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Copyright and the Training of Human Authors and Generative Machines
No full textThere are many limitations on copyright of which human authors can and do take advantage as they are learning. However, there is no blanket fair use immunity for use of copyrighted works to educate human authors, even though those authors typically do not go on to create substantially similar works. Human authors typically end up paying, directly or indirectly, for most of the copyrighted works from which they learn. Should it be different when human beings use copyrighted works to train generative AI models? This article concludes that it should not, in spite of two prominent arguments to the contrary.
The first argument is that such training involves “nonexpressive use” of those works. Under the only definition of that term that distinguishes generative AI training from human learning, a “nonexpressive use” is one that does not result in an aesthetic or hedonic reaction to a work. However, copyright should be and usually has been considered to protect not just the entertainment value of works for passive and unchanging human beings, but the educational value of works for human beings who want to learn and change, both individually and collectively.
The second argument is that generative AI training is functionally equivalent to human reading, viewing, or listening – activities outside the scope of copyright’s exclusive rights. However, the distinctions between and limitations on exclusive rights presuppose limited human memory and cognition, and current and future generative models are not subject to those constraints. Moreover, the very inability of computers to have any hedonic or aesthetic reactions to the works they are processing, and their inability to remember and act on those reactions, make computer processing fundamentally different than human experience of works
“Constant Enemies of the Christian Name:” Tracing the Construction of the Ritual Murder Charge in The Life and Miracles of St. William of Norwich
No full textThis paper examines the construction of the blood libel myth in Thomas of Monmouth’s 12th-century manuscript, The Life and Miracles of St. William of Norwich. Building upon existing scholarship, it analyzes Life as both a martyrdom narrative and an anti-Jewish polemic. Drawing on Elizabeth Castelli’s theory of martyrdom and collective memory, this paper argues that the rhetorical construction of the Jew as a biblical, bloodthirsty enemy of Christ served to reinforce a dubious martyrdom narrative and consolidate a medieval Christian identity perceived as under threat. By deconstructing the rhetorical devices underpinning the account’s blood libel charge–literary foil, biblical metaphor, and the Christ-killer accusation– the paper highlights how Monmouth successfully transformed Jews from victims of conspiracy to perpetrators of violent crime. Monmouth’s use of a literary foil drew on prevailing ideas of Christian-Jewish difference to reinforce notions of Christian piety, while his invocations of biblical metaphor stabilized a tenuous assertion of Jewish guilt and Christian persecution. These anti-Jewish rhetorics culminate in Monmouth’s invocation of the Christ-killer myth. By likening medieval Jews to the biblical betrayers of Christ, Monmouth created a universal framework that rationalized and justified the violent persecution of Jews
Evaluating a Decade of Mangrove Restorations in Mumbai: Success or Failure?
No full textFrom 2012-2022, more than US $5 million was invested in the restoration of Mumbai’s mangrove forests. The present study is the first published evaluation of these restorations. Mangrove restoration is critical for coastal communities, rehabilitating forests that guard against floods and absorb eight times the CO2 of any other ecosystem. Mumbai has 150 km of shoreline and 65 km2 of mangroves. Heavy pollution, industrialization, and major infrastructure development have led to the clearance of thousands of mangrove trees over the last two decades. A sample of 25 mangrove restoration sites were assessed through a remote sensing, time-series analysis. Sentinel-2 and Landsat-8 data were collated in Google Earth Engine and mangrove extent was determined through a random forest, machine learning model. Restoration failed at 13 of the 25 sites (52%) which saw no mangrove growth from their restoration start year until 2022. Across the 25 sites, there was an increase of 30.44 hectares (ha) of mangrove coverage, from 67.19 ha of cover prior to restoration, to 97.63 ha by 2022. Despite strong conservation laws and compensatory afforestation mechanisms, Mumbai’s mangroves remain vulnerable to urbanization and land-use land-cover changes. Policy recommendations, including public transparency around mangrove restoration locations, long-term forest monitoring, and improved enforcement of the existing coastal regulation zone, are outlined at the local, national, and international levels to improve mangrove restoration outcomes in Mumbai.
The Flip and Flop of Taxing Alimony
No full textSince the dawn of income taxation in America, the tax treatment of alimony payments has flipped, flopped, and flipped again. The tax burden was first borne by the person paying alimony, then by the person receiving it. The burden has since shifted back to the alimony payor. This, we argue, was a flop.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 eliminated a tax deduction for alimony payments that served to reduce the taxable income of the payor and shift the payments into the taxable income of the recipient. Congress justified this deviation from the longstanding deduction/income treatment based an old Supreme Court case that held alimony was to be taxed to husbands as part of their moral and legal obligations to support their wives. More likely, Congress was acting for its own benefit—eliminating the deduction is estimated to raise billions for the fisc.
