Games Are Not Coffee Mugs: Games and the Right of Publicity, 29 Santa Clara Computer & High Tech. L.J. 1 (2012)

Are games more like coffee mugs, posters, and T-shirts, or are they more like books, magazines, and films? For purposes of the right of publicity, the answer matters. The critical question is whether games should be treated as merchandise or as expression. Three classic judicial decisions, decided in 1967, 1970, and 1973, held that the defendants needed permission to use the plaintiffs\u27 names in their board games. These decisions judicially confirmed that games are merchandise, not something equivalent to more traditional media of expression. As merchandise, games are not like books; instead, they are akin to celebrity-embossed coffee mugs. To borrow a British term, games are “mere image carriers.” Although the last of these three judicial decisions disclaimed any intent of offering a “hard and fast rule,” three consecutive losses in three different courts offered a plausible basis for predicting how future courts would respond to similar claims involving games. These three decisions confirmed the “settled order of things”: a license is required to use someone\u27s name or likeness (or identity) in a game. The leading treatise on the right of publicity and the Restatement (Third) of Unfair Competition subsequently endorsed the results in these cases. In 2007 the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit upset the settled order of things. In C.B.C. Distribution and Marketing v. Major League Baseball Advanced Media, the Eighth Circuit held that the use of professional baseball players\u27 names and statistics in fantasy baseball games is protected by the First Amendment, the right of publicity notwithstanding. Some courts are resisting further erosions of the right of publicity. The issue remains substantially unsettled with multiple courts now considering whether permission is needed to use the identities of athletes in video games. We argue that the rule produced by the three classic cases is an anachronism. The licensing custom created-or at least reinforced by these decisions should carry no weight. These cases were questionable when decided. They are even more so now. The gaming medium has evolved significantly over the past four decades, calling into question the longstanding treatment of games for purposes of the right of publicity. Tedious, uncreative games marketed to children may not evoke much First Amendment sympathy against right of publicity claims, but since the three cases were decided in the late 1960s and early 1970s, several categories of commercial games have become significant, including historical wargames, role-playing games, video games, Eurogames, and other hobby games. Games in these categories do not constitute a few odd counter-examples to the same well-known games seen on retail shelves year after year, but many thousands of counter-examples. And unlike outmoded stereotypes of games, adults play these games too. These games communicate ideas, allowing players to interact with fiction and non-fiction, fantasy and history. Game designer Jane McGonigal thinks games can change the world. Her claim is unlikely to have ever been made about coffee mugs, but one need not go as far as McGonigal to recognize that games are a significant medium of expression. The Supreme Court\u27s recent decision in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association recognized the expressive similarities of video games to books, plays, and movies. Arguably, Brown moved at least video games out of the merchandise category and into the same category as more traditional media of expression. Games in general, however, are ready to be considered alongside other expressive works. While it is possible for a particular game to be a mere image or identity carrier, games are often much more. For purposes of the right of publicity, games are not like coffee mugs and should not be treated as such

The Phantom Philosophy? An Empirical Investigation of Legal Interpretation

This Article tests a model of judicial decisionmaking that incorporates elements of both the attitudinal model and the legal model, along with measures of collegiality and other variables. We develop a measure of interpretive philosophy relying primarily on judicial opinions, which we code for certain indicators of traditional interpretive approaches (i.e., the use of interpretive tools). The critical question is whether judges with similar interpretive philosophies are more likely to agree with one another when deciding cases. Our general finding is that ideology and interpretive philosophy are not significant predictors of agreement. Instead, experience on the bench together is a significant predictor of agreement, supporting the conclusion that judging is more about pragmatic problem solving and maintaining a collegial work environment. While further testing of the importance of the legal model is certainly warranted, our findings suggest that at least some of the sharp interpretive disagreements among academics are not reflected in the actual business of judging

Improving In-Stream Nutrient Routines in Water Quality Models Using Stable Isotope Tracers: A Review and Synthesis

Water quality models serve as an economically feasible alternative to quantify fluxes of nutrient pollution and to simulate effective mitigation strategies; however, their applicability is often questioned due to broad uncertainties in model structure and parameterization, leading to uncertain outputs. We argue that reduction of uncertainty is partially achieved by integrating stable isotope data streams within the water quality model architecture. This article outlines the use of stable isotopes as a response variable within water quality models to improve the model boundary conditions associated with nutrient source provenance, constrain model parameterization, and elucidate shortcomings in the model structure. To assist researchers in future modeling efforts, we provide an overview of stable isotope theory; review isotopic signatures and applications for relevant carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus pools; identify biotic and abiotic processes that impact isotope transfer between pools; review existing models that have incorporated stable isotope signatures; and highlight recommendations based on synthesis of existing knowledge. Broadly, we find existing applications that use isotopes have high efficacy for reducing water quality model uncertainty. We make recommendations toward the future use of sediment stable isotope signatures, given their integrative capacity and practical analytical process. We also detail a method to incorporate stable isotopes into multi-objective modeling frameworks. Finally, we encourage watershed modelers to work closely with isotope geochemists to ensure proper integration of stable isotopes into in-stream nutrient fate and transport routines in water quality models

