What is trademark dilution and what does anti-dilution statutes protect? Those are the primary questions that the dissertation seeks to answer. When a well-known trade mark is used by a non-competitor in such a way that the misrepresentation is created that the latter's performance has the same source or origin as the well-known trademark, it is called trademark misappropriation. One of the main reasons for the misappropriation is to promote the latter's product and/or performance and thus benefit from it. Whether we call it use or abuse…it is the dilution of the advertising value of the well-known trademark. The dissertation investigates the concept of dilution in order to establish the specific interest that is protected against dilution. / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Private Law / unrestricted

The misappropriation sanctions refer to the European Union sanctions adopted against foreign kleptocrats to address the suspected theft of public funds. After the regimes had been successfully overthrown in the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt in 2011 as well as the Maidan Revolution in Ukraine in 2014, the misappropriation sanctions were imposed, in all three cases, as the ousted leaders and their close associates were suspected of stealing vast amounts of public funds from their respective countries and hiding the misappropriated funds overseas. The misappropriation sanctions take the form of asset freezes against individuals considered being responsible for “misappropriation of state funds”. The sanctions in question have been extensively reviewed by the Court of Justice of the European Union as numerous of the targeted individuals have applied for annulment of the sanctions in the parts that concern them. The purpose of this thesis is to examine, on the basis of the case law of the CJEU, the threshold for legitimate listing of a targeted individuals in the misappropriation sanctions. It is concluded that threshold vis-à-vis the criteria or the listing grounds must be regarded as reasonable, while the threshold concerning the respect of fundamental rights is creating a heavy burden to bear.

Small businesses have an important role to play in the U.S. economy. However, employee fraud can jeopardize the sustainability of small businesses. Grounded on Cressey's fraud triangle theory, the purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies used by selected managers and owners of small retail businesses to detect and prevent employee fraud. Ten participants from 5 small retail businesses participated in the study. Nine participated in a face-to-face semistructured interview, and 1 participated in a telephone interview. These participants included 5 owners and 5 managers of small retail businesses in the state of Michigan in the United States who have implemented strategies to detect and prevent employee fraud. Through a process of methodological triangulation, casual observations and documentary evidence supplemented data collected through semistructured interviews. Using thematic analysis by coding narrative segments, the research findings included themes of controls and communication, cash register accountability, segregation of duties, monitoring, and action against perpetrators. Managers and owners of small businesses may benefit from the findings of this study by gaining awareness of the need to detect and prevent employee fraud. The implications for positive social change may include the potential to increase appropriate controls over employee fraud, thus enabling owners of small retail business an opportunity to operate effectively and efficiently, which could increase employment opportunities. Increased employment opportunities could create a positive effect on other small retail businesses and allow local communities to prosper.

Financial accountability is a pressing issue in United States NPOs because there is a demand, by donors and the public they serve, to implement clear accountability practices. The purpose of this study was to explore and document the financial oversight and accountability policies and procedures that successful NPOs employ to maintain clear financial accountability practices. The theoretical framework underlining this qualitative phenomenological study was a combination of social construction theory and institutional rational choice theory. The research question was focused on understanding essential financial oversight and accountability policies and procedures that should be designed for NPOs to create and maintain financial accountability. Interview data were collected from 6 participants from 4 successful emerging organizations, less than 5 years in business, and 8 participants from organizations that have a longer history, more than 5 years in business. Data were coded using the basic NVivo software package and analyzed thematically. Findings regarding the tools needed to create and maintain vital accountability policies and procedures in NPOs were as follows; need for accountability, importance of appropriate disclosure, impact of dashboard tool, expense projection, financial manager, financial misappropriation reporting, oversight policies, revenue forecasts, board members and supportive culture. The potential impact of this qualitative study for social change is that the policies, practices, and procedures of successful NPOs were identified and documented for those old, new and emerging NPOs not using them. The critical finding of this study shows the need for continued research to bring positive social change through nonprofit financial accountability policy improvement.

After examining Harmony Korine's feature films, shorts, art installations, music videos, paintings, and novel, a clear pattern of stereotyping and misappropriating African American aesthetics emerges. This thesis addresses the mass appropriation of hip-hop aesthetics by whites, and Korine's complicity in this cultural phenomenon. Additionally, it explores the notion of hipster racism, Carmen Van Kerckhove’s term for respected artists who feel enlightened enough to stereotype in an ironic or comedic manner. Looking closely at cultural appropriation in Spring Breakers, this thesis considers hipster racism and the notion of modern-day minstrelsy. / text

