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Synchronizing Copyright and Technology: A New Paradigm for Sync Rights
Get PDFEmbedded in a copyright owner’s musical work or sound recording is the synchronization, or sync right, the exclusive right to use music in sync, or in timed-relation, with audiovisual works. Considerations about sync rights, one of the least discussed aspects of music copyright, have come to the fore as the world has increasingly moved from the real world to the virtual. The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred thousands of activities and events to go online. With many of these involving music, the shift to the virtual world has raised new questions about the extent of sync rights
The Most Dangerous Branch of Science? Reining in Rogue Research and Reckless Experimentation in Social Services
Get PDFMost people are unaware how much public policy is either lacking in any empirical-research support or driven by bad research. Political actors motivated by ideology or donor/constituent demands propose new government practices—in areas ranging from policing to funding of treatments for gender dysphoria in youth to welfare-qualification rules—that will greatly impact people’s lives, and if anyone asks what basis they have for thinking the impact will be good, they can readily find some study to support their case. Especially when powerless populations are put at risk, neither the legislative process nor peer review in the publication process provides a real check on reckless experimentation and incompetent or corrupt research
The Effects of the Global Financial Crisis on Employment Arbitration: Evidence From the Securities Industry Discrimination Complaints
Get PDFThis paper examines how the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) 2008-09 influenced the usage and outcomes of discrimination arbitration cases for employee plaintiffs in the securities industry. It casts light on whether arbitration is able to serve as an appropriate and preferable workplace dispute resolution system during a macroeconomic crisis when aggrieved employees are most vulnerable and financially powerless. Macroeconomic recessionary periods are characterized with an increase in employment discrimination claims. As the labor market becomes slack during an economic recession, it becomes easier for firms to indulge in discriminatory behavior. In such a scenario, employee-plaintiffs desire an inexpensive, faster, and efficient dispute resolution process. As arbitration is characterized to have all these features, it can be expected that if given the option to choose between arbitration and litigation, employee-claimants would lean towards arbitration. Using the securities industry data from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), this paper examines whether this is what happens in practicality. The financial industry serves as an ideal means of conducting this analysis because disputants have the option to mutually choose between arbitration and litigation to resolve their discrimination cases. The paper also examines how the outcomes of discrimination arbitration cases varied during the recession. Results are interpreted to answer questions regarding whether arbitration cases rise during a recession; what happens to arbitrations’ employee win rate during a recession; does arbitration provide higher or lower compensatory award amounts during a recessionary period? All these questions are important and valuable in terms of assessing whether arbitration is a viable and preferable option for employee-plaintiffs during an economic crisis, a time when claimants need justice the most. Undesirable findings related to arbitration may just serve as another ammunition for opponents of arbitration. Adverse results would be consequential for those who want to continue expanding arbitration access at the expense of the court system
Charting a Middle Course for Court-Connected Mediation
Get PDFCourt-connected mediation programs have produced important benefits for parties, practitioners, courts, and society generally. These programs have helped lawyers settle tough cases and generally manage their workload while their clients retain the power to litigate if they cannot reach an acceptable agreement. Courts have created and enforced rules to protect the integrity of process so that parties’ time and money in mediation are well spent
Using Real Practice Systems Resources in Practice
Get PDFThis post describes how mediators can use ideas and materials from the Real Practice Systems Project to better understand and improve their own mediation systems. Mediators’ practice systems are the combination of factors affecting what they do before, during, and after mediation sessions. These systems include their routine procedures and strategies for dealing with recurring challenging situations. Trainers and mediation program administrators can use this to help mediators in their programs
Impeachment and Trial After Officials Leave Office
Get PDFThe second impeachment of President Donald J. Trump raised an important and unresolved question: May Presidents and other federal officers be impeached or tried on impeachments after they have left office? Most Democrats argued that former officers can be both impeached and tried; most Republicans argued that former officers can neither be impeached nor tried. Trump himself was impeached while still in office and tried – and acquitted – after he left office. This is the sort of question that could easily arise again, in connection with presidents and other officers of either party, and it needs an answer that does not shift with every gust of partisan wind. As Alexander Hamilton warned in The Federalist, No. 65, impeachment proceedings “will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties, more or less friendly or inimical, to the accused,” and thus there is “always the greatest danger, that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strengths of parties” than the merits of the case. It is not wise to wait until the heat of the moment to think about these things, or allow structural issues of this sort to be resolved on the basis of case-by-case judgments, which will be heavily influenced by the very passions Hamilton warned against
Proposition 12 and a New Paradigm for Federal Law: Toward more humane and Ethical Farm Animal Practices in California and the U.S.
Get PDFThis paper explores California’s Proposition 12, a ballot measure designed to im-prove factory farmed animal welfare and marginally, the conditions for those who work on such farms. The Proposition bans cruelty in farm animal confinement within California and calls for specific space requirements. Proposition 12 also re-quires that animals raised outside the state and sold within the state comply with the more humane housing standards in the law. Based on a recent ruling upholding Proposition 12 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the introduction of multiple other state laws banning the most inhumane practices in the meat, poultry, and egg laying industry, this paper makes the case that factory farming is on the verge of great change. The paper concludes that the time is also ripe for uniform federal legislation requiring humane housing for all farm animals in the U.S, and improved conditions for farm animals in life and death. Additionally, this paper suggests that government incentives prompting more humane animal agriculture could hasten a burgeoning corporate and consumer move in this direction