text:
Bilingual Edition. The English version follows the Chinese version.
最近我曾在一場「資訊環境保護主義」(Information Environmentalism)的會議上發表演說,之後便想繼續探索這過去我較少涉略的理論。資訊環境保護主義的概念最早是由詹姆士‧包伊爾(James Boyle)教授所提出,他在1997年發表了一篇名為〈智慧財產的政治學:網路的環境保護主義?〉的文章,其中他論述我們需要一種關於智慧財產的政治學(或說是政治經濟學),並建議其可類比於環境保護運動:
成功的政治運動需要兩大因素,一是一組(可普及化的)分析工具,二是根基於上述工具所揭示之共通利益所組成的聯盟。福利經濟學(welfare economics)和生態學的思考都揭示,因著私有財產聲索的分析架構、過分簡化的「因果」科學、以及不強行將負面外部性(negative externalities)內部化的市場經濟,「環境」這個詞和其概念已黯然消失。同樣地,因著現有智慧財產系統係建基於利害關係人之利益和原創作者之說法、偏重於決定論實務之經濟分析、以及對內部審查(private censorship)的危險不夠敏感之「言論自由」社群,我認為,無論從概念或字面來看,「公眾領域」(public domain)正逐漸消失中。確實,是環境運動創造了環境論述,農人、消費者、獵人、賞鳥人因此察覺自己是環保人士。或許,我們需要創造公眾領域,才能組成為保護公眾領域的聯盟。
我發表演說的會議是由澳洲學者羅伯特‧康寧漢(Robert Cunningham)博士所主辦的。基於包伊爾的想法,他新近出版了一本書,名為《資訊環境保護主義:智慧財產權的治理架構》。康寧漢根據包伊爾有關著作權與環境保護主義的原創性類比,提出了邏輯的下一步,提議智財權公眾領域的倡導者亦可採用環境運動的概念。他探討從環境理論(福利經濟、共享資源、生態、以及公眾選擇理論)衍生的分析架構,如何可被運用在資訊環境領域。此外,他亦探討環境運動的重要概念,如恢復力、多樣性,與模組化等,與智慧財產的相關性。他總結如下:
與自然世界有關的治理經驗可被運用來確保資訊環境的穩健發展。這是一種良性循環。不過,該循環唯有在資訊共享資源(information commons)被保護、發展,並與共有領域(res communis)一致發展的情況下,方能運作成功。而共有領域是屬於所有人的資源,必需用於公眾利益。
對跨太平洋夥伴協定(Trans-Pacific Partnership,簡稱 TPP)有著諸多疑慮、而且反對延長著作權保護期間的運動在國際間幾乎都失敗,以及在歐洲還真的要考慮網路連結需取得同意的時刻,眾人容易認為過去二十年來的發展每況愈下,全球著作權政策下的使用者權利未受到重視。然而,仍有希望的跡象。
其中最大和最重要的跡象是《促進盲人、視障者及其他印刷品閱讀障礙者接觸已發表著作之馬拉喀什公約》(The Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons who are Blind, Visually Impaired, or otherwise Print Disabled)的簽訂。這是第一個確認使用者權利的多邊國際著作權協定。此項發展其實極為重要,經由國際對話,甚至訂定協約,智慧財產權的某些限制是必要的。馬拉喀什公約的簽訂歷經了多年的談判協商,而其順利通過的原因可能和無可爭辯的例外情況有關,也就是身障人士的使用需求。重點是,條約通過了。著作權界已認同至少需保留一些空間以共同使用著作的重要性。
- 英國政府報告 —《著作權與公共領域的價值》(Copyright and the Value of the Public Domain)
- 魯夫斯‧普洛克(Rufus Pollock)—《公共領域的價值》(the Value of the Public Domain)
- 《公眾領域以及科學與技術資料及資訊之角色》(The Role of Scientific and Technical Data and Information in the Public Domain)
- 保羅‧烏利爾(Paul Uhlir)—《關於政府公眾領域資訊之發展與促進的政策綱要》(Policy Guidelines for the Development and Promotion of Governmental Public Domain Information)
近期的國際比較研究顯示,彈性的著作權例外情況對整體經濟是有益的。「里斯本智庫和創新經濟學會」(Lisbon Council and Innovation Economics)去年出版了《2015年智慧財產暨經濟成長指數:衡量著作權例外與限制對成長、就業,與繁榮之衝擊》(The 2015 Intellectual Property and Economic Growth Index: Measuring the Impact of Exceptions and Limitations in Copyright on Growth, Jobs and Prosperity)。這份報告分析了「經濟合作暨發展組織」(OECD)會員國著作權的限制與例外規定,及其經濟成長。結果發現採用彈性著作權例外規定的國家在整體經濟、資訊科技、服務、以及與傳統媒體產業的成長率較高。此外,它們的整體薪資所得,以及通訊和科技產業從業者的薪資也較高。該報告亦指出較彈性的著作權系統帶來的其他正面成果,例如對教育、獨立研究、言論自由、使用者生產內容(user-generated content),以及文字與資料探勘等的提昇。最重要的是,這份報告提出了以下結論:
類似的結論其實也見於美利堅大學(American University)一項仍在進行中研究的初期結果。這項研究檢視一國的著作權例外規定會如何影響其經濟成果。在研究初期階段,研究人員比較各國家各類產業的企業經驗,但專注於合理使用形式(fair use style)著作權的例外情形在該國有無規定。其研究數據包含 91 國 5,564 家公司在過去 30 年來的 166,920 觀察結果。當中包括七個具有合理使用例外規定的國家——美國、菲律賓、新加坡、以色列、台灣、馬來西亞,與南韓。研究發現採用合理使用形式的例外規定的國家,其企業通常會出現正面成果,而且這個結果並不受到產業別的影響,而所謂的產業別指的是使用者產業(如依賴著作權例外規定的產業)和權利人產業(如依賴著作權保護的產業)之區別。這顯示「網際網路公司和內容供應商皆受惠於合理使用的體系」。
甚至連世界智慧財產權組織(World Intellectual Property Organization,簡稱 WIPO)也對公眾領域越來越有興趣。WIPO 已委託進行一項關於著作權與公眾領域的概括研究(Scoping Study on Copyright and the Public Domain)。此研究發現,這裡暫且引用珍妮‧金思堡(Jane Ginsburg)的說法,「公眾領域真是了不得」,她並提到:
為了進一步承認與保護公眾領域,此項研究建議「採取著作法中的規範性方法,並且設立具體條件,來有效建立可親近、可享用、可永存的公眾領域資源」。令人興奮的是,世界智慧財產權組織已有項發展議題(且早於前項研究),似乎已開始施行這些建議。其中所採納的 45 項原則包括以下:
「16. 考慮保有公眾領域…並針對豐富與易近的公眾領域之蘊意與優點予以深度分析。」
「20. 推動會員國中的規範性設立活動…以支持一個強健的公眾領域。」
近幾年來,我的國家澳洲在資訊共享資源方面,已有多項前景看好的發展。首先,「澳洲法律評議委員會」(Australian Law Review Commission,簡稱 ALRC)公布了一份前所未有的《著作權暨數位經濟》(Copyright and the Digital Economy)報告。該報告建議澳洲採用合理使用規定,以及其他變革,以提高著作權物的近用性。儘管澳洲政府目前尚未做出任何正式回應,不過已看到該報告的政策影響;「生產力委員會」(Productivity Commission)對智慧財產議題的探究就是例子。澳洲的生產力委員會是個看重整體、推動實證導向決策、並先天上質疑壟斷的組織。生產力委員會被要求對澳洲的智慧財產體制進行檢視,並建議進行有助於「改善澳洲社會整體福祉」的變革措施,這件事情已是好的開始。生產力委員會在這件工作上,已明確列出應檢視 ALRC 的建議,且在其文件上直接提到著作的合理使用。此外,該委員會也探討推動「知識擴散」(diffusion of knowledge)的重要性,以及在創新獎勵和「提供此等獎勵給群體中其他人」之間,取得平衡的必要。
令人興奮的是,該委員會所面對的政治環境似乎也有利於導向使用者為中心的改革。澳洲新任總理過去在推動通訊政策上饒富經驗,他宣稱就任後第一年的主要目標就是創新性的成長,且已將著作權政策業務轉至傳播暨藝術主管機關的範疇,職責範圍包括科技業以及美術、圖書、典藏、以博物館(Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums,簡稱 GLAM),以及藝文人士本身。上述規劃將促成著作權的首次改革,其焦點將專注在擴大和支持使用者的權利。無論其發起人是否知道,也就是資訊共享資源。澳洲去年下半年公布的《2016年著作權修訂法案(障礙人士接近權與其他措施)》草案,其中包括下列幾點:
- 擴大和簡化澳洲學校、圖書館、障礙人士產業的著作權例外規定;
- 針對使用者中介團體提供新的保護措施;
- 允諾將從未發行過的素材整批釋出至公眾領域——在澳洲原本要到2026年才會有新素材歸到公眾領域,但這批完成於久遠之前但從未發行過的素材將是例外。
潔西卡‧科咨 (Jessica Coates)曾任 Creative Commons 全球網絡經理。在此之前,她擔任過澳洲 CC 計畫(Creative Commons Australia)的專案經理,同時管理 CC 診療所(Creative Commons Clinic)這項在昆士蘭科技大學執行的研究專案。目前她任職於澳洲數位聯盟(Australian Digital Alliance)為執行長。她是著作權和通訊政策專家,在澳洲和全球有 15 年的經驗。
Reasons for Optimism:
Jessica Coates
How the information commons is (or should be) inherent in copyright, and how it is (or isn't) being recognised in policy today.
I recently spoke at an Information Environmentalism conference, which encouraged me to find out more about this theory, which I previously knew little about. Information Environmentalism is a concept first proposed by Prof James Boyle, in his 1997 article 'A Politics of Intellectual Property: Environmentalism For the Net?' , in which he argued that we need a politics, or perhaps a political economy, of intellectual property, and suggested the environmental movement as an analogy:
a successful political movement needed both a set of (popularisable) analytical tools and coalition built around the more general interests those tools revealed. Welfare economics and the idea of ecology showed that "the environment" literally disappeared as a concept in the analytical structure of private property claims, simplistic "cause and effect" science, and markets that do not force the internalisation of negative externalities. Similarly, I claimed the "public domain" is disappearing, both conceptually and literally, in an IP system built around the interests of the current stakeholders and the notion of the original author, around an over-deterministic practice of economic analysis and around a "free speech" community that is under-sensitized to the dangers of private censorship. In one very real sense, the environmental movement invented the environment so that farmers, consumers, hunters and birdwatchers could all discover themselves as environmentalists. Perhaps we need to invent the public domain in order to call into being the coalition that might protect it[1]
The conference I spoke at was organised by Dr Robert Cunningham, an Australian academic who has recently published his own book that builds on Boyle's ideas - Information Environmentalism: a Governance Framework for Intellectual Property Rights.[2] Cunningham takes Boyle's original analogy between copyright and environmentalism and takes it to the next logical level by proposing that proponents of the public domain in intellectual property draw on the concepts built by the environment movement. He looks at how analytical frameworks derived from environmental theory (welfare economics, the commons, ecology, and public choice theory) apply to to the information environment. He also looks at how concepts central to the environment movement, such as resilience, diversity and modularity, can be relevant to intellectual property. He concludes that:
governance lessons relating to the natural world can be used to secure the health of the information environment. It is a virtuous cycle. However, this cycle only functions successfully if the information commons is protected, nurtured and developed in line with res communis – a resource that belongs to everyone must be used for the public benefit.[3]
In reflecting on these concepts, I realised that now is a perfect time for such ideas to be resurfacing. Although there are many things to be concerned about in copyright policy both in Australia and internationally at the moment, I believe that upon reflection there are also things to celebrate. Many things have changed in the nearly 20 years since Boyle's original article, and not all of them are bad.
So I write with a message of optimism. Not only do I believe that information environmentalism is a relevant concept in copyright policy today, I think it is a concept whose central tenet - that the public domain needs and deserves protection as much as the interests of creators - is on the rise. This rise may be slow, but I would argue that there is evidence of increasing awareness of the importance of maintaining space for an information commons in both Australian and international copyright policy. Or perhaps awareness is the wrong term, as it implies a conscious endorsement. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that the ideas underlying information environmentalism have very gradually permeated the copyright debates and society as a whole to the point where they are now influencing our legal regimes.
With all the concerns surround the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)[4]; the battle against copyright term extension all but lost internationally technological protection measures and licences regularly overriding copyright exceptions; and Europe seriously considering requiring permission to link[5], it is easy to think that things have only gotten worse over the last two decades in recognising the rights of users in global copyright policy. However, there are signs of hope.
The biggest and most important is the signing of the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works by Visually Impaired Persons and Persons with Print Disabilities (the Marrakesh Treaty)[6]. This is the first multilateral copyright treaty to focus on the recognition of user rights. It can not be overstated how important this development is, the emergence of an international dialogue - and even agreement - around the importance of providing at least some limitations on intellectual property rights. The treaty took years to negotiate, compromises were made, and it probably only got through because it relates to the one area in which the arguments for exceptions are pretty much indisputable ie equal access by persons with a disability. But the point is that it got through. The copyright world has acknowledged the importance of retaining at least some space for common use of material.
Similarly, while the TPP has rightly garnered a lot of criticism, one small but interesting fact is that its very detailed copyright provisions actually include better language supporting the adoption of exceptions and limitations for users than any of its predecessors, whether bilateral, plurilateral or multilateral. To quote the USTR, the TPP contains "an obligation to promote balance in copyright systems through exceptions and limitations to copyright for legitimate purposes, such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research."[7]. The actual language in the treaty is flexible and open to interpretation, but there is no question that it strengthens signatory countries' rights (and motivations) to include balancing provisions in their domestic implementation. It isn't perfect, but it's progress.
At the same time, we are seeing more and more empirical evidence emerge to support these kinds of decisions and the benefits that an information commons can provide. Over the last decade, a number of international studies have been conducted which seek to quantify, or at least better analyse and explain, the value of the public domain and the importance of allowing use of copyright material. These include:
- UK Government's report Copyright and the Value of the Public Domain;[8]
- Rufus Pollock's the Value of the Public Domain;[9]
- The Role of Scientific and Technical Data and Information in the Public Domain; [10]and
- Paul Uhlir's Policy Guidelines for the Development and Promotion of Governmental Public Domain Information.[11]
Recent international comparative studies show that the existence of a flexible copyright exception is beneficial to the overall economy. Last year the Lisbon Council and Innovation Economics published The 2015 Intellectual Property and Economic Growth Index: Measuring the Impact of Exceptions and Limitations in Copyright on Growth, Jobs and Prosperity[12]. The report considers the limitations and exceptions to copyright in eight OECD countries alongside their economic growth and finds that countries that employ flexible exceptions in copyright have higher rates of growth for their overall economy and their information technology, service and traditional media sectors. They also have higher wages overall and in the communications and technology sectors[13]. The report also notes other positive outcomes from more flexible copyright systems, such as the promotion of education, independent research, free speech, user-generated content, and text and data mining. Most importantly, the report makes the following conclusion:
Policymakers often perceive the positive externalities and innovations associated with exceptions to copyright as a trade off with the economic growth driven by strong intellectual property protection. Instead, the evidence suggests that broad and flexible exceptions to copyright embedded within a strong intellectual property framework may be the best way to achieve both simultaneously.[14]
Similar conclusions can be seen in the early results of an ongoing study by American University, which examines how a country's copyright exceptions affect its economic outcomes.[15] In its preliminary stages, the study compares the experiences of firms, categorized by industry, in countries with and without "fair use style" copyright exceptions. It uses a dataset with 166,920 observations over 30 years from 5,564 firms in 91 countries, including the seven countries in the world with fair use – the U.S., the Philippines, Singapore, Israel, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Korea. It has found that adoption of fair use style exceptions is associated with positive outcomes for these firms, and that this result doesn't change between user sectors (ie dependent on copyright exceptions) and rightsholder sectors (ie dependent on copyright protection) showing that "both internet firms and content providers can benefit in fair use systems."[16]
Even the World Intellectual Property Authority (WIPO) is showing an increasing interest in the public domain. It has commissioned a Scoping Study on Copyright and the Public Domain which finds that quotes Jane Ginsburg as stating "the public domain is all the rage"[17] and goes on to note that:
the topic of the public domain, and of its necessary preservation, has become the emblem of a wider critique against intellectual property and what this critique perceives as its increasing extension. The public domain is mainly considered as an endangered species, subject to an enclosure and commodification process… but the growing body of scholarship and legislative attention dedicated to the unprotected part of intellectual property has now overcome the mere denunciation to insist on the intrinsic value of the public domain as raw material for new creation, innovation and development and to try to construct a regime that could protect and promote a rich and accessible public domain.[18]
In order to better recognise and protect the public domain, the study recommends "the adoption of normative rules in copyright laws and the setting up of material conditions to effectively enable access to, enjoyment and preservation of public domain resources."[19] Excitingly, WIPO's Development Agenda (which predates the study) seems to be taking a head start in applying these recommendations, with its 45 adopted principles including:
"16. Consider the preservation of the public domain ….deepen the analysis of the implications and benefits of a rich and accessible public domain"
"20. To promote norm-setting activities in their Member States… that support a robust public domain.[20]"
In my home country of Australia, we've had several promising developments in favour of the information commons over the last few years. First there was the Australia Law Review Committee's (ALRC's) groundbreaking Copyright and the Digital Economy report, which recommended the adoption of fair use in Australia, along with a draft of other changes aimed at increasing access to copyright materials.[21] While the government is yet to provide any formal response to this report, its influence on the policy debate in Australia can be seen in the ongoing Intellectual Property Inquiry by our Productivity Commission (PC).[22] Even the fact that we are asking the Productivity Commission - an organisation that focuses on the big picture, promotes evidence-based policy making and is inherently skeptical of monopolies - to look at our IP system and recommend changes that would, and I quote, "improve the overall wellbeing of Australian society" is a good start.[23] The PC was explicitly tasked in its terms of reference with looking at the ALRC recommendations, and asks directly about fair use in its issues paper[24]. It also discusses the importance of promoting the "diffusion of knowledge" and the need to balance incentives to innovate with "the cost of providing these incentives to the rest of the community."[25]
If there is one thing I am disappointed about in the PC issues paper it is that I think they missed an opportunity to redefine the purpose of IP in Australia. The paper focuses a fair amount on the importance of IP as a means to incentivise creativity, that an IP system is effective if it promotes the creation of new IP. [26]But this is not an end in and of itself. We strive to encourage new works not for the benefits they provide directly to the copyright owner, but because of the value those works contribute to society through their dissemination and use. Although this idea doesn't get a lot of airtime in copyright debates, it is in one sense blindingly obvious. Of course that's why IP systems exist - not to create works, but to create works that we can use. To quote Birnhack, "the public domain is not merely – or rather should not be – an unintended by product, or 'graveyard' of copyrighted works, but its very goal".[27] This is classic information environmentalism - to refocus our copyright debates not on the rents gained by private individuals, but on the benefits gained by society as a whole. Think about the implications of this for copyright policy, and you can see what a potent twist it adds. It provides the justification for the limits we place on copyright, its finite nature, and the room we leave for the use of materials through limitations and exceptions in the Act. Therefore, as Dusollier notes, the aim of public policy makers should be to "insist on the intrinsic value of the public domain as raw material for new creation, innovation and development and to try to construct a regime that could protect and promote a rich and accessible public domain."[28] The question to be asked is not just does copyright encourage additional creative works, but does it broaden the field of works available to the public?
Despite missing this opportunity in their issues paper, the PC review does seem to be a good starting point. They acknowledge that an "effective IP system also promotes the dissemination of innovation and ideas" and express concern that measures to strengthen rights have sometimes proceeded without "a detailed understanding of their economy-wide and distributional effects."[29] I am awaiting their draft report eagerly.
Excitingly, they will also be reporting into a political environment that seems favourable towards user-focused reform. Australia's new Prime Minister has a history in the communications portfolio, has declared innovation growth to be the primary focus of his first year in office,[30] and has moved responsibility for copyright policy to the Communications and Arts portfolio, which also includes the tech and GLAM sectors, not to mention artists themselves. The first copyright reform coming out of these new arrangements focuses on moves to expand and support users rights and, whether its originators know it or not, the information commons. The Copyright Amendment (Disability Access and Other Measures) Bill 2016, an exposure draft of which was released late last year:[31]
- broadens and simplifies exceptions for Australian schools, libraries and the disability sector;
- provides new protection for the intermediaries that work with users; and
- promises to release a huge swathe of unpublished materials into the public domain - the only new materials we'll see relieved of their copyright burden in Australia until 2026.
So forgive me if I'm feeling optimistic. Whether they know it or not, I think our policy setters are finally beginning to see the importance of the information commons and are incorporating principles of information environmentalism into their decision making. I think that these principles are fundamental to the continued well being of our copyright system and society as a whole. And I think they always have been. They have just been neglected for a while - but hopefully that is beginning to change.
Jessica Coates is a copyright and communications policy expert with 15 years of experience working in Australia and overseas. Until recently she was the Global Network Manager of Creative Commons. Prior to joining CC, she worked as the Project Manager of Creative Commons Australia and the Creative Commons Clinic, a research program at the Queensland University of Technology. She is now the executive officer at the Australian Digital Alliance.
[1]. James Boyle, A Politics of Intellectual Property: Environmentalism for the Net?, 47, Duke Law Journal 87-116 (1997) Available at: http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/dlj/vol47/iss1/2
[2]. Robert Cunningham, Information Environmentalism: a Governance Framework for Intellectual Property Rights, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2014. Available at http://www.e-elgar.com/shop/information-environmentalism?___website=uk_warehouse. Note that the concepts have also been explored further by Boyle himself and others in works such as James Boyle, The public domain – Enclosing the Commons of the Mind, Yale University Press, 2008; and Yochai Benkler, "Free as the Air to Common Use: First Amendment Constraints on Enclosure of the Public Domain", New York University Law Review, 1999, Vol. 74, 354
[3]. Robert Cunningham, "Information Environmentalism: towards a digital ecology – by Robert Cunningham", Elgar Blog, September 16, 2014, available at https://elgarblog.com/2014/09/16/information-environmentalism-towards-a-digital-ecology-by-robert-cunningham/. See the book reviewed at Jay Sanderson, "An information environmental manifesto", Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice, MAy 2 2015.
[4]. For criticism of the TPP copyright provisions see https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp
[5]. For criticism of this plan see Megan Sali, "The bad idea that just got worse: how today's European #copyright plans will damage the Internet", OpenMedia, 9 December 2015. https://openmedia.org/en/bad-idea-just-got-worse-how-todays-european-copyright-plans-will-damage-internet
[6]. The Treaty's final text and its history are available at http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/marrakesh/.
[7]. United States Trade Representative, TPP Intellectual Property, https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/TPP-Chapter-Summary-Intellectual-Property.pdf
[8]. Kris Erickson, Paul Heald, Fabian Homberg, Martin Kretschmer and Dinusha Mendis, Copyright and the Value of the Public Domain: An empirical assessment, Intellectual Property Office, (2015/44) https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/415014/Copyright_and_the_value_of_the_public_domain.pdf
[9]. Pollock, Rufus, The Value of the Public Domain, Institute for Public Policy Research, July 2006, http://rufuspollock.org/papers/value_of_public_domain.ippr.pdf
[10]. Julie M. Esanu and Paul F. Uhlir, The Role of Scientific and Technical Data and Information in the Public Domain Proceedings of a Symposium, The National Academies Press, 2003, http://www.nap.edu/read/10785
[11]. Uhlir, Paul, Policy Guidelines for the Development and Promotion of Governmental Public Domain Information, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), Paris, 2004. http://otp.unesco-ci.org/training-resource/open-source/policy-guidelines-development-and-promotion-governmental-public-domain
[12]. Gilbert, Benjamin, The 2015 Intellectual Property and Economic Growth Index: Measuring the Impact of Exceptions and Limitations in Copyright on Growth, Jobs and Prosperity, Lisbon Council 2015, http://www.lisboncouncil.net/publication/publication/122-the-2015-intellectual-property-and-economic-growth-index.html#sthash.Bh4kCsTY.dpuf
[13]. Gilbert, Ibid, pp.3-4
[14]. Gilbert, Ibid, p.4
[15]. Palmedo, Mike, Firm Performance in Countries With & Without Open Copyright Exceptions, Infojustice.org, May 2015, http://infojustice.org/archives/34386
[16]. Palmedo, Ibid
[17]. Quoting Jane Ginsburg, "'Une chose publique'? - The Author's Domain and the Public Domain in Early British, French and US Copyright Law", in P. Torremans (ed.), Copyright Law: A. Handbook of Contemporary Research, Edgar Elgar, 2007, p.133
[18]. Dusollier, Severine, Scoping study on Copyright and Related Rights and the Public Domain, World Intellectual Property Organisation, Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP) Seventh Session Geneva, May 2 to 6, 2011, http://www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/mdocs/en/cdip_7/cdip_7_inf_2.pdf, pp3-4
[19]. Ibid, p.70
[20]. The 45 Adopted Recommendations under the WIPO Development Agenda, World Intellectual Property Organisation, http://www.wipo.int/ip-development/en/agenda/recommendations.html
[21]. Australian Law Review Committee, Copyright and Digital Economy (ALRC Report 122), 13 February 2014, http://www.alrc.gov.au/publications/copyright-report-122
[22]. http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/current/intellectual-property
[23]. See JB Hockey, Terms of Reference, Intellectual Property Arrangements, 18 August 2015, http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/current/intellectual-property/terms-of-reference at 2
[24]. Productivity Commission, Intellectual Property Arrangements Issues Paper, October 2015, p.21 available at http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/current/intellectual-property/issuesl
[25]. Ibid p.6 and p.9
[26]. See ibid pp.7-8
[27]. Birnhack, Michael, "More or Better? Shaping the Public Domain", in The Public Domain of Information, P. Bernt Hugenholtz & Lucie Guibault, eds., Kluwer Law International, 2005. p60 Available at SSRN:http://ssrn.com/abstract=677301
[28]. Séverine Dusollier, Scoping Study on Copyright and Related Rights and the Public Domain, World Intellectual Property Organisation, 2011 http://www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/mdocs/en/cdip_7/cdip_7_inf_2.pdf.
[29]. Ibid p.8 and p.13
[30]. See http://www.innovation.gov.au/
[31]. See exposure draft at https://www.communications.gov.au/have-your-say/updating-australias-copyright-laws. More detailed discussion of the amendments is available at Jessica Coates, "Australian Copyright Reform off to a Good Start for 2016", Australian Digital Alliance, 21 January 2016 http://digital.org.au/content/australian-copyright-reform-good-start-2016


