1,721,175 research outputs found
Local Broadband Access: Primum Non Nocere or Primum Processi - A Property Rights Approach
Full text linkHigh-speed or "broadband" Internet access currently is provided, at the local level, chiefly by cable television and telephone companies, often in competition with each other. Wireless and satellite providers have a small but growing share of this business. An influential coalition of economic interests and academics have proposed that local broadband Internet access providers be prohibited from restricting access to their systems by upstream suppliers of Internet services. A recent term for this proposal is "net neutrality." We examine the potential costs and benefits of such a policy from an economic welfare perspective. Using a property rights approach, we ask whether transactions costs in the market for access rights are likely to be significant, and if so, whether owners of physical local broadband platforms are likely to be more or less efficient holders of access rights than Internet content providers. We conclude that transactions costs are likely to be lower if access rights are assigned initially to platform owners rather than content providers. In addition, platform hardware owners are likely to be more efficient holders of these rights because they can internalize demand-side interactions among content products. Further, failure to permit platform owners to control access threatens to result in inadequate incentives to invest in, to maintain, and to upgrade local broadband platforms. Inefficiently denying platform owners the ability to own access rights implies a need for price regulation; otherwise, there will be incentives to use pricing to circumvent the constraint on rights ownership. Price regulation is itself known to induce welfare losses through adaptive behavior of the constrained firm. The impact on welfare might produce a worse result than the initial problem, assuming one existed. Much of the academic interest in net neutrality arises from the belief that the open architecture of the Internet under current standards has been responsible for its remarkable success, and a wish to preserve this openness. We point out that the openness of the Internet was an unintended consequence of its military origins, and that other, less open, architectures might have been even more successful. A policy of denying platform owners the ability to own access rights could freeze the architecture of the Internet, preventing it from adapting to future technological and economic developments. Finally, we examine the net neutrality issue from the perspective of the "essential facility doctrine," a tool of the common law of antitrust. The doctrine establishes conditions under which federal courts will mandate access by competitors to the monopoly platform of a vertically-integrated firm. Because local broadband Internet access is not today a bottleneck monopoly (there are several competitors and the market is at an early stage of development), the essential facilities doctrine would not permit reassignment of access rights from platform owners to competitors. We conclude that "net neutrality" is a welfare-reducing policy proposal.Technology and Industry, Regulatory Reform
Forever Minus a Day: A Consideration of Copyright Term Extension in South Africa
Full text linkThe European Union and the United States have extended their copyright terms from the life of the author plus 50 years to life plus 70 years. They now press a similar extension on developing nations. Term extension has significant costs, especially for developing nations. These costs require careful consideration. One way to significantly reduce these costs is to require registration for the benefit of term extension
Fidelity in Translation
Full text linkReadings of the Constitution have changed. Sometimes they have changed because the constitutional text has changed. But more often they have changed while the text has remained the same. Can it be that these changed readings-changes that track no change in constitutional text-can nonetheless be readings of fidelity, faithful to the Constitution\u27s original meaning? On some readings of originalism, the answer must be no. But this essay argues that any complete account of interpretive fidelity must allow--indeed require--changes in constitutional readings even when there has been no change in the constitutional text. If meaning is a function of both text and context, the claim made here is that fidelity in interpretation must accommodate changes in both. Drawing on the interpretive practice of translation, the author models an argument of interpretive fidelity that tracks changes in the background context, justifying changed readings as necessary translations to preserve constitutional meaning in different interpretive contexts. Using this model, the author then examines ten examples of changed readings unsupported by changes in text and argues that these may best be understood, through the device of translation, as arguments based in fidelity. Finally, the author points to limitations on a practice of fidelity as translation present in the practice of literary translation itself. These suggest a practice of translation in law that would not be as radical as first impressions may. suggest, and indeed, may be required to understand some of the most significant moments in American constitutional history
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Disney’s Influence on the Enactment of the Copyright Term Extension Act (“CTEA”), as Well as the CTEA’s Retrospective and Prospective Impact.
No full textThis Thesis explores The Walt Disney Company’s (Disney) specific influence in the 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) enactment as well as the CTEA’s retrospective and prospective impacts. The benefits and disadvantages of the CTEA are elaborated in significant detail, and are supported by objective research and in-depth interviews of influential artists and industry experts. Research conducted for this Thesis has demonstrated that Disney was the primary lobbying organization for the CTEA Bill, both within the U.S. House of Representative as well as within the U.S. Senate. Through multiple and significant lobbying efforts, Disney directly influenced the CTEA’s enactment.
