Copyright (c) 2009 All rights reserved. http://works.bepress.com/kirill_ershov Recent documents in Kirill G Ershov en-us Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:52:17 PDT 3600 http://works.bepress.com/kirill_ershov/2 http://works.bepress.com/kirill_ershov/2 Sun, 21 Jun 2009 22:23:16 PDT Law #87‑ФЗ was signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin six months prior to the presidential election. #87-Ф3 rearranged the division of functions between the Investigator and the Procurator during the preliminary investigation. It also saw the creation of the Investigative Committee within the Procuracy, which would have exclusive supervision of all investigations within that branch. Because of the Commitee's personal jurisdiction over investigations involving individuals with official immunity and agents of Russia's power structures, both Russian media and Western academy saw the law as being politically motivated by the upcoming transfer of power. This paper examines the political rationalizations for #87-Ф3 reforms and points out their flaws. While not denying validity of the law's justifications, this paper posits that such explanations are unverifiable. The paper concludes by providing procedural justifications for #87-Ф3. #87-Ф3 is seen as a further step in Russia's transition away from a Soviet Procurator-centered criminal procedure system and towards Judicial Oversight model consistent with adversarial principles. Kirill G. Ershov Comparative Law Criminal Law and Procedure International Law Law Enforcement and Corrections Politics http://works.bepress.com/kirill_ershov/1 http://works.bepress.com/kirill_ershov/1 Sun, 21 Jun 2009 18:30:33 PDT Dr. Gunther von Hagens invented plastination as a process to preserve anatomical specimens. Plastination replaces water and fats in anatomical tissues with plastic polymers, allowing for their indefinite preservation and ease of handling. Beginning in the 1990s, von Hagens developed Body Worlds, a lucrative traveling exhibition composed mostly of plastinated cadavers in various degrees of dissection and often-provocative poses. In 2006, von Hagens filed a federal suit against a competing exhibition, claiming that it had infringed on his original expression in the dissection and positioning of his exhibits. The suit was eventually settled out of court. This paper examines if there is original expression in the type of plastinated exhibits presented by von Hagens. Whether or not there is protected expression in the appearance of the plastinated tissues -i.e., the way in which the bodies are dissected and the positioning of the bodies -is explored in detail. Doctrines of merger and scenes-a-faire play a recurring role in the analysis, as both the medium and the subject matter restrict the scope of protected original expression in these exhibits. The paper concludes that these doctrines make a copyright infringement claim harder to sustain, but ultimately do not rule out a successful suit of copyright infringement. Alternatively, some expression is found to be de minimis and unprotected even against direct copying. Fair use is not considered. Kirill G. Ershov Arts and Literature Intellectual Property Law