The MMORPG the merrier

Conducting an online search in late March 2006, an internetuser who keyed in the curious word ‘MMORPG’ wouldhave received more than 22 million hits. This confirms the growingsuspicion that MMORPGs are a phenomenon that is of increasingsocial, cultural, and economic significance and that, therefore,they will soon be creating fresh problems for intellectual propertylaw. MMORPGs (‘massively multiplayer online role-playing     

The spy who came in from the cold

Some words occur to us in pairs, often to the extent that wefind it difficult to hear the one without recalling the other.Thus ‘Romeo’ suggests ‘Juliet’; ‘Anthony’invokes ‘Cleopatra’; ‘Héloïse’follows ‘Abélard’ and so on. Many furtherexamples exist, particularly in the case of lovers. In intellectual property circles the concepts of ‘author’and ‘royalties’ are also closely linked—buttheir relationship is strained. While the author's love forroyalties is sincere and undiminished     

Uncertain Justice for Nuclear Terror: Deterrence of Anonymous Attacks Through Attribution

In light of ongoing work to improve nuclear attribution capabilities, policymakers could be tempted to consider a nuclear terrorism deterrence doctrine relying strongly on the ability of those capabilities to support retaliation against states that supply materials used anonymously in an attack. Although the United States must develop the best possible nuclear attribution capabilities, at the very least to support response actions after an attack, prospects for deterrence are uncertain. To accommodate these uncertainties, as well as the wide range of possible nuclear terrorism scenarios, the United States should adopt a broadly scoped operationally ambiguous declaratory policy in the context of a comprehensive strategic doctrine to prevent nuclear terrorism.     

One of the family: Domestic service in early modern Japan

This study investigates the effect of domestic service upon social practice and asks if domestic service led to self-affirmation and individualistic behavior in early modern Japan. It begins by describing various employees classified as domestic servants. Next the role of the servant as a member of the employer's family shows fluid kinship relations that resulted in changes in the family system and family practice. Contemporary theater is used to address some of the conflicting issues that these changes offered as challenges to patriarchal authority and how society reacted to these changes.     

Participatory Reactions to Policy Threats: Senior Citizens and the Defense of Social Security and Medicare

The sociodemographic factors emphasized in much participation research cannot explain abrupt changes in levels of activity. This study shows how threat of undesirable policy change acts as an impetus to participatory activity, helping to explain temporal variation in participation. Newly available individual-level time-series data are used to show surges in senior citizen letter writing in response to threats to Social Security and Medicare during the 1980s. Policy threat interacts with individual characteristics to produce variations in participatory reaction congruent with the magnitude of the threat to the individual.     

In the slipstream

The 2007 Formula One motor racing championship finished on acontroversial note. The drivers' title was taken by the Ferrariteam's Kimi Raikkonen following his victory in the final racein Brazil. Runner up in the drivers' competition by just onepoint was McLaren's Lewis Hamilton, who finished seventh. Itthen transpired that cars driven by three drivers who finishedahead of Hamilton had gained the advantage of super-cooled fuel,contrary to Formula One rules. Race stewards     

Technical Cooperation and the International Coordination of Patentability of Biotechnological Inventions

Within the formal international framework, the coordination and harmonization of substantive patentability is currently of a limited nature, confined to the level of general principles, in contrast to the greater degree of procedural coordination. This involves increased costs and a lack of legal certainty for those seeking patents in multiple jurisdictions, mainly transnational corporations in some research-based industries such as pharmaceuticals. The problems encountered in achieving even a basic level of international consensus have encouraged informal cooperation through what could be conceptualized as 'global patent networks'. Furthermore, the interrelationship between procedural and substantive patent law issues has led the Trilateral Patent Offices, an informal, transgovernmental regulatory network of technical specialists, to undertake projects relating to the harmonization of procedural and substantive patent law issues primarily in contentious areas of patentability such as biotechnology. This raises the possibility of developing convergent interpretations of the patentability rules, although with implications for accountability and legitimacy.     

"Maybe Tomorrow I'll Turn Capitalist": Cuentapropismo in a Workers' State

In 1993, the Cuban government significantly expanded the scope of legal self-employment on the island. The change has not been uncontroversial, and cuentapropistas have frequently been held up, both in Cuba and in the United States, as the symbol of Cuba's transition to a free-market economy. In framing cuentapropistas as the vanguards of capitalism, observers have adopted a concept of "transition" which is both rigidly ideological and teleological. This article argues that by employing a sociolegal approach toward cuentapropismo —examining close-up not only the Cuban government's regulation of self-employment, but also how the operation of law is mediated through cuentapropistas' own self-perceptions—we can develop a richer and more complex understanding of transitional periods. Rather than conceptualizing "transition" as a straight line from communism to capitalism, a sociolegal analysis draws attention to the complex relationship between law, identity, and work in the renegotiation of citizenship, and the constitutive role that evolving conceptions of citizenship may have for the shape and character of a transitional period.