The directive on the legal protection of computer programs

Conclusion Other matters which are essentially left to national provisions include issues of fair use (apart from Article 5), moral rights, authorship and ownership. However, the bland terms of Article 2 (dealing with authorship) was only reached after one of the more controversial proposals was rejected. This was the suggestion that the ownership of a program which has been commissioned should belong to the commissioner rather than the author. This would have been a provision which would have been out of step with most countries' copyright legislation. In any case, it is probably a matter best dealt with by contract. The author, or his employer, will be able to negotiate so that their creativity can be retained in the organisation while the commissioner can ensure that the product can be fully and beneficially used in his organisation. if that requires a transfer of the full copyright then the assignment must be contracted.Article 10(1) requires that member states shall implement the provisions of the Directive by 1st January 1991. Given that many of the requirements are already in place in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, it will be a nice matter of judgment for the United Kingdom to decide how that implementation is to occur. There are certainly a sufficient number of differences from our present law, and ambiguities as to their effect, to require some substantive modification of the scheme of the 1988 Act.     

Police Witness Identification Images: A Geometric Morphometric Analysis*

Abstract: Research into witness identification images typically occurs within the laboratory and involves subjective likeness and recognizability judgments. This study analyzed whether actual witness identification images systematically alter the facial shapes of the suspects described. The shape analysis tool, geometric morphometrics, was applied to 46 homologous facial landmarks displayed on 50 witness identification images and their corresponding arrest photographs, using principal component analysis and multivariate regressions. The results indicate that compared with arrest photographs, witness identification images systematically depict suspects with lowered and medially located eyebrows (p = <0.000001). This was found to occur independently of the Police Artist, and did not occur with composites produced under laboratory conditions. There are several possible explanations for this finding, including any, or all, of the following: The suspect was frowning at the time of the incident, the witness had negative feelings toward the suspect, this is an effect of unfamiliar face processing, the suspect displayed fear at the time of their arrest photograph.     

Global access to treatment: achievements and challenges

As mentioned in the previous issue, this section of the Review addresses issues related to improving access to adequate and affordable care, treatment, and support everywhere. It replaces the section previously called "Patents and Prices." In this issue, we feature a review of achievements and challenges in recent years in opening global access to HIV/AIDS treatments. The article - one of a series commissioned to mark the tenth anniversary of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, discussing past developments and future directions in areas of policy and law related to HIV/AIDS - describes the developments that recast the debate about access to treatment from one focused on patent entitlements to one focused on the right to health and treatment. It analyzes the role of national and international activism, strategically constructed alliances, and principled leadership in achieving this change. And it discusses continuing obstacles to equitable access to HIV/AIDS treatments for the world's population.     

Psychological autopsies: the current Department of Defense effort to standardize training and quality assurance

Psychological autopsies have been gathered by the US military for a long time, both for lessons learned after a known suicide and to investigate an equivocal death. The term "psychological autopsies" is now being restricted to define an investigation by mental health to help determine, in an equivocal death, if the manner of death is a homicide, suicide, an accident, or from natural causes. The Department of Defense has developed policy, and is now implementing training and peer review. A sample model curriculum, report format and quality assurance standards are included.     

The deafening silence of AIDS

For most of those attending the XIII International AIDS Conference in Durban, the Jonathan Mann Memorial Lecture delivered by Justice Edwin Cameron on Monday, 10 July 2000, was one of the highlights of the conference. The presentation is a passionate and compelling appeal to make medical care and treatment accessible and affordable to the more than 30 million people in resource-poor countries who face death from AIDS.