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I'm in Singapore for two days to help fight the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a statist international bureaucracy based in Paris. The OECD has something called a global tax forum, the purpose of which is to harass so-called tax haven in hopes of coercing them into acting as tax collectors for Europe's decrepit welfare states. Here's the executive summary from the memo I wrote, which warns low-tax jurisdictions that the OECD may push even harder to undermine fiscal sovereignty because of fears that a GOP takeover of Congress will make it more difficult to push for tax harmonization policies in the future.
The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has an ongoing project to prop up Europe's inefficient welfare states by attacking tax competition in hopes of enabling governments to impose heavier tax burdens. This project received a boost when the Obama Administration joined forces with countries such as France and Germany, but the tide is now turning against high-tax nations – particularly as more people understand that such an approach inevitably leads to Greek-style fiscal collapse. Looming political changes in the United States will further complicate the OECD's ability to impose bad policy. Because of these developments, low-tax jurisdictions should be especially wary of schemes to rush through new anti-tax competition initiatives at the Singapore Global Forum.
The good news is that nothing dramatic took place on the first day of the two-day conference. the OECD continued to bully low-tax jurisdictions to sign information-sharing agreements and the low-tax jurisdictions kept asking for double-taxation agreements so they could get some benefit in exchange for weakening their human rights/financial privacy laws. The OECD and high-tax nations have been ignoring these requests for a two-way street, thus continuing their bad-faith behavior.
For more information on this issue, here's a link to my video on tax competition, and here are a handful of TV appearances where I discuss the issue. This is a challenging issue to debate, so I'd welcome feedback on which arguments you think are most effective.