Auganti intelektinės nuosavybės svarba šiandienos visuomenėje skatina valstybes imtis įvairių teisinių priemonių, sukuriant intelektinės nuosavybės teisinės apsaugos mechanizmą. Nors Lietuvoje galioja daug tarptautinių, Europos Sąjungos bei nacionalinių teisės aktų intelektinės nuosavybės apsaugos srityje, tenka pastebėti, kad teismams santykinai retai tenka nagrinėti bylas, kuriose asmenys kaltinami BK 191 straipsnyje numatytos veikos padarymu. Kartu didesnio dėmesio šiai nusikalstamai veikai pasigendama ir akademinėje visuomenėje, todėl galima teigti, kad ši nusikalstama veika yra mažai nagrinėta tiek doktrininiu, tiek praktiniu lygiu. Tačiau viešoje erdvėje pasirodanti vis nauja informacija apie autorystės pasisavinimo atvejus patvirtina, kad autorystės teisės apsauga išlieka aktuali. Tokia situacija labiau rodo šios nusikalstamos veikos latentiškumą, nei retumą, o vykstantys socialiniai procesai duoda pagrindo tikėtis, kad netolimoje ateityje Lietuvos visuomenės pakantumas bei abejingumas intelektinės nuosavybės pažeidimams mažės, kartu skatindamas vis daugiau asmenų kreiptis dėl savo pažeistų intelektinės nuosavybės teisių gynimo baudžiamojo proceso tvarka. Šio darbo tikslas – įvertinti baudžiamosios atsakomybės už autorystės pasisavinimą teisinį reglamentavimą Lietuvos Respublikoje doktrininiu bei teisminiu praktiniu aspektais. Darbe apžvelgiama autorystės apsauga Lietuvoje nacionaliniu ir tarptautiniu lygiu, analizuojama autorystės pasisavinimo veika doktrininiu bei... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / -. / Die wachsende Bedeutung des geistigen Eigentums in der heutigen Gesellchaft fördert die Staaten an verschiedene gesetzliche Maßnahmen zu ergreifen, um ein Mechanismus für den Rechtschutz des geistigen Eigentums zu schaffen. Obwohl in Litauen viele internationale, europäische und nationale Rechtsvorschriften für den Schutz des geistigen Eigentums gültig sind, muß man feststellen, daß im Gericht relativ selten solche Sachen, in denen die Personen wegen der in dem SGB Artikel 191 vorgesehenen Tat beschuldigt sind, verfahren werden. Man vermißt auch grössere Aufmerksamkeit von der Seite der akademischen Gesellschaft für diese Straftat, darum kann man behaupten, dass diese Straftaten sehr wenig in der dogmatischen als auch in der praktischen Ebene behandelt sind. Aber die in der Öffentlichkeit immer wieder erscheinenden Informationen über die Fälle der Aneignung der Urheberschaft bestätigen, dass Schutz des Urheberrechts aktuell bleibt. Solche Situation zeigt mehr auf die Latenz solcher Straftat als auf die Seltenheit, und die laufenden sozialen Prozesse lassen vermuten, dass in der nahen Zukunft Toleranz und Gleichgültigkeit der Gesellschaft Litauens wegen der Verletzung des Rechts des geistigen Eigentums sich vermindern wird und dadurch werden sich mehrere Personen wegen der Verteidigung ihrer verletzten Rechte des geistigen Eigentums zum Gericht wenden. Das Ziehl dieser Arbeit ist Beurteilung der gesetzlichen Regelung der strafrechtlichen Verantwortlichkeit wegen der Aneignung... [der volle Text, siehe weiter]

Americans are curiously absent from the literature as forces in the black market prevailing in Germany after World War II. Aside from Rundell's study of failed currency control policy during the Second World War and the subsequent occupations of Germany and Japan, historians have failed to accord the American presence on the black market its proper status. They receive mention in narrative fashion, authors noting that Americans could make money on the black market, or relating a story about what a soldier bought or sold there. Then, like bit players in a movie, Americans recede from view, and Germans and displaced persons resume their places in the lead. This thesis has two objectives. Through support from the archival record, first, it demonstrates that Americans did in fact execute a specific function with respect to the maintenance and perpetuation of the black market - they were the market's suppliers. Second, by positing this role, this thesis attempts to correct a view of the black market as an essentially German experience, populated in the main by Germans and displaced persons. In so doing, I posit a schema of American illicit supply to Germans and displaced persons. This thesis argues that Americans operated as suppliers of illicit goods to the indigenous population. This supply occurred in three ways: Americans selling on the black market; misappropriation of materiel (usually food); and theft of goods from American installations. Furthermore, each type of supply was predicated upon the fulfillment of a certain condition. Americans sold on the black market when they were certain they could make a profit. Americans misappropriated US government property (usually food) as a consequence of a relationship with a German or displaced person; in practice, because those with access to American goods were young men, the relationships were only with women, and always included some gradation of intimacy. Germans and displaced persons committed larceny from American installations to procure goods for the black market, which insured handsome profits.