A Search for Exozodiacal Clouds with Kepler

Planets embedded within dust disks may drive the formation of large scale clumpy dust structures by trapping dust into resonant orbits. Detection and subsequent modeling of the dust structures would help constrain the mass and orbit of the planet and the disk architecture, give clues to the history of the planetary system, and provide a statistical estimate of disk asymmetry for future exoEarth-imaging missions. Here we present the first search for these resonant structures in the inner regions of planetary systems by analyzing the light curves of hot Jupiter planetary candidates identified by the Kepler mission. We detect only one candidate disk structure associated with KOI 838.01 at the 3-sigma confidence level, but subsequent radial velocity measurements reveal that KOI 838.01 is a grazing eclipsing binary and the candidate disk structure is a false positive. Using our null result, we place an upper limit on the frequency of dense exozodi structures created by hot Jupiters. We find that at the 90% confidence level, less than 21% of Kepler hot Jupiters create resonant dust clumps that lead and trail the planet by ~90 degrees with optical depths >~5*10^-6, which corresponds to the resonant structure expected for a lone hot Jupiter perturbing a dynamically cold dust disk 50 times as dense as the zodiacal cloud.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figures, Accepted for publication in Ap

Factors Influencing Sun Protection Behaviors among Patients with Skin Cancer: An Application of the Information-Motivation-Behavioral Skills Model

© 2019 by the Dermatology Nurses\u27 Association. This study aimed to assess predictors of sun protection behaviors based on the information-motivation-behavioral skills (IMB) model among people diagnosed with nonmelanoma skin cancer (NMSC). For this descriptive, cross-sectional study, a convenience sample of 311 patients with NMSC was recruited at a medical center in Mississippi. Patients were invited to complete a face- A nd content-valid, IMB-model-based questionnaire. The average age of the participants was 64.12 (±12.02) years, and most (58.8%) were male. Most participants indicated not using sun protection behaviors while outdoors. Findings showed that sun protection behaviors were directly predicted by self-efficacy (standardized path coefficient = 0.504, p \u3c.001) and social support (standardized path coefficient = 0.199, p =.010). In addition, sun protection behavior was indirectly predicted (through self-efficacy) by social support (standardized indirect effect = 0.160, p \u3c.001) and attitudes (standardized indirect effect = 0.192, p =.001). The explained variances for self-efficacy and sun protection behaviors were 43% and 35.4%, respectively. In conclusion, the IMB model appears to be a useful theoretical framework for predicting sun protection behaviors among patients with NMSC. Sun safety intervention programs should be developed based on this theoretical model for patients with NMSC

Massive scalar field in multiply connected flat spacetimes

The vacuum expectation value of the stress-energy tensor $\left\langle 0\left| T_{\mu\nu} \right|0\right\rangle$ is calculated in several multiply connected flat spacetimes for a massive scalar field with arbitrary curvature coupling. We find that a nonzero field mass always decreases the magnitude of the energy density in chronology-respecting manifolds such as $R^3 \times S^1$, $R^2 \times T^2$, $R^1 \times T^3$, the M\"{o}bius strip, and the Klein bottle. In Grant space, which contains nonchronal regions, whether $\left\langle 0\left| T_{\mu\nu} \right|0\right\rangle$ diverges on a chronology horizon or not depends on the field mass. For a sufficiently large mass $\left\langle 0\left| T_{\mu\nu} \right|0\right\rangle$ remains finite, and the metric backreaction caused by a massive quantized field may not be large enough to significantly change the Grant space geometry.Comment: 19 pages, REVTeX, 5 figures in separate uuencoded compressed fil

Possible thermochemical disequilibrium in the atmosphere of the exoplanet GJ 436b

The nearby extrasolar planet GJ 436b--which has been labelled as a 'hot Neptune'--reveals itself by the dimming of light as it crosses in front of and behind its parent star as seen from Earth. Respectively known as the primary transit and secondary eclipse, the former constrains the planet's radius and mass, and the latter constrains the planet's temperature and, with measurements at multiple wavelengths, its atmospheric composition. Previous work using transmission spectroscopy failed to detect the 1.4-\mu m water vapour band, leaving the planet's atmospheric composition poorly constrained. Here we report the detection of planetary thermal emission from the dayside of GJ 436b at multiple infrared wavelengths during the secondary eclipse. The best-fit compositional models contain a high CO abundance and a substantial methane (CH4) deficiency relative to thermochemical equilibrium models for the predicted hydrogen-dominated atmosphere. Moreover, we report the presence of some H2O and traces of CO2. Because CH4 is expected to be the dominant carbon-bearing species, disequilibrium processes such as vertical mixing and polymerization of methane into substances such as ethylene may be required to explain the hot Neptune's small CH4-to-CO ratio, which is at least 10^5 times smaller than predicted