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Basic Beans – Gluten Free-zer Friday
Today is the last day of Spring Break for the kiddos and Daddy is off from work today, too! Gluten Free-zer Friday's recipe will be up later today after I am back from playing with the family. The science museum is calling out to us… If you have a link to add before I get back, pop it in the comments and I will add it when I return.
See you later!
Participating in Gluten Free-zer Friday:
1. If you would like to participate in Gluten Free-zer Friday, simply email your post link to your gluten free freezer recipe (angelas_kitchenATcomcastDOTnet) or leave a comment below and I will add you to the roundup.
2. Link back to this post on the post with the recipe you have linked.
**Edit: Here's the Gluten Free-zer Friday recipe!
This is what I do to cook up beans for in the freezer. Yes, I know you can just open a can, but I like to presoak them and they are super cheep this way. I find that dried organic beans I cook up myself are about 60% cheaper than opening a can of conventional beans. The texture is better, it's super easy to do and I can control what is in them. Works for me! You can season the beans as you like, however, I usually leave my beans plain so I can season depending on what I am cooking that night.
6 cups of dried beans (I like to have a variety on hand)
6 tablespoons lemon juice or cider vinegar
Rinse beans and pick out any yucky beans or gavel. Put beans into the crock of a 6 quart crock, cover with warm water about 2 inches above beans and stir in lemon juice or vinegar. Allow beans to soak for 12 to 24 hours.
Drain and rinse beans and return to crock. Cover with water plus a couple of inches. Cover and cook on low for 6-10 hours (this depends on the bean you are cooking) or until the beans are cooked through and tender (NOT mushy). Drain beans and allow to cool.
To freeze: After the beans cool, I package the beans into 3 cup amounts in freezer bags. 3 cups will equal the same amount as 2 cans of beans, which is how many I usually use in my cooking. Remove as much air as possible from the bags, label the bag and freeze.
I'm walking 60 miles in the Breast Cancer 3-day! Will you help me reach my goal?


