Trial and Error – Failing and Learning in Criminal Proceedings

This paper addresses the selective mechanisms by which criminal proceedings produce strong arguments. It does so by focusing on the failing of argument themes (topoi) in the course of criminal proceedings, rather than on their career. In a further step, the notion of failing is bound to learning: different forms of failing point at different ways and places of learning. The study is comparative, relating cases from four different legal regimes (England, USA, Italy and Germany) that are taken from four extensive ethnographic studies in defense lawyer’s firms. We will track down the failures of topoi at three different stages (pre-trial, trial, and deliberation) in our different legal regimes. Failing occurs in all proceedings in various modes and at different stages. We argue that those modes as well as the different stages at which they occur point at the spots in the respective procedures that allow for learning about the inherent conceptions of “good reasons.”     

Deleuze &; Guattari’s Intensive &; Pragmatic Semiotic of Emergent Law

The paper articulates Deleuze & Guattari’s semiotics towards a semiotic of law through a discussion of the intensive semiotics of the field of emergence and pragmatic semiotics of social power. Within the framework of the pragmatic semiotics, it is argued that the crucial tension is how social machines and their regimes of signs operate with the intensive semiotics of the field of emergence. The signifying regime of the State social machine constructs itself on the excluded foundation of the field of emergence, and what is lost are the real ontological and social conditions of emergence, intensity and affect. In contrast, the counter-signifying regime of the war social machine actively operates with the intensive semiotic of the field of emergence, and develops an image of legality and regime of signs that taps the field of emergence for social organisation and expression. Returning to the issue of emergence and legality, the concept of Emergent Law is developed as a war social machine, abstract machine, assemblage, and regime of signs, that operates a semiotic that is developed in terms of an intensive semiotics that is open to and taps the forces of the field of emergence.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Peters Edition v. Batt</Emphasis>: The Intertextuality of Silence

The article deals, on the one hand, with a legal conflict between a musical performer/arranger, Mike Batt, and the estate of a composer of avant-garde music, John Cage, over copyright. It is also concerned with the field of intertextuality – how meaning is created in a text or in a work of art, whether it is visual, musical or verbal, through allusions and quotations to previous texts or works of art. The controversy, which did not reach the courts because of a pre-trial settlement, was over an author’s rights to silence, or, as in this case, a silent piece of music. The central issue discussed is the way in which silence may be considered – if at all, to be protectable.     

Schadenersatzreform – Gefährdungshaftung und Unternehmerhaftung

Der Entwurf eines neuen ?sterreichischen Schadenersatzrechts sieht Regelungen der Gef?hrdungshaftung sowie der Unternehmerhaftung vor. Der Beitrag untersucht die jeweilige Ausgangslage, das Reformanliegen und die Konsequenzen einer Reform.     

Tag des Wassers

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

商标“反向混淆”理论初探——以案例为视角

以"浙江蓝野酒业有限公司诉上海百事可乐饮料有限公司"一案为切入点,探讨商标反向混淆的基本理论问题.通过介绍国外反向混淆标志性案例,论证禁止反向混淆的正当性,指出反向混淆案件中认定侵权的特殊性,并提出立法建议.     

版权扩张对信息获取的影响及其反垄断法规制

版权和信息获取之间存在着固有的冲突。版权法在制度设计中通过对版权制度的宗旨、作品的独创要求、版权保护中思想与表达的分界、版权的权利限制等规定,力求在两者之间达到一种平衡。但是,当今数字技术环境带来的版权保护的强化和扩张趋势,使得这种平衡难以维持,并对原有版权制度提供的信息获取途径已构成了现实的威胁,于是,反垄断成为制止这种趋势的一个途径。但是,企图依靠反垄断法来纠正由于版权保护的扩张造成的信息获取的困难、实现版权法的立法宗旨也是不切实际的,而必须要立足于版权制度自身的完善。