La probité relative aux devoirs envers autrui et aux devoirs de la vie civile, a pour synonyme le mot «intégrité» auquel s'attache l'idée particulière d'une pureté qui ne se laisse entamer ni corrompre. En ce qui concerne les atteintes à la probité, il convient d’appréhender la probité comme un devoir dont le manquement est pénalement sanctionné. En effet, le droit pénal français punit les manquements au devoir de probité qui sont généralement le fait de personnes exerçant des fonctions publiques. Ces incriminations se distinguent les unes des autres par leurs éléments constitutifs, leurs modalités d’accomplissement ou leurs finalités. Les atteintes à la probité méritent d’être étudiées compte tenu de la qualité singulière de leurs auteurs qui ne sont pas des délinquants ordinaires mais des représentants de la puissance publique.A travers cette étude des atteintes à la probité, nous tenterons de mettre en exergue l’importance considérable de ces infractions qui touchent à la puissance publique et la nécessité d’une répression accentuée destinée à sauvegarder les intérêts fondamentaux de la Nation, à prévenir les conflits d’intérêts, à moraliser la vie publique et à rappeler à l’ordre les personnes exerçant une fonction publique et soumises à l’exigence d’exemplarité. / The righteousness relative to the duties to others and to the duties of the civil life, has for synonym the word "integrity" to which becomes attached the particular idea of a purity which is allowed affect nor corrupt. As regards infringements on the righteousness, it is advisable to arrest the righteousness as a duty the breach of which is penally punished. Indeed, the French criminal law punishes the breaches in the duty of righteousness which are generally the fact of people holding public functions. These incriminations distinguish themselves some of the others by their constituent elements, their modalities of fulfillment or their ends. Infringements on the righteousness deserve to be studied considering the singular quality of their authors who are not ordinary delinquents but representatives of the public authorities. Through this study of infringements on the righteousness, we shall try to highlight the considerable importance of these breaches which affect the public authorities and the necessity of a stressed repression intended to protect the fundamental interests of the Nation, to prevent conflicts of interests, to moralize the public life and to call in to order the holding people a public function and subjected to the requirement of exemplary nature.

(thefts of socialist property) This diploma thesis observes how the problems of thefts of socialist property in Czechoslovakia were presented in the Rudé právo, the press body of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, between 1986 and 1989, or which discrepancies appeared in this presentation. The view on thefts of socialist property in the terms of law comes before the real core of the thesis - by putting stress on the definition of the socialist property in the Constitution, the given criminal act in the Penal Code, the view of the juristic literature on the social dangerousness of the given action, here represented by the Socialistická zákonnost journal. Afterwards the author focuses on how the problems of thefts (but also that of protection) of socialist property were related to the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (or rather to its officials), top managers and rank and file employees, which he illustrates on particular cases. In the end the author compares the articles of the Rudé právo with some empirical findings - in relation to the survey of the Institute for public opinion poll by the Federal statistical office about the discipline and the check on the workplace, in relation to the statistics about the economic criminal activity mentioned in the German written...

Le déploiement de moyens visant à lutter contre la fraude fiscale menace les libertés fondamentales et individuelles des contribuables. En effet, le durcissement de la répression fiscale marque un pas vers l'interventionnisme étatique et semble légitimer la généralisation du soupçon à l'encontre de ces derniers. Le renforcement des prérogatives de contrôle fiscal et d'investigation confiées aux agents du fisc notamment par le recours aux pouvoirs de police judiciaire n'est pas exempt de dangers. Il conduit d'ailleurs à justifier des intrusions dans la vie privée des individus ainsi que de profondes atteintes au droit de propriété sur la base de simples présomptions de fraude fiscale. Les contribuables sont eux aussi exposés aux risques d'abus de pouvoir et de détournement de procédures mais manquent de recours pour combattre ces dérives. En tant qu'Administration publique, l'Administration fiscale, censée oeuvrer pour l'intérêt général dans le cadre de sa mission de récolte de l'impôt et de sanction des fraudeurs, bénéficie d'une présomption quasi « irréfragable » de loyauté lui conférant une responsabilité atténuée voir même une certaine immunité. En effet, rares sont les cas où la responsabilité pour faute de l'Administration fiscale est retenue par les juges. De surcroît, quand la machine judiciaire vient suppléer les carences de l'Administration fiscale, le respect du principe d'égalité des armes apparaît bien plus théorique que pratique. Les inspecteurs agissent de plus en plus sous la contrainte des objectifs de résultats et de rendement budgétaire, au détriment du respect des libertés individuelles et de la présomption de bonne foi des contribuables / The raise of means aiming to struggle against tax evasion threats fundamentals liberties for taxpayers. Indeed, the strengthening of tax repressive measures marks on more step in the state's intervention and seems to justify a generalisation of suspicion against taxpayers. Furthermore, the reinforcement in tax inspector's power mostly used through resort to judicial power isn't exempt from danger. It results in justifying violation of private life and illegal entry only based on presumption of tax fraud. Taxpayers are also exposed to tax authorities abuses and do not have necessary the means to face those abuses. As a public administration, tax authorities are supposed to work for general interest as defined in their mission to both collect taxes and sanction defrauders, but on the other hand they also benefit from an irrefragable presumption of fairness, which results in an attenuated liability. Indeed, rare are the case where the breach of duty from tax authorities is pushed forward by the judges. Moreover, when the judicial machine supplies the shortages of tax Authorities, the respect of equal weapon's principle seems more theoretic than efficient. Tax inspectors act more and more under pressure to get results and budgetary profits, to the detriment of individual freedom and presumption of sincerity. It's in this context that for years, tax authorities have been trying to change their image to present themselves as an administration of service, which main purpose is to encourage amicable settlement of tax litigation