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I've been told a few times that I make people think exactly what I didn't want them to think. Let me explain. For some reason, in addition to putting my foot in my mouth by accident, I manage to make others suspicious of hidden agendas in my words because of the very things I say.
Here's a stunning example of "Foot in Mouth" syndrome:
I was at the art opening of a gifted photographer last night. We had been students together in graduate school. During our visit, I recalled that he had recently been married. I was preparing to ask how things were going when I recalled a previous experience with the same artist. Not three years earlier I asked, "How's Suzzy?" after having met his girlfriend weeks before. He awkwardly replied, "We're not together any more." UG! The artist–being a quiet man–had nothing left to say, and I–dumbfounded–had nothing to say either. The next three years were filled with many uncomfortable visits in which I could never establish a good speaking rapport with this nice man.
So, here I am preparing to ask after his new wife, thinking, Oh dear, what if they didn't get married or they're divorced or something? I didn't want to have the awkward silence again. All these thoughts were spinning in my mind as I said, "So, are you still married?" Still?! STILL!!!!???? Not, "How's your wife?" or "How is it being a newlywed?" or "I heard you got hitched. How'd it go?" Nope. STILL. I can't believe myself sometimes. Perhaps I should strike the word from my vocabulary. Luckily he chuckled and said they had been married just a few months, and I backed out of it by joking I had no faith in marriage apparently. My husband comforted me later by saying it was nothing, but there it was. My foot. My mouth. Not what I had hoped to eat that night. I only had room for cereal when I got home after that feast.
And then there is the "Curse of Considerate Clarification," or the 3-C problem as I call it:
I think I learned from my mother to be very mindful of my words–how were they making others feel, how do they sound to others? I have become very sensitive to peoples' expressions, responses and actions in reply to my words, which often sends me in a day-long analysis of where I went wrong or where they misunderstood. This is very exhausting. Changing the way you think is hard, but I'm trying to change the habit. Especially since my consideration for others has back-fired in my face.
Like last night. It didn't backfire, but nearly so. Jake and I went out to dinner at a great Mexican-Irish restaurant (yup–and it's an awesome pairing). The five-year-old joint is just a half block down the street from the New York favorite Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, which had just opened. Naturally the barbecue restaurant was packed every day. And we were benefiting, as here we were eating at this very popular place without waiting for a table. Surprised I asked the manager who seated us, "So, have you noticed your business dropping due to the new place down the street?" Immediately, as I glanced at the numerous empty tables I thought Oh crap, she might think that I think they are losing business, or that they are too slow for a Saturday! Quick! Tell her that's not what you meant! So I said, "Oh! I hope you didn't think I meant you guys would be losing business to them. I'm sure you won't be affected–it being such a different market." The manager smiled, agreed by citing how busy they had been thirty minutes before, and then went to seat another couple. I was relieved! It is this kind of situation that so many times has prompted the reply: "Well, I didn't think you meant that originally, but now that you brought it up that's exactly what I'm going to think." Go figure!
What I've learned is that I need to trust that others will ask me to clarify what I meant if they took it negatively. I should hope they will consider my character and intent. I should also remember to pause before I speak to think of what I want to say.
But finally, if I feel like I need to clarify, I can avoid the 3-C problem by restating. Instead of: "I hope I didn't make you think…" I can say: "Let me clarify. What I meant to say was…" or "That didn't sound right, let me rephrase that." By rephrasing what I say I remove the possibility that the listener will suspect me of ill-intent or veiled malice. I certainly won't wind up prompting them to doubt my intentions! And perhaps with any luck I will spare myself a little exhaustive worry!


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Dryer sheets. You probably think their utility ended with soft jeans and cozy socks. Nope! Turns out there's a whole mess of other uses for 'em.
1. De-static your clothes.
Shirt sticking to your arms like a temporary tattoo? Wipe the shirt down with a dryer sheet, and enjoy the release.
2. Pick up pet hair from your furniture and clothes.
3. Ward off pests.
Fact: rats hate clean clothes. So do squirrels, raccoons, mice, and other rodents. Tuck dryer sheets under the doors of your basements, RVs, and garden sheds, to keep critters out.
4. Put one in a plastic bag and throw it in your suitcase.
Boom, that's your travel laundry bag, and it'll keep your socks from making your clean clothes smell like feet.
5. Scrub bugs off your windshield.
Dryer sheets do an incredible job of loosening stuck-on skeeters. Add water and use a dryer sheet like a sponge.
6. Put them in your shoes to keep them from stankin up the joint.
7. Bug repellent.
Wipe yourself down with a dryer sheet, and bugs won't bite you as much. Probably not as good as actual bug spray, but they'll do in a pinch.
8. Put them under the seats in your car to make it smell like clean clothes, not a synthetic pine forest.
9. Clean pots and pans.
Something in dryer sheets does a real number on caked-on pan-crud. After you're done frying the crap out of that Spam sandwich, get the carbonized mystery meat off the bottom of your cookware by filling it with warm water, and adding a dryer sheet.
10. Put one at the bottom of your hamper to keep your dirty clothes from stinking up your room.
11. Clean paintbrushes.
Soak paintbrushes in dryer-sheet-steeped warm water, and latex paint will apparently peel right off.
12. Put one in your vacuum cleaner bag or canister to freshen your carpet.
13. Clean soap scum off your shower.
Use a dryer sheet and water instead of some nasty cleaning product to shine up your tiles.
14. POT-pourri.
Put one inside a paper towel tube, and blow your weed smoke through it to keep from alerting the mom/wife/kids/prison guard to your stonering.
Gotta give a shoutout to curbly.com, where we got a few of these tips. (And there are more over at there too). Do you know any other cool alt.uses? Let us know in the comments.


