Alien Registration- Lantagne, Aurore (Sanford, York County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/3143/thumbnail.jp

Tinhatting the Constitution: Originalism as a Fandom

Several recent Supreme Court cases, most notably Bruen and Dobbs, have employed originalist methods to interpreting the Constitution, seeking to give the Second and Fourteenth Amendments, respectively, the meaning that was understood by the public in 1791 and 1868. In this imaginative exercise compiling massive amounts of textual evidence to arrive at conclusions regarding what unknown people were thinking, originalism resembles a type of fandom practice called RPF, or Real Person Fiction. This type of fan activity likewise compiles massive amounts of textual evidence to arrive at conclusions regarding what unknown people were thinking. It’s just that RPF revolves around celebrities instead of the Framers. This Article seeks to interrogate originalism through a fandom lens, viewing it as a type of RPF. Doing so can provide a different perspective on some of the criticisms that have been leveled at RPF, including its lack of neutrality and diversity. This Article finds that originalism is actually a particular RPF phenomenon known as “tinhatting,” in which those engaging in the imaginative exercise believe their conclusions to be the truth. Tinhatters are maligned in fandom, leading to query why originalists are not so easily dismissed

Alien Registration- Lantagne, Charles (Sanford, York County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/3144/thumbnail.jp

Spin ice thin films: Large-N theory and Monte Carlo simulations

We explore the physics of highly frustrated magnets in confined geometries, focusing on the Coulomb phase of pyrochlore spin ices. As a specific example, we investigate thin films of nearest-neighbor spin ice, using a combination of analytic large-N techniques and Monte Carlo simulations. In the simplest film geometry, with surfaces perpendicular to the [001] crystallographic direction, we observe pinch points in the spin-spin correlations characteristic of a two-dimensional Coulomb phase. We then consider the consequences of crystal symmetry breaking on the surfaces of the film through the inclusion of orphan bonds. We find that when these bonds are ferromagnetic, the Coulomb phase is destroyed by the presence of fluctuating surface magnetic charges, leading to a classical Z_2 spin liquid. Building on this understanding, we discuss other film geometries with surfaces perpendicular to the [110] or the [111] direction. We generically predict the appearance of surface magnetic charges and discuss their implications for the physics of such films, including the possibility of an unusual Z_3 classical spin liquid. Finally, we comment on open questions and promising avenues for future research.Comment: 17 pages, 11 figures. Minor improvements, typos correcte

Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Lucrative Fandom: Recognizing the Economic Power of Fanworks and Reimagining Fair Use in Copyright

Fan culture, in the form of fan-created works like fanfiction, fanart, and fanvids, is often associated with the Internet. However, fandom has existed for as long as stories have been told. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories inspired a passionate fandom long before the age of the Internet. Despite their persistence, fanworks have long existed in a gray area of copyright law. Determining if any given fanwork is infringing requires a fair use analysis. Although these analyses pay lip service to a requirement of aesthetic neutrality, they tend to become bogged down by unarticulated artistic judgments that hinge on a court’s personal interpretations of the work in question. One outcome of this emphasis on aesthetic value has been a de-emphasis of the market harm factor of fair use, the examination of which has come to be subsumed by courts’ aesthetic judgments. This de-emphasis of the financial aspect of fair use has strong implications for the legality of fanworks. Mainstream culture has historically considered fanworks to have little aesthetic value, which can lead to knee-jerk findings of infringement in aesthetic-based fair use analyses. However, both old, venerable fandoms like Sherlock Holmes and new works funded by Kickstarter demonstrate that fanworks can actually enable further creativity by the copyright-holder and increase the value of the original work rather than detract from it. Shifting the focus of fair use analysis to a market-based approach would prioritize economic returns over courts’ artistic opinions. Such a shift would correct the imbalance created by aesthetic value judgments of free works that cause no economic harm and recognize that fanworks often operate as market facilitators, not market rivals. This Article examines the phenomenon of fandom and its effect on the original works that inspired it through the medium of both old fandoms that pre-date the Internet age and new fandoms that have come of age in a digital world. This Article argues that active fandoms producing a large amount of fanworks tend to aid the goals of copyright. It further posits that fair use analysis of these works should be re-focused on ensuring a meaningful examination of the effect on the market factor that avoids the taint of courts’ aesthetic judgments. A renewed appreciation for the effect on the market factor would result in a more accurate application of the fair use doctrine that would acknowledge the role of fanworks and their participatory culture in supporting the economic incentive motivation of copyright

When Real People Become Fictional: The Collision of Trademark, Copyright, and Publicity Rights in Online Stories About Celebrities

Fanficion is frequently defined as the writing of fiction involving the characters or setting of someone else’s creation. However, there is a subset of fanfiction that is known as Real Person Fiction, or RPF. This subset writes stories not about other people’s fictional creations but about real people, whether they be hockey players or movie stars, and it has long been the scene of heated debate in the fan community. Some fans who readily and enthusiastically engage with fanfiction draw strict “squick” lines about RPF and call it “creepy” and “disturbing.” Perhaps for this reason, scholars have paid little attention to online stories about celebrities in evaluations of fan activities. From a legal standpoint, however, these stories are much more easily defensible than fanfiction. As they involve real people instead of fictional creations, they do not implicate copyright and so are protected from the charges of copyright infringement that could be levied at other pieces of fanfiction.Their First Amendment implications and non-commercial speech aspectstend to protect them from attacks using trademark law. Finally, theirembrace of wildly unlikely fictional scenarios—ranging from movie stars recast as baristas to pregnant male hockey players—shields them from any possible liability for privacy right or publicity right violations. This Article concludes that online stories about celebrities are currently legally protected, possibly more so than more traditional forms of fanfiction and even some more mainstream forms of storytelling. It further concludes that these stories should be so protected as a matter of sound policy