In this Article, we argue that this change was a mistake. Treating alimony payments as income to the recipient better comports with the Tax Code’s progressive rate structure and the concept of taxing a party based on “ability to pay.” The argument proceeds in two parts. First, we argue that alimony payments do not constitute consumption by the payor. Thus, like gifts, alimony payments should only be taxed to one of the parties involved in the transfer. Existing scholarship seems to coalesce on this point. Still, this does not tell us whom to tax: the alimony payor or the recipient? Distinguishing the income tax treatment of alimony from that of gifts, we argue the latter.
As a theoretical matter, allowing a deduction for alimony payments aligns with our progressive rate structure by accounting for the payor’s lower marginal “ability to pay” after making alimony payments. These payments represent future consumption by the recipient, not the payor, and thus reflect an increase in the recipient’s “ability to pay” taxes on such sums. And, as a practical matter, allowing parties the flexibility to allocate the tax burden among themselves is a negotiating chip that may grease the wheels in other areas of the divorce settlement process. We recommend that Congress flip once more and return the tax treatment of alimony to what it was prior to the 2017 Act reform
Law, Culture, and the Politics of Confucianism
No full textA paper that deals with law, culture, and Confucianism is perhaps doomed to be a collection of vague and general platitudes. This is because all three of these terms are notoriously plagued with definitional problems. Legal theorists continue to disagree about the nature and scope of the concept of law, while anthropologists and sociologists constantly argue about the utility of the concept of culture. Similarly, philosophers, historians, journalists, politicians-indeed, almost anyone with a voice-seem to have different ideas about what Confucianism means. One of the main reasons for such disagreements, in my opinion, is an all-too-human tendency to want neat and simple categories that can encompass, represent, and take the place of the messy and intractable realities of life. We are all too familiar with the problem that "law" in modern life encompasses vastly different norms and institutions which cannot be easily grouped under the same rubric without in some sense straining the usefulness of the term "law."' The same is true of "culture" and "Confucianism"-with each term, it is often difficult to engage in any discussion beyond the most preliminary stages without being forced to ask, "culture in what sense of the term?" or, "Confucianism according to whose interpretation?' This shows that all these terms are very elastic and that different practices and ideas are often subsumed under the same concept, which in turn aggravates the lack of conceptual clarity
AI Human Rights Literacy
No full textThe treatment of artificial intelligence (AI) in the field of education has so far been typically characterized by (a) information about how AI can assist educators in carrying out their work, and (b) concerns about the misuse of AI by learners, for example, concerning plagiarism. The links between AI and ethics within the field of education are much more complex. Beyond the concerns about the organization of teaching and learning with the rise of AI—and the associated rights to privacy and safety—there are legitimate needs for instructors and learners to understand how AI affects their daily lives. What are the wider ethical considerations for using AI, particularly from the perspective of human rights norms? This paper critically analyzes some of the human rights at stake regarding the use of AI and its implications for the organization and content of formal education (K-12 and higher education). The human rights perspective on AI’s dynamic and changing field—AI human rights literacy—is critical to convey to instructors and learners as they navigate these new technological developments. This paper overviews human rights relevant to everyday encounters with AI in education. It proposes an AI Human Rights curriculum to help both learners and educators become critically aware of these human rights implications
With Whom Is Your Issue?: Use of Investor Sophistication in Defining the Scope of Seller Liability Under § 12(a)(2) of the Securities Act of 1933
No full textThe rise of social media in the last two decades has given retail investors unprecedented information about and access to financial markets. But the introduction of new marketing strategies for financial products has also introduced new challenges for financial regulators. Regulatory agencies and judicial bodies alike are tasked with conforming the investor protection and market efficiency statutes of the 1930s to contemporary problems. Responses to the new paradigm of social media have diverged, though. One such divergence is the standard applied for Section 12(a)(2) liability under the Securities Act of 1933. Some circuit courts rely on traditional precedents that require direct solicitation of the investor as set forth in Capri v. Murphy and Craftmatic Securities Litigation v. Kraftsow. Meanwhile others have responded that mass communications like social media can give rise to Section 12(a)(2) liability. Most recently, the Ninth Circuit adopted this approach in Pino v. Cardone Capital LLC. This circuit split not only increases uncertainty amongst issuers of securities about the scope of potential liability. It also encourages forum shopping by plaintiffs seeking courts with broader and more favorable liability schemes. This Note proposes a solution to the circuit split in the form of an investor sophistication standard
Towards generic modularity of higher theta series over global function fields and p-adic local fields
No full textRecent work of Feng-Yun-Zhang constructs higher theta series for unitary groups valued in cycles on the moduli stack of Hermitian shtukas, and proves using Fourier-theoretic methods that these theta series are modular after restriction to the generic fiber and on l-adic cohomology.