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LONDON (Reuters) - Allegations from the United States that British spy agency GCHQ snooped on Donald Trump during his election campaign are "arrant nonsense", the deputy head of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) said in an interview on Saturday.
President Trump has stood by unproven claims that the Obama administration tapped his phones during the 2016 White House race. On Thursday his spokesman cited a media report that Britain's GCHQ was behind the surveillance.
Richard Ledgett, deputy director of the NSA, told BBC News the idea that Britain had a hand in spying on Trump was "just crazy".
"It belies a complete lack of understanding of how the relationship works between the intel community agencies, it completely ignores the political reality of 'would the UK government agree to do that?'", Ledgett said.
There would be no advantage for Britain's government in spying on Trump, given the potential cost, he said.
"It would be epically stupid," said Ledgett, who is due to retire shortly.
Current and former NSA officials have described an acrimonious relationship between intelligence agencies and the Trump administration.
Trump, who became president in January, tweeted earlier this month that his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama had wiretapped him during the late stages of the 2016 campaign. The Republican president offered no evidence for the allegation, which an Obama spokesman said was "simply false".
Fox News analyst Andrew Napolitano on Tuesday accused the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) - the British equivalent of the NSA - of having helped Obama to spy on Trump.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer quoted Napolitano's comments on Thursday.
GCHQ said the claims it spied on Trump were "utterly ridiculous" and should be ignored, in a rare public statement.
On Friday, Trump said questions on this should be asked of Fox News, not him.
Reporting by Andy Bruce; Editing by Dale Hudson
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.


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Donna's Picks
"Donna's Picks" was once my occasional weekly feature of noteworthy articles – now it feels more comfortable to roundup my "picks" once a month. Here are January's goodies including a couple of genealogy blogs that are new finds!
I recently discovered a relatively new blog, Alabama Genealogy and Ramblings by Randall Dickerson (1-19-2012: Note – Randall changed his blog name! It's now Alabama Free-Ranging Organic Genealogy at the same address). Ordinarily I wouldn't have even looked at a blog with that title because I have no Southern roots whatsoever. But I'm sure glad I stopped by, for not only does Randall have great posts, but he has one of the funniest and most entertaining About Me pages I've ever read! (Yes, Randall, I had to look up "Vexillology".) Check out The "Do List"; My New Year's Resolution Concepts in which he proposes concepts that will allow all of us to be more productive. One of his good posts from December is Trying to like Ancestry.Com – Disaster in Grafting My Family Tree in which he shares his frustration over what happens when you splice another's tree into your own.
Dawn Westfall has been blogging since September at Wisteria where she writes about her maternal Dutch roots and paternal Southern roots. I naturally gravitate towards humorous posts, and I got a chuckle out of Famous Relatives. Well, that's one way to finally get kids interested in genealogy. There are at least three other genealogy bloggers that share my interest in science fiction and will find her famous relative as cool as I did!
In what happens to be yet another humorous post, Jenny Lanctot in Are My Roots Showing? (which is a fabulous blog title!) gets an unexpected chuckle from a Family Search indexer in Wisdom Wednesday – Search Terms and Spelling. With my surname, I've had my share of misspellings so it made me chuckle, too.
Just to prove I also enjoy serious posts, I was fascinated by More Than Meets the Eye – Tuesday's Tip in Heritage Zen by Cynthia Shenette. I have always loved looking at what else is in the photo besides the "main" subject. Cynthia presents to great photographs with tons of details in the background. But – for the record – Cynthia writes some wickedly humorous posts – see the evidence with her last COG entry, What the Dickens 2, Or More Tales from Hell's Kitchen – Advent Calendar, Grab Bag. I'm still laughing!
What's Past at What's Past is Prologue ~ What You May Have Missed
One Year Ago:
ShtetlSeeker: It's Not Just for Shtetls Anymore – one of the best town databases you may not know about
Two Years Ago:
Cousins, Countries, and War – the start of my 5-part series on the Bavarian Military Rosters available on Ancestry.com
Three Years Ago:
Fun with Maps in Philadelphia – a look at some nifty mapping tools to see what my hometown looked like back when my great-grandparents came to town
Four Years Ago:
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? – In my very first COG entry ever, I imagine inviting four very different ancestors to dinner to solve a few mysteries.
What's Prologue at What's Past is Prologue ~ Coming Up
A post coming soon will ask you if your family history is like a famous musical from the 1960s…and if your family history has something in common with that story, well…let's just say it's not a compliment and you have your research cut out for you. I also hope to resurrect the "Memory Monday" personal reflection posts this year – starting in January! If you also read my collaborative blog, The Catholic Gene, join us the week of 29 January as we remember/celebrate Catholic Schools Week.
Thanks for reading, following, and subscribing!


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Here follows a list of the currently known problems with prepared statements:
TIMESTAMP, and
DATETIMEdo not support parts of seconds (for example, from
When converting an integer to string,
ZEROFILLis honored with prepared statements in some cases where the MySQL server doesn't print the leading zeros. (For example, with
When converting a floating-point number to a string in the client, the rightmost digits of the converted value may differ slightly from those of the original value.
Prepared statements use the query cache under the conditions described in Section 184.108.40.206, "How the Query Cache Operates".
Prepared statements do not support multi-statements (that is, multiple statements within a single string separated by "
;" characters).
Before MySQL 5.5.3, prepared
CALLstatements cannot invoke stored procedures that return result sets because prepared statements do not support multiple result sets. Nor can the calling application access a stored procedure's
INOUTparameters when the procedure returns. As of MySQL 5.5.3, these capabilities are supported as described in Section 22.9.16, "C API Support for Prepared


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momstownOtherNo commentsFamily Day
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© momstown.ca 2015


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IPTV World gives you a way to watch live streaming TV from all around the World.You can watch live TV anytime, anywhere.
If you are using VLC to watch TV on your PC then this app is for you.
Hot features:
- Watch live TV online from your iPhone or iPad over 4G LTE, 3G, 2G and WiFi network
- Integrated user interface makes it fast and easy
- M3U playlists support
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- Save your favorite channels
- Tiny bug fixed.
Tram Ngoc Thi Nguyen


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Global Healthcare Biometrics Market By Type (Face Recognition, Iris Recognition, Voice Recognition, and Others), By Application (Logical Access Control, Physical Access Control, and Others), By Region and Key Companies - Industry Segment Outlook, Market Assessment, Competition Scenario, Trends and Forecast 2019–2028
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Jaycee Dugard releases public service announcement (watch video)
Publication date: Nov. 4, 2011
SAN FRANCISCO — The California woman who was kidnapped and held captive by a sex offender for 18 years is urging people to help keep their neighborhoods safe by looking out for strange occurrences, especially involving children.
Jaycee Dugard, who was kidnapped at age 11, released a public service announcement Friday.
The 20-second spot begins with a close-up of Dugard, then shows neighborhood scenes of families walking down tree-lined sidewalks.
An empty swing sways in a park as Dugard tells viewers to speak out if they see something amiss. She says, "You might be wrong, but you might just save someone's life."
The PSA ends with Dugard walking arm-in-arm with her mother, Terry Probyn.
The spot promotes the JAYC Foundation, which helps families get treatment following an abduction or other traumatic event. It can be viewed on the foundation's website.


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Sheriff: Drug deal likely led to homicide
ASHEVILLE – Investigators believe a drug transaction gone bad likely led to the shooting death of an Asheville man.
Jamar DeShawn Smith was killed about 10:30 p.m. Wednesday in the backyard of a residence on Aurora Vista Drive near where he had been staying, authorities said.
"What our investigation has determined so far is that it appears to be some sort of drug transaction that erupted into the violence that left that one individual dead," Buncombe County Sheriff Van Duncan said Friday.
Duncan said several people witnessed the shooting.
"We are very actively working the investigation, and it continues to develop pretty rapidly," he said. "We did have witnesses to what took place, and we're continuing to follow up on that."
Deputies responded to a 911 call after a nearby resident heard a gunshot, looked outside his window and saw Smith on the ground about 10 feet from his door.
Authorities had made no arrests Thursday or Friday, but investigators said they did not think there was a threat to the community.
Just before the shooting, about six people were fighting in a yard outside the home, said a witness who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation.
Friends and family held a candlelight prayer vigil for Smith, 27, Thursday night at the basketball court at Hillcrest Apartments, where he grew up. About 100 people attended.
Smith's is the first slaying reported in the county this year, following a year in which the Sheriff's Office investigated a record 14 killings.
Smith was released from state prison in February 2012 after serving a year and four months, according to N.C. Department of Public Safety records. His felony convictions include possession of a firearm by a felon, larceny, common law robbery and possession of stolen goods.


