While this class has extensively discussed the relationship between copyright and culture in the United States, it has only briefly touched on copyright on an international scale. The infringement of intellectual property rights is in many cases more widespread abroad, where the United States and its copyright industries experience difficulty enforcing copyright laws. The United States Trade Representative has proposed an Anti-Counterfeit Trade Agreement which includes the United States, the European Union and other developed countries. I am interested in exploring the consequences and limitations of this agreement and whether it will effectively curb international piracy and change the culture of copyright infringement.

    This article talks about Serbia’a surprising progress in combating piracy. The Serbian authorities have seized “280,000 illegal copies of music, films, games and software” from the domestic market. The article points out that this raid was most likely because Serbia wants to join the E.U and combating piracy is one of the criteria for closer relations between the European Union and Serbia.
    This source is closely tied to the article on Russia’s music download website. The Serbian case, however, has a more optimistic outcome. While the raid will certainly not stop piracy, it is an important step forward that shows the population that the Serbian authorities are serious about strengthening their relations with the E.U. and are therefore willing to carry out seizures of illegal materials. The article also explicitly brings up the ties between piracy and organized crime. Knowing the political and social climate of Eastern Europe, I can confidently claim that the same connection exists in Russia and is evident in the symbolic closure of allofmp3.com. When the exact terms of the ACTA are negotiated, it is important to take into consideration the domestic implications of combating intellectual property infringement. Enforcement of copyright laws can be dangerous since it interferes with powerful underground crime networks whose bosses maintain close connections to corrupt officials within Eastern European police authorities. Finally, the limitation of this article is that it does not investigate the reaction of the population and whether the seizure was successful in the long term, i.e. did the vendors stop selling illegal materials for good or did they continue after a few days.

This book by Charles Dowsett offeres his deep philological knowledge and insight into the legendary and almost mystical figure, Sayat Nova. It can be safely said that hardly anything was known to western world about this legendary Armenian troubadour Sayat Nova till this study was translated into French, and to English. His multilingual talent, that resembles the one of the subject matter, Sayat Nova allows him to look at the poems by Sayat Nova not only from mere literature point of view but also his multiculturality and internationality. 

In the book, Dowsett reveals the mystified life of Sayat Nova; The author scrupulously points out Sayat Nova’s international identity by nature; born into moderate Armenian family in Georgia, who spoke multiple languages including, Georgian, Armenian, Azeri, Turkish, and Persian, in which he produced his work of poetry and music. (His most famous work move fluently between all four languages.) He was active as court troubadour in Georgia in his early life, but was expelled to Armenia where he joined the local church to continue his practice. It also points out his extraordinary religious perspective and his life as a priest, and, importantly, the ethnic tolerance; he uses Persian vocabrary in many of his poems and appealed to Muslim audiences as well. In some of his poem he displayed his sympathy for Islam. He asserted that he perceived himself as “ bridge between the various Caucasian Peoples. For my own sake of argument, this legendary figure Sayat Nova, and the life of the director Sergei Paradjanov have undeniably much in common starting from their multilingual ability and intercultural identity as well as their broad range of active field.

A study of the potential results of agricultural and food processing integration between Eastern and Western Europe

Automobile manufacturers were among the first firms to enter Eastern and Central Europe following the end of the cold war.  Now the production networks are distributed across Eastern and Western Europe and the former soviet economies are integrating at different speeds.

Different ways of integration in post-Soviet Europe will produce vastly different economies and different relationships between countries.

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the emergence of several new markets in Europe, the European economy has become much more heterogeneous.  This paper is an analysis of the situation and suggestions for how to integrate without causing a regional financial crisis

Automanufacturers were among the first firms to enter the Former Soviet Union.  With them came increased trade within Europe and also an internationalization of production networks for automobiles in Europe.  This paper analyzes the importance of these cross-national production networks.

A study of changing trade patterns in the Former Soviet Union

Why are Eastern Europe's economies growing slower than the economies of the "East Asian Miracle"?  This paper examines the question and provides possible answers, as well as ways to help Eastern European economies succeed.

This research project is based in the Department of Government at the University of Essex, UK, is part of the ESRC 'One Europe or Several?' research programme.

The principal aim of the project is to explain the role of electoral systems in the process of democratisation in post-communist Europe. The investigation will focus on twelve core countries (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine), but where available we have provided data for other post-communist states.

This website is part of the dissemination strategy of the project. It includes and on-line database of election results and electorally-relevant laws from throughout Eastern Europe. The International Foundation for Electoral Systems and the Association of Central and East European Election Officials contributed to the construction of the database.

The Election Law section of the database includes election laws (parliamentary and presidential election laws, country-wide regional election laws, universal electoral codes, and laws on basic guarantees) and other legislation relevant to elections (constitutional provisions, political party laws, campaign finance laws, media laws, and other relevant legislation).

Laws from 12 countries (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine) can be searched by country, election year and by twelve topic areas.

The Election Results section of the database includes results for parliamentary and presidential elections dating back to 1990 in each of the 12 countries, plus other information such as number of registered voters, turnout, votes cast, and total valid votes. Constituency level results of parliamentary elections from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine are also available.

Candidate data (downloadable SPSS and Excel files) and lists of relevant internet links supplement the database.