It is also demonstrated that Disney’s lobbying influence as well as the United States’ Congress’ argument that economic benefits would not be achieved if U.S. Copyright Law was not harmonized with the European Union, were the primary contributors to the CTEA’s enactment. Additional research for this Thesis has demonstrated that the enactment of the CTEA in 1998 was necessary in part to rationalize U.S. Copyright Law term length and other protections with those of the European Union and other international countries; however, that this harmonization was not necessarily reciprocal in benefits afforded to the United States.
Research has also demonstrated, that the $6.3 Million dollars used by Disney, to lobby for the CTEA’s enactment, was a paltry amount relative to the valuation of Disney’s intellectual property assets at that time, its risk exposure to loss of copyrights, and also when compared to Disney’s overall total gross annual revenues prior to the CTEA’s enactment. In addition, personal interview accounts of retired Disney and Disney Corporation affiliate employees, is conducted to better understand Disney’s non-financial brand contributory influence to the CTEA. It is this non-financial brand value influence originating from Disney’s iconic characters and themed amusements parks, which have become virtually inextricable from any childhood and an irrefutable asset for Disney. Furthermore, research conducted also demonstrates that CTEA proponents’ claims regarding the need for the CTEA to prompt creativity or to protect financial interests of content creators are overreaching and are not applicable to all creative endeavors or creative occupations.
Lastly, interview research conducted for this Thesis with notable and established Hollywood entertainers, entertainment attorneys, music composers, publicists and an emerging artist provides evidence that neither awareness of the CTEA nor Copyright Law has had minimal to absolutely no direct influence in their respective creative endeavors, careers, their clients’ careers, or the bequeathment of real or intellectual property to their heirs. Furthermore, academic and interview research conducted also indicates the motivations to create are varied, and cannot be uniformly categorized as those arising simply from the need for financial gain or, being primarily motivated by the transference ease of intellectual property rights to heirs or third parties. This is supported by the fact that less than 20% of interview respondents for this Thesis, were concerned with the bequeathment of their intellectual property assets and copyrights. Furthermore, less than 20% also stated that they were inspired to create as a result of additional copyright protections afforded by copyright law.
In conclusion, given that copyright term length and other rationalizations have taken place with European Union copyright laws, and that Disney has already lobbied for prior copyright term length extension, it is unlikely that an additional copyright term length lobbying effort will be executed by Disney. Furthermore, should Disney pursue additional lobbying, its efforts will be met with significant opposition from both the current CTEA opponents and Congress.Legal Studie
Free culture: how big media uses technology and the law to lock down culture and control creativity
No full textWilliam Edward Burghardt Du Bois was an American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author and editor. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relatively tolerant and integrated community. After graduating from Harvard, where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate, he became a professor of history, sociology and economics at Atlanta University. Lawrence “Larry” Lessig is an American academic and political activist. He is a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark, and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications, and he has called for state-based activism to promote substantive reform of government with a Second Constitutional Convention. In May 2014, he launched a crowd-funded political action committee which he termed Mayday PAC with the purpose of electing candidates to Congress who would pass campaign finance reform
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The Great Firewall of China: Implications of Internet Control for China Post-Tiananmen Square Massacre to Present Day
No full textThis research analyzes the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) political motives behind its control of the Internet in China by exploring the restrictions and actions taken regarding a historical event that directly conflicts with the Party’s interests: the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre of 1989. To obtain answers and a fuller understanding of this crucial event, my research pursued an in-depth look at internet restrictions established by the CCP in four key areas: law, architecture, market forces, and social norms. By analyzing each of these areas in some detail, my research answers the following questions: (1) What methods are used by the CCP to control information flow, as exemplified by actions taken vis-à-vis the annual anniversaries of the Tiananmen Square Massacre? (2) Is it possible for an authoritarian government to put forward and control a specific version of history in today’s era of the internet? (3) What are the short and long-term implications for China as a result of its effort to control the internet domestically, using the 1989 Tiananmen Square annual anniversary as a case study?
The key findings from this analysis show how the current methods of control by the CCP have an impact on the historical facts and the legacy of the Tiananmen Square protest and massacre of 1989, and whether that legacy will prevail, waiver, or be obscured through manipulation of the domestic Chinese internet.China, Media Relations, Tiananmen Square, Internet in China, Tiananmen Square Massacr
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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