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One of my favorite movie soundtracks is the Bourne series, composed by John Powell.
One of my favorite classical composers is Antonio Vivaldi.
So, you know I couldn't have been happier when my favorite Mormon artist duo, the incomparable and irresistible Piano Guys [aka John Schmidt and Steven Sharp Nelson] released this epic new video today!
Watch MORE PIANO GUYS HERE!!


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Santana scolds Georgia for new immigration law
Carlos Santana on Sunday used baseball's annual Civil Rights Game as a platform to admonish Georgia and Arizona for their new immigration laws.
Santana received the Beacon of Change Award before the Braves-Phillies game.
The Grammy-winning musician said he was representing immigrants before adding: ''The people of Arizona, and the people of Atlanta, Georgia, you should be ashamed of yourselves.''
Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal on Friday signed a bill that cracks down on illegal immigration in the state. The bill requires many employers to check the immigration status of new hires and authorizes law enforcement officers to check the immigration status of some suspects.
Georgia's new law shares some similarities to one enacted last year in Arizona.
''This law is not correct. It's a cruel law, actually,'' Santana said in an impromptu news conference after the ceremony. ''This is about fear. Stop shucking and jiving. People are afraid we're going to steal your job. No we aren't. You're not going to change sheets and clean toilets.''
Added Santana: ''This is the United States. This is the land of the free. If people want the immigration laws to keep passing, then everybody should get out and leave the American Indians here.''
Rev. Jesse Jackson presented the Beacon of Life Award to Cubs Hall of Famer Ernie Banks.
''I haven't done anything to earn it, but I appreciate it,'' Banks said.
Former Dodgers pitcher Don Newcombe presented the Beacon of Hope Award to actor Morgan Freeman, who wore a Braves jacket and a Negro Leagues Atlanta Black Crackers cap.
Al Roker, co-host of NBC's The Today Show, was the moderator for the ceremony and introduced a video tribute to Braves Hall of Famer Hank Aaron, who received a standing ovation from his hometown fans.
The Braves and Phillies wore throwback uniforms from the 1974 season, the year Aaron broke Babe Ruth's career home run record.
Two leaders of the civil rights movement in Atlanta, former Mayor Andrew Young and the Rev. Joseph Lowery, went to the mound for the ceremonial first pitches, thrown to two African-American stars - Phillies slugger Ryan Howard and Atlanta's Jason Heyward.
Baseball commissioner Bud Selig attended the ceremony.
This is baseball's fifth Civil Rights Game. The first event was in Memphis in 2007.
''Anytime you can honor the people that changed the game, it's a good thing,'' said Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro.
The game also will return to Atlanta in 2012.
''I think it's the perfect city to host this,'' Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said.


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Aug. 16, 2013— -- Gabby Williams has the facial features and skin of a newborn, and she is just as dependent. Her mother feeds, diapers and cradles her tiny frame as she did the day she was born.
The little girl from Billings, Mont., is 8 years old, but weighs only 11 pounds. Gabby has a mysterious condition, shared by only a handful of others in the world, that slows her rate of aging.
For the past two years, a doctor who has been trying to find the genetic off-switch to stop the aging process has been studying Gabby, as well as two other people who have striking similarities.
Why the 'Benjamin Button' children never age.
A 29-year-old Florida man has the body of a 10-year-old, and a 31-year-old Brazilian woman is the size of a 2-year-old. Like Gabby, neither seems to grow older.
Unraveling what these three people may have in common is the subject of a TLC television special, "40-Year-Old Child: A New Case," which airs Monday, Aug. 19, at 10 p.m. ET. The show is a follow-up to Gabby's story, which aired last year.
"In some people, something happens to them and the development process is retarded," said medical researcher Richard F. Walker. "The rate of change in the body slows and is negligible."
16-year-old is the size of a toddler.
Walker is retired from the University of Florida Medical School and now does his research at All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg.
"My whole career has been focused on the aging process," he told ABCNews.com. "My fixation has been not on the consequences but the cause of it."
Not only do the people he's studying have a growth rate of one-fifth the speed of others, but they live with a variety of other medical problems, including deafness, the inability to walk, eat or even speak.
"Gabrielle hasn't changed since pretty much forever," said her mother, Mary Margret Williams, 38. "She has gotten a little longer and we have jumped into putting her in size 3-6 month clothes instead of 0-3 months for the footies.
"Last time we weighed her she was up a pound to 11 pounds and she's gotten a few more haircuts," she told ABCNews.com. "Other than that, she hasn't changed much since the [2012] show."
Williams, who works part-time at a dermatologist's office, and her husband, a corrections officer for the state, share the child care responsibilities for their perpetual infant.
Walker explains that physiological change, or what he calls "developmental inertia," is essential for human growth. Maturation occurs after reproduction.
"Without that process we never develop," he said. "When we develop, all the pieces of our body come together and change and are coordinated. Otherwise, there would be chaos."
But, said Walker, the body does not have a "stop switch" for this development. "What happens is we become mature at age 20 and continue to change."
The first subtle internal body changes of aging are seen in the 30s and become more visible in the 40s.
"There is a progressive erosion of internal order as a result of developmental inertia," he said.
In one of the girls Walker has studied, he found damage to one of the genes that causes developmental inertia, a finding that he said is significant. He also suspects the mutations are on the regulatory genes on the second female X chromosome.
"If we could identify the gene and then at young adulthood we could silence the expression of developmental inertia, find an off-switch, when you do that, there is perfect homeostasis and you are biologically immortal."
Now Walker doesn't mean that people will never die. Disease and accidents will still end human life.
"But you wouldn't have the later years -- you'd remain physically and functionally able," he said.
That is why he believes his study of Gabby Williams' genetic code is so important. "She fits the model," said Walker.
"We've been on this journey to find out, are my other children at any risk in having a child like Gabrielle," said Williams, who has five other children between the ages of 1 and 10.
"We did find out with Dr. Walker when he did the [gene] sequencing that it's not something we can pass on but just an abnormality, a mutated gene that was just happenstance," she said. "That was a relief for us."
At first, when the Williams family members found out about Walker's research, they hesitated to become guinea pigs in the studies that would promote a so-called "fountain of youth."
"There was some concern," she said. "We are good Catholics, God-fearing people and we believe we are meant to get old -- the process of life -- and meant to die. It was scary to think about, and we did not want to be part of it."
But as they talked further with Walker, the family realized that his research was designed to help people struggling with the impairments of old age.
"Alzheimer's is one of the scariest diseases out there," said Williams. "If what Gabrielle holds inside of her would find a cure -- for sure we would be a part of the research project. We have faith that Dr. Walker and the scientific community do find something focused more on the disease of aging, rather than making you 35 for the rest of your life."
As for Gabby's life span, her doctors cannot say what that will look like.
"From the time of her birth, we didn't think she would be with us very long," said her mother. "The fact is she is now going on 9 years. She kind of surpassed my expectations from the get go.
"It's not something I worry about," said Williams, who said she trusts that God has a plan for her infantile daughter.
"When he is ready to take her back, it will be sad," she said. "But what a glorious thing it will be for Gabby to go to heaven one day. I know it will happen, but I am not hoping it's any day soon."


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Marsh, Reginald
Marsh, Reginald, 1898–1954, American painter and illustrator, b. Paris. Both his parents were artists. After their return to the United States, he studied at Yale (B.A., 1920). He worked as an illustrator for Vanity Fair, Harper's Bazaar, and the New York Daily News, and later he was a scene designer. He then studied under John Sloan and K. H. Miller at the Art Students League. From 1925 to 1939 he made two trips to Europe and sketched for the New Yorker. His lively recordings of Manhattan street life in many media were popular.
Why Not Use the(1930; Whitney Mus., New York City) is typical. Marsh painted two celebrated murals in the Post Office Building, Washington, D.C.
See study by L. Goodrich (1972).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2023, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: American and Canadian Art: Biographies


