of intellectual property institutions in contemporary developing countries.

Institutions and Technological Innovation During Early Economic Growth: Evidence from the Great Inventors of the United States, 1790 – 1930

Biographical information on a sample of renowned U.S. inventors is combined with information on the patents they received over their careers, and employed to highlight the implications of patent institutions for markets in inventions and for democratization. The United States deliberately created a patent system that differed from existing European systems in ways that significantly affected the course of technological change. Patent rights in the U.S. helped to define and enforce tradable assets in new technological knowledge. By facilitating access to such markets in technology, patents enhanced the benefits to relatively disadvantaged individuals who might otherwise have been unable to directly extract returns from their technological creativity, and their response to such incentives increased overall technological progress. For this reason, despite the defects of patent monopolies, developing economies today may still advance technological progress and improve social welfare by providing broad access to property rights in inventions.

A Bioarchaeological Study of Osteoarthritis of Agro-pastoralists from Mistihalj, Bosnia and Herzegovina: A Lifestyle Set in Time

Activity stresses are an important factor in the development, patterning, and severity of osteoarthritis. This bioarchaeological thesis explores the prevalence and patterning of osteoarthritis between individuals buried at a Late Medieval Necropolis and a church Crypt built in the 19th century at the Mistihalj site in Bosnia and Herzegovina to understand the physiological effects of their peasant agro-pastoralist lifestyle. Composite scores of osteoarthritis were generated for visual observations of upper limb joints (shoulder, elbow, and wrist) and lower limb joints (hip, knee, and ankle) of 37 female and 39 male adult (between 20 and 50 or more years of age) skeletons. These were analyzed and compared by limb, age, sex, and time period. Low ranking peasant status for individuals was inferred by the location and type of burial. Odds ratio analyses show a positive correlation between the prevalence of osteoarthritis and age among Necropolis individuals. Correlation by age is expected, as the prevalence of osteoarthritis increases due to senescence and longer exposure to activities. A positive correlation between the severity of osteoarthritis and burial location between male skeletons overall and among older adults suggests that distinctive factors, perhaps differential workloads, played a role in the effects of this condition among these individuals. The reasons for the lack of any other significant differences in the osteoarthritic effects within and between the individuals from the two burial locations are discussed, including systemic factors that might lead to generalized osteoarthritis. However, overall these data suggest that the individuals within and between these time periods were generally involved in similar activities reflecting long term traditional lifestyles that continued over centuries. This thesis adds to the nascent bioarchaeological knowledge about past populations from Bosnia and Herzegovina and contributes to an anthropological understanding of lifestyles and their effect on physiological health

La piratería de derechos de autor y el desarrollo: evidencia de los Estados Unidos en el siglo XIX

¿La falta de derechos internacionales de autor beneficia o perjudica a los países en desarrollo? Este artículo examina los efectos de la piratería de derechos de autor en Estados Unidos durante un período cuando era un país en desarrollo. Las leyes estadounidenses protegían los derechos de autor de sus ciudadanos desde 1790, pero hasta 1891 consideraron que las obras de los ciudadanos extranjeros eran de dominio público. En 1891 se modificaron para que los extranjeros obtuvieran protección de derechos de autor si satisfacían ciertas condiciones. Este episodio de la historia estadounidense es útil para investigar las consecuencias de la piratería de derechos internacionales de autor. El análisis usa registros de derechos de autor, información de los autores, títulos y precios de los libros, datos financieros de los balances de una compañía editorial muy importante y demandas judiciales sobre cuestiones de derechos de autor para investigar los efectos de bienestar de la violación de las obras extranjeras sobre los editores, los autores y el público estadounidense. Los resultados indican que Estados Unidos se benefició con la piratería y que la elección del régimen de derechos de autor fue endógena al nivel de desarrollo económico

THE IMPACT OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC MEGATRENDS UPON SOCIAL SYSTEMS AND BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT (METHODOLOGICAL ASPECT OF STUDY)

The article reflects some outcomes of the author’s scientific research which has been conducted for recent few years. The purpose of the study was to reveal the most influential socio-economic trends that have determined the development of the contemporary social and economic systems, including business. In doing so, there has been precised the notion of a socio-economic megatrend (SEM), there have been conceptualized and systematized some key SEMs which produced an impact on the formation of modern society, influence the development of postmodern society and will contribute to the constitution of future society. In the very frame, it has been traced the impact of each of the SEM revealed upon the development of business activity

Introduction

The significant breakthrough in plant biotechnology is the development of techniques to transform genes from unrelated sources into commercially important crop plants to develop resistance against insect pests. A local cotton cultivar MNH-93 was transformed through Agrobacterium tumefaciens strain C58C(1) assisted by bombardment with tungsten particles. The Agrobacterium strain contained the recombinant binary vector pKMAB harboring crylAb under 35S promoter. Neomycin phosphotransferase (nptII) gene was used as a selectable marker at a concentration of 50 mg L-1. The transformation efficiency remained 0.26%. The primary transformants were analyzed for transgene integration and expression through PCR and Southern Blotting and Western dot blot. The gene copy number was determined by Southern analysis in order to find out the crylAb integration sites. The Bt protein being produced in the transgenic plants was quantified using ImageQuant software, which ranged from 0.00 to 1.35% of the total protein. The positive plant seeds obtained from To progeny were further raised under greenhouse and field conditions to evaluate their field performance. Leaf biotoxicity assays were performed to determine the efficacy of introduced gene. The results showed that transgenic lines in T-1 progeny have appreciable level of resistance (40-60%) against lepidopteran pests in both green house and field conditions