In the first part of this thesis, motivated by ideas from the relative Langlands program we generalize their construction to a natural class of reductive dual pairs, which contains almost all dual pairs for which such a construction should be expected, and prove generic modularity on l-adic cohomology. In characteristic zero, no analogue of moduli stacks of shtukas with more than one leg exists globally, but such analogues do exist locally over p-adic fields, as defined by Scholze--Weinstein.
In the second part of this thesis, we construct special cycles on these stacks, which under certain assumptions should be directly analogous to the higher theta series, and in this case prove generic modularity. Our main tool is a Fourier transform for cohomological correspondences, which we develop in the setting of p-adic geometry, building on ideas of Anschütz-Le Bras and using the power of recent six-functor formalisms due to Scholze and Heyer-Mann
Spatial Confinement and the Architecture of Control: Analyzing Refugee Camps as Instruments of Border Management and Racialized Urban Exclusion
No full textPublic imagination casts refugee camps as emergency shelter, philanthropic and humanitarian. However, recent scholarship reveals they are also instruments of governance. Due to the intensifying global unrest and climate change, refugee camps are growing across continents, particularly in Africa, enduring as both emblems and instruments of the contemporary migration regime. Refugee camps often seen as transient settlements offering immediate shelter have shaped into de facto permanent cities, challenging their foundational purpose and our understanding of camps as "temporary" humanitarian solutions. It is through architectural, planning and design practice alongside governing policies, that camps are able to closely manage people's existence, controlling movement, acting as gatekeepers of rights.
While there are many challenges to address in refugee and migration systems, it's important to note that this research is not a critique of independent humanitarian organizations providing essential and vital social services, nor the aid workers within the refugee camp. This research instead aims to interrogate the major governmental actors and the leadership that sits in distant offices directing the capture of migrants at sea, authorizing surveillance systems and biometric data collection, while simultaneously engaging in the global conflicts that cause the displacement.
Drawing on cases from camps and settlements across East Africa, urban biometric systems in Turkey and Greece, and EU externalization via North Africa, the analysis, grounded in necropolitics and elastic geography, shows how “closure” theatrics and budget reallocations generate leverage without delivering rights; how documents-as-infrastructure ration services and mobility; and how “self-reliance” without market access reproduces dependency. The result, a racialized urbanism of waiting in which “temporary” hardens into barriers to integration and mobility.
This thesis closes with a call to planners and architects to examine how their tools, standards, and briefs participate in the migration regime, and to redirect that expertise toward rights-bearin
Constructing Qinghai: Pastoralist Settlement, Monastic Territorialization, and State Incorporation (1724–1935)
No full textThis dissertation examines how Tibetan political communities settled and territorialized the Blue Lake region (Ch. Qinghai hu; T. Mtsho sngon po; Mong. Kokonor).
Qing frontier policies were unable to manage Tibetan raiding on their vassals, the Khoshud Mongols. In the mid-nineteenth century, the Tibetan polities negotiated rights to the Blue Lake region, while European powers and the US negotiated the Treaties of Tianjin, which opened Tianjin to international trade. As an international wool boom (c. 1880–1930) commenced due to US and British carpet manufacturing, a trade route formed from the Qinghai grasslands to Tianjin.
This boom depended on a colonial prerogative: the treaty pass system. I argue that Tibetan pastoralist communities were enriched through selling their wool enough to build permanent monasteries, which allowed them to territorialize the Blue Lake region. The wool boom then facilitated an unprecedented economic integration of these grasslands with the interior of China during the Republican period. The Ma military rulers in Xining attempted to exert control over their trade. They used pastoral wealth to procure weapons, allowing them to bolster their rule. In 1929, Qinghai Province was formally established, combining the Blue Lake grasslands with Xining, but the administrative infrastructure of the new province existed more on paper than on the ground