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He is a smug, edgy kind of boy. Cold vibes.
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The human eye is a biological marvel. Charles Darwin considered it one of the biggest challenges to his theory of evolution, famously writing: that "To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree." Of course he did go on to explain how natural selection could account for the eye, but we can see why he wrote these words under the heading of "Organs of Extreme Perfection and Complication."
The complexity and perfection of the eye has meant that, to date, it's been all but impossible to reproduce its function artificially. Artificial hearts, kidneys (albeit outside the body), and ears (cochlear implants) are all in widespread medical use -- but not eyes.
That might be about to change. In a remarkable achievement, a team of ophthalmologists and engineers has managed to partially restore vision to the blind, using an electronic device which acts as a replacement for the retina. The results are reported in a paper by Professor Eberhart Zrenner, Director of the Institute for Ophthalmic Research at the University Eye Hospital in Tuebingen, Germany.
The implant consists of a tiny panel, 3 by 3.1 mm in size, containing a 38 by 40 array of 1,500 light-sensitive microphotodiodes. These sensors detect light, and control the output of a pulsed electrical current. The brighter the light, the stronger the resulting current. Each sensor has its own microelectrode, and these are placed in contact with nerve cells in the retina, called bipolar cells, the first step on the pathway from the eye to the brain. The sensors therefore mimic the way the eye's own photoreceptor cells normally function, turning light into a pattern of electrical impulses.
The implant is not a complete artificial eye. It relies on an intact eyeball, an intact retina with functioning bipolar cells, and an optic nerve to convey the information to the brain. This means that the technology is only useful in forms of blindness caused by selective damage to photoreceptor cells.
However, such blindness is unfortunately common. Retinitis pigmentosa is a disease that causes progressive loss of vision, as the photoreceptor cells degenerate, and eventually die. There are many different forms of the disorder, each caused by mutations in a different gene. In some people, the loss of vision is gradual, and they remain able to see for most of their lives. In others, it rapidly leads to blindness. It's estimated that about 400,000 Americans suffer some form of the disease.
Zrenner and his team implanted their device in three patients, all of whom had been born with normal vision, but had become almost totally blind due to retinal degeneration. Two of them suffered from retinitis pigmentosa, while the third had a similar disease.
The surgical procedure was, naturally, delicate. It involved inserting a metal tube behind and into one of the patient's eyes, through which the implant was put into place. The chip comes connected to a cable that provides it with power from an external battery. It also allows the patient to control the sensitivity of the electrodes – essentially, manually adjusting the "brightness" of the image, to compensate for changes in the overall level of light. This is something that the eye normally does so effortlessly that we're rarely aware of it.
So what happened? All three patients regained vision to some extent. Patient 2, a 44 year old man with retinitis pigmentosa, experienced the most dramatic benefits. He began to lose his sight at the age of 16. The first problem he noticed was a difficulty seeing at night, a common early symptom. By the time of the study, he was virtually blind, although he could still tell the direction from which a light was shining.
Thanks to the implant, he gained the ability to recognize everyday objects including spoons, bananas, and apples; he could read a clock; and he could read letters, albeit slowly, and they had to be printed extremely large (about 5-8 cm high).
Videos of his abilities and his reactions to his newfound sight are available online.
This subretinal implant is not the only "bionic eye" idea under development, however. Other researchers have been working on using an external camera which transmits information to a relay chip placed on the retina, the "epiretinal" approach.
However, Zrenner's team argues that their subretinal implant technique has some important advantages. Epiretinal devices have to pre-process the image before sending it to the retina, and patients need time to learn how to process the information that their brain receives, because the camera isn't able to provide an exact simulation of normal retina outputs.
Zrenner et al's subretinal method, however, took little "getting used to" because the implant is such a close analogue of the healthy retina. Also, they say that epiretinal approaches have so far only provided up to 60 pixels, as opposed to their 1,500.
Still, the technology has limitations. The image has no color, and it's much less detailed than normal vision. The sensor has a resolution of 38 by 40 pixels, compared to the 960 by 640 resolution of an iPhone screen.
Being so small, it only covers a small fraction of the normal retinal field. However, this is actually less of a problem than it might first appear, because all of our detailed vision takes place in a tiny part of the retina, called the fovea. By placing the implant where the fovea used to be, the quality of the images was maximized.
The chip also requires an external power supply, so patients need to carry the battery pack and control unit around with them. Finally, they have a fairly hefty wire coming out of the side of their head.
So, at the moment, science is very far from being able to fully restore vision, but it's still an exciting step forward. Technical improvements are sure to bring higher-quality images in the future.
Other researchers are working on using gene therapy to cure the underlying molecular cause of the disease, preventing the photoreceptors from dying in the first place. This approach has shown promise in animal models, and the results of the first human trials of gene therapy in another genetic eye disease, Leber's ameurosis, have recently appeared.
So whether this device will become widely used in the treatment of people with diseases like retinitis pigmentosa is unclear. But it joins other emerging technologies, from deep brain stimulation to brain-computer interfaces, which are blurring the boundaries between the nervous system and machines.
Are you a scientist? Have you recently read a peer-reviewed paper that you want to write about? Then contact Mind Matters co-editor Gareth Cook, a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist at the Boston Globe, where he edits the Sunday Ideas section. He can be reached at garethideas AT gmail.com


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Early in our marriage my hero and I agreed that we would not place a television in our bedroom. We hoped the room would be a private refuge from the world and a place of peace and harmony. We have done a pretty good job keeping our agreement. It is the only room in the house, outside of Saturday morning snuggles, that is Princess free which means we are free to display glass…without constant worry. Come on in…
One of my favorites collections…quilts! I think they lend a cozy element to any room.
The perfect place to curl up and read. A little patriotic touch with the pillows…plus a nod to my half British hero. Isn't the antique Tibetan Cabinet beautiful?
Probably my most favorite furniture piece in the house is this antique Chinese Chicken coop…completely cleaned and restored as a wardrobe.
Before we had a Princess room, we had a guest room. It was decorated lovingly with English Victorian furniture and antique perfume bottles…not the safest element in a toddler's bedroom. It makes a crowded but lovely display…safely away from busy little fingers.
When my hero and I were dating we were delighted to discover our mutual love of glassware. This is a small sample of our merged collections…and a few recent purchases. I love the afternoon light through this window. It has often stopped me in my tracks with the beauty.
My Princess and her beloved Baba…they also stop me in my tracks with their beauty. Happy Father's Day!
Let's Party…
Monday of Many Blessings. The Art of Homemaking. Show and Share. BTTCG@Bernideen's. No Place Like Home
Tuesday at Our Place. Tweak it Tuesday. Inspire Me Monday. Inspire Me Tuesday. The Scoop. Titus 2 Tuesday
Thrifty and Vintage Finds. Make it Pretty Monday. Let's Talk Vintage. Wow Us Wednesday. Talk of the Town
Share It. Tuesday With a Twist. Inspire Me Wednesday. Work it Wednesday. Home and Garden Thursday
Share Your Cup. Share Your Style. Thursday Favorites. Suburban Simplicity
Moonlight and Mason Jars. Wonderful Wednesday. Thoughts of Home. Rooted in Thyme. No Rules Weekend
Vintage Charm Party. Making Broken Beautiful. Home Sweet Home. Feather Nest Friday. Friday Favorites
Your Inspired Design. Ta da Thursday. Shabbilious Friday 5 Star Fru Fru. Morning Cup of Joe. Home Matters
Friday Favorites. Sweet Inspiration. Best of the Weekend. Share it One More Time. Peace Love and Links
Sunday at Home. Inspiration Monday. Make Your Home Sing. Busy Monday. Amaze Me Monday. Dishing it & Digging it
Little House Links. Finding Silver Pennies. Funtastic Friday. Create With Joy Olives and Okra Vintage Bliss


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Distinguished Alumni & Faculty Nominations
Distinguished Alumni
Criteria and Procedure for the selection of A&M- Texarkana Distinguished Alumni:
- The alumna/alumnus should be recognizable as achieving excellence in his/her career, service activity, or community activity.
- The recipient must be a graduate of A&M- Texarkana or formerly East Texas State University- Texarkana.
Nominate a Distinguished Alumni
Distinguished Faculty
The recipient must be a current or former, tenure or tenure-track Faculty Member who meets the following criteria:
- Achieved Excellence in teaching
- Achieved Excellence in scholarly activities or creative work
- Demonstrated service to the Texas A&M University- Texarkana and the community
Nominate a Distinguished Faculty Member


