The Legal Environment for Copyright Protection and Trust Management in China
This paper surveys the legal and regulatory environment surrounding copyright protection technologies, focusing on China in particular. The paper begins with a discussion of some of the interactions between law and technology in copyright protection, which has led to the creation of international treaties to protect the technologies that protect copyrights. A comparison of the various national responses to these conventions is presented, followed by a discussion of the structure and development of the relatively advanced Chinese system for copyright protection technology. The last section outlines some of the unique challenges that have arisen in China for copyright protection technologies and the businesses that depend upon them.
The Right of Exclusive Access: Misusing Copyright to Expand the Patent Monopoly
Copyright legislation has been amended in many countries to provide legal protection to access- and use-controlling technology. Canada is considering similar provisions in Bill C-60. This article examines the policy issues that arise when copyright law, in conjunction with anticircumvention technology, is invoked to provide concurrent protection for a patented or patentable device. It discusses the philosophical justification for IP rights protection, including the notion of balancing owner and user interests, and the importance of respecting the different balances on which each intellectual property right lies. The article argues that technology, with its legal protection, can be used to expand the patent monopoly, or even supplant it, effectively eliminating the concept of intellectual property rights' balance. The article identifies and analyses the effects of access- and use-controlling technology on the patent monopoly and, drawing on the experience of other jurisdictions with similar provisions, offers two suggestions to mitigate the risk that the inclusion of anticircumvention provisions in the Copyright Act can be misused to expand the patent monopoly. One recommendation is to change the proposed provisions in Bill C-60 to connect the circumvention of DRM technology with actual copyright infringement and to narrow down the definition of access-controlling technology. The second suggestion is to introduce into Canadian copyright law a statutory cause of action, or defence, similar to the American equitable defence of copyright misuse, which could be invoked to address the improper use of any copyright rights.
Pig Vocalizations Under Selected Husbandry Practices
Acoustical characteristics of vocalizations of sows, piglets, and nursery pigs under selected husbandry practices were analyzed with a digital signal processing system. The duration (D) and major energy-resonance frequency (P) for each call were determined as follows: a) processing of piglets (D = 0.81 s and f* = 3 700 Hz); b) food anticipation of breeding-gest ation sows (2.50 s and 3 000 Hz); c) isolation of piglet (0.34 s and 500, 3 500 Hz); d) startling of nursery pigs (0.29 s and 900 Hz); e) sows in heat (3.07 s and 1 375 Hz); f) farrowing (0.10 s and 3 000 Hz); g) sow nursing (0.15 s and 1 000 Hz); and h) mate greeting of sow (0.13 s and 1 000 Hz). Calls a) to d) are responses to human generated stressors, and calls e) through h) responses to social and physiological states of the pigs. Thus, vocalizations can be segmented for different pig production situations.