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Shipping Policy
DUE TO COVID 19 LEAD TIMES HAS BEEN EXTENDED TO 10-18 BUSINESS DAYS( Not Counting Holidays & Weekends) FOR PRODUCTION & 3-5 DAYS FOR DELIVERY
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Rebellion with a cause
reviews Detroit, a feature film about the 1967 urban rebellion that shook the then-citidel of U.S. capitalism and exposed racism and police brutality.
"EVERYBODY'S GOING to find out what it's like to be Black tonight."
When a Black man named Carl Cooper says these words in the film Detroit, he is joking at a get-together in a motel room, having just demonstrated for two white women what an encounter with the police was like. But within minutes, the Algiers Motel--where Carl and his friends are hanging out--is barraged with gunfire from police and soldiers.
By the end of the night, Carl has been murdered by the police, along with Fred Temple and Aubrey Pollard. All of the victims are Black men, and all of them teenagers.
Detroit dramatizes some of the experiences of the 1967 Detroit Rebellion, centering on the real-life police murders at the motel that took place one night during the uprising.
By 1967, dozens of U.S. cities had seen Black rebellions, and many more would come the following year. The Detroit uprising was the longest, most extensive revolt of the era. The repression was brutal, involving Detroit police, Michigan state police, the Michigan National Guard, and the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions of the U.S. Army. Forty-three people were killed and more than 7,200 arrested.
Searching for snipers and "looters," the police and the military stormed the motel, supposedly in response to gunfire that they heard coming from inside. Survivors of the incident say that Cooper was playing with a starter pistol.
As depicted in the film, when the cops burst into the rooms where Cooper and others were partying, they didn't just come upon a group of Black men. With two white women hanging out, too, the people gathered were crossing the most deeply rooted sexual taboo in the wellspring of American white supremacy and misogyny. We can all imagine the cops' responses.
The film builds to an extended torture scene, in which the police detain and interrogate seven Black men and the two white women at gunpoint. They use beatings, mock executions, summary executions and sexual assault in an effort to force their victims to confess to shooting at the police.
Despite multiple searches of the building, the cops never uncover a weapon that belonged to the partiers. Soldiers and state police show up during the torture, only to shirk responsibility by turning away from the abuse.
WITH THE Ferguson and Baltimore Uprisings fresh in recent memory, the 50th anniversary of the Detroit Rebellion is highly relevant, and the film Detroit very timely.
The film was directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by Mark Boal, the team best known for their war dramas The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty. Detroit is a powerful statement about the persistence of vicious police violence in the U.S. acting as the sharp edge of the insidious racism that shaped the country at its founding--and continues to do so today.
The portrayal of the police as sadistic racists is unmistakable, and interviews given by Bigelow and the film's actors since its release make it clear that they wanted to make a contribution to today's conversation about racism in the United States.
There are some problems with Detroit, however, that undermine its power.
The film opens with a brief montage of text telling viewers about the Great Migration of African-Americans to northern cities from the agrarian South and of their encounters with racism there, all set to visuals based on Jacob Lawrence paintings.
After this brief prologue, the film jumps to a police raid on an illegal bar, which was the occasion for the beginning of the uprising. All hell breaks loose with too-little context to set up scenes of masses of Black people smashing windows and setting fires.
While the racist violence of the police becomes clear later in the film, the lack of an exploration of day-to-day Black life--its grinding poverty, exploitation in the auto plants, and the ever-present, heavy hand of the police, to name some aspects--makes the rage of the rebellion seem out of context and primal. Instead of an angry rebellion against oppression, we see a directionless riot of destruction.
This will be familiar to anyone who has seen mainstream news coverage of any Black rebellion, recent or past. That is how they are always represented.
While the film portrays horrific acts by the occupying police and military--as when soldiers open fire on an apartment full of children with heavy artillery--the representation of the rebellion as lacking political content does not lend itself to sympathizing with the rebels either.
The oversight is especially glaring since Detroit was a hotbed of radicalism at the time--with numerous socialist groups, Black nationalist groups, labor militants and various radical campaigns and movements.
THE FILM also suffers from a lack of character development in general.
Viewers meet characters and learn a little about them--the Black man shot in the back for supposedly "looting," when he was actually carrying a bag of groceries; the Black security guard who is worried about "looters" and sympathetic to the police and guardsmen, only to be betrayed by them; the white woman who moves to Detroit from Ohio to be a hairdresser. But our knowledge of each character is always limited.
The film alludes to their backstories, but we never get to learn them in full. As a result, though portrayed brilliantly by actors giving stellar performances, the characters in Detroit all boil down to victims or sadistic abusers--and are all pretty one-dimensional.
There are also scenes where the filmmakers portray white Detroiters as sympathetic to the Black victims--not when they are rebelling, mind you, but when they are abused by the police. Unfortunately, the only white people who we see taking anti-racist stances--aside from the white women who were brutalized by the police themselves--are police officers.
While there were likely some officers or soldiers who were unsettled by the behavior of their forces during the Rebellion, the film exaggerates it and shows no evidence of the institutional pressure within the police department to dehumanize Black people. Instead, we see the particularly vicious cops as "a few bad apples."
If the filmmakers wanted to call attention to white Detroiters who sided with Black people despite the racism that divides them, they could have pointed to Appalachians--who also moved north to Detroit to find jobs in the auto industry, and who were dealing with poverty and exploitation on the job.
Records show that many of the snipers arrested for firing on the police during the Rebellion were Southern whites. The acts of anti-racist kindness and sympathy by police in the film, on the other hand, come off as contrived.
Detroit will no doubt affirm the feelings of many about historic racism in the U.S., and it will likely inspire more interest in the Great Rebellion. Those interested in radical Black struggle in the 1960s and '70s should check out Dan Georgakas and Marvin Surkin's classic book Detroit: I Do Mind Dying.
The book centers on the history of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers--a group of Black militants who attempted to launch a socialist revolution in the U.S., starting in the auto plants of Detroit. It also explores Detroit's radical landscape in general, and calls particular attention to the impact of the Great Rebellion on the city and its revolutionaries.
It holds inspiration for those looking fight for workers' power and Black liberation today.


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[CONTEST ALERT!!!] Crumpler : Guess what's in the Bag?
Today I woke up and realized that it has been 5 whole months since we've last traveled and that's when I got my answer. I miss traveling and that's what's missing in my life right now. Paul and I have been so busy that we haven't been out of Metro Manila since April for our Taiwan trip. For someone who used to travel at least once a month before, five months of no traveling activity is truly hazardous to my health.
Well, we're taking it step by step. First, we've booked a couple of short trips scheduled in the next few months. Next, here I am again reading up on our next target destinations, soon will be working on our itineraries. Lastly, we were gifted with this amazing bag that we will surely be bringing with us on our next trip.
It's a pretty Crumpler Spring Peeper with Wheels (Php. 9,850)! The perfect answer to our never-ending luggage problem!
I admit I am not a light packer. Much to Paul's frustrations, I have the tendency to bring the entire closet with me when I pack. Be it for a 3 day weekend or a 2 weeks vacation, I manage to max out the weight limit of our luggages and I'm sure glad I get to check in with Paul as I can take advantage of his luggage weight too. :P
What I need is a good hand carry where I can store my jacket, magazine/s and at times, a laptop which I bring with me inside the plane. I hate lugging around heavy and bulky eco bags that makes my back and shoulder hurt after a few hours of carrying it around.
What we love about the Crumpler Spring Peeper bag is how lightweight it is. Since it's built-in with wheels, it will be easy for us to just pull the bag around while we wait for our plane to arrive or even while shopping around in Hong Kong where we can conveniently put our shopping bags inside. I also love luggages with lots of pockets and this one has zippered pockets inside and outside the bag. It even has one rubberized pocket where we can dump all our wet items should we be using this on a swimming trip.
Safety is a big factor for us and the Spring Peeper has a provision to put a padlock between two zippers to discourage nasty thieves from opening our bag. The luggage is water-resistant and is made of the best materials to avoid wheels to jam and to allow the bag to stand vertically without support.
Lastly, this is perfect for all OC travelers like me. While the bag looks like a duffel bag from the outside, it works like a luggage inside complete with straps to keep your items tidy and neat despite being passed on from cargo to cargo during transit. No jumbled mess here!
Now, can you feel my excitement for our next trip? I surely can't wait to take this cool Spring Peeper luggage on a test drive!! :)
Paul and I love shopping at the Crumpler store in Bonifacio High Street. Of course he always heads straight towards the racks of camera bags where they have a size for practically all cameras in the market. While I fancy the small, handy sling bags, Paul loves the big heavy ones that can store all of his gears.
Crumpler has a wide-array of bags, let me show you a few of the things that you can see in this store:
Crumpler originated in Australia and is widely distributed here in the Philippines. I love looking at the wide color options of their bags that exudes a happy, youthful vibe.
Contest Time!!
I'm sure you'd love to have your very own Crumpler too! Well, you're in luck as I'm giving away ONE Crumpler bag to a lucky reader!!
All you have to do is to....
I know Crumpler has a lot of bags available so I'll make it slightly easier for you. It could be any of the following:
a) Pinnacle of Horror laptop bag
b) 6 Million Dollar Home camera bag
c) Private Zoo backpack
d) Skivvy laptop messenger bag
How to join:
1) Make a wild guess -- choose from any of the choices above
2) Send in your answer -- leave a message at my comment box and include your name and email address (no name/email address automatically disqualifies your entry)
3) One entry PER email address only. No duplicate entries please.
4) All those who gave the correct answer will automatically be included in the raffle.
5) This contest will run from: August 20, 2011 - August 30, 2011 11:59PM.
6) Due to limited courier service, this contest is open to all readers residing in the Philippines only.
7) I will be posting various hints all throughout the contest period on the Official Frannywanny.com Facebook Page so please like my page.
8) The winner will be contacted via email and the bag will be sent via courier.
There you go! Good luck dear readers!!! :)
Click here to visit the official website of Crumpler.