The Levy Runs Dry: A Legal and Economic Analysis of EU Private Copying Levies

This article provides a legal and economic analysis of private copying levies in the EU, against the background of the Copyright Directive (2001/29), a number of recent rulings by the European Court of Justice and the recommendations presented by mediator Vitorino earlier this year. It concludes that notwithstanding these rulings and recommendations, there remains a lack of concordance on the relevance of contractual stipulations and digital rights management technologies (DRM) for setting levies, and the concept of harm. While Mr Vitorino and AG Sharpston (in the Opinion preceding VG Wort v. Kyocera) use different lines of reasoning to argue that levies raised on authorised copies would lead to double payment, the Court of Justice’s decision in VG Wort v. Kyocera seems to conclude that such copies should nonetheless be levied. If levies are to provide fair compensation for harm resulting from acts of private copying, economic analysis suggests one should distinguish between various kinds of private copies and take account of the extent to which the value said copies have for consumers can be priced into the purchase. Given the availability of DRM (including technical protection measures), the possibility of such indirect appropriation leads to the conclusion that the harm from most kinds of private copies is de minimis and gives no cause for levies. The user value of copies from unauthorised sources (e.g. from torrent networks or cyber lockers), on the other hand, cannot be appropriated indirectly by rightholders. It is, however, an open question in references for preliminary rulings pending at the Court of Justice whether these copies are included in the scope of the private copying exception or limitation and can thus be levied for. If they are not, as currently happens in several EU Member States, legal and economic analysis leads to the conclusion that the scope of private copying acts giving rise to harm susceptible of justifying levies is gradually diminishing.

The additive and interactive roles of aggression, prosocial behavior, and social preference in predicting resource control in young children

Distinguishing between physical and social aggression, this study examined whether the predictive effect of aggression on resource control a) is moderated by prosocial behavior and b) corresponds to a linear or a curvilinear trend. Moderating effects of children’s social preference among peers and child sex in this context were also tested. Based on a sample of 682 kindergarten children (348 girls; average age 72.7 months, 3.6 SD), multilevel regressions revealed additive linear effects of social preference and prosociality on resource control. Moderate (but not high) levels of social aggression also facilitated resource control for disliked children. There was no such threshold effect for well liked children, who increasingly controlled the resource the more socially aggressive they were. In contrast, physical aggression hampered resource control unless used very modestly. The present study has a number of positive features. First, the distinction between physical and social aggression improves our understanding of the relation between aggression and social competence and sketches a more differentiated picture of the role of different forms of aggression in resource control. Second, this study combines the concept of resource control with the concept of social preference and investigates curvilinear effects of aggression. Third, the direct observation of resource control in the Movie Viewer increases the internal validity of this study.

The Devil’s Calculus: Mathematical Models of Civil War

In spite of the movement to turn political science into a real science, various mathematical methods that are now the staples of physics, biology, and even economics are thoroughly uncommon in political science, especially the study of civil war. This study seeks to apply such methods - specifically, ordinary differential equations (ODEs) - to model civil war based on what one might dub the capabilities school of thought, which roughly states that civil wars end only when one side’s ability to make war falls far enough to make peace truly attractive. I construct several different ODE-based models and then test them all to see which best predicts the instantaneous capabilities of both sides of the Sri Lankan civil war in the period from 1990 to 1994 given parameters and initial conditions. The model that the tests declare most accurate gives very accurate predictions of state military capabilities and reasonable short term predictions of cumulative deaths. Analysis of the model reveals the scale of the importance of rebel finances to the sustainability of insurgency, most notably that the number of troops required to put down the Tamil Tigers is reduced by nearly a full order of magnitude when Tiger foreign funding is stopped. The study thus demonstrates that accurate foresight may come of relatively simple dynamical models, and implies the great potential of advanced and currently unconventional non-statistical mathematical methods in political science.

Na 1 Nachlass Max Horkheimer, 641 - "The Lessons of Fascism" (p. IX 20.1-10)

"The Lesson of Facism" (GS 8, S. 9-37); 1. Beitrag zum UNESCO- Projekt "Tensions Affecting International Understanding", Paris, 1948; veröffentlicht in: Hadley Cantril (editor), "Tensions That Cause Wars", Urbana, I 11., 1950, Seite 209-242. a)-d) Typoskripte mit eigenständigen und ,oder handschriftlichen Korrekturen e) deutscher Entwurf, Typsokript ,15 Blatt f) dass., Teilstück, Typoskript, 5 Blatt g) dassselbe, Typoskript mit eigenhändigen Korrekturen, 12 Blatt h)-k) deutsche Fassung, übersetzt vom Institut für Sozialforschung, 1961 h) Typoskript mit eigenhändigen und handschriftlichen Korrekturen, mit dem Titel "Die Lehren aus dem Faschismus", 30 Blatt i) Typoskript mit handschriftlichen Korrekturen, mit dem Titel "Lehren des Nationalsozialismus", 30 Blatt; mit 1 eigenhändigen Memorandum von Friedrich Pollock, 1 Blatt k)Typoskript mit handschriftlichen Korrekturen von Friedrich Pollock, 19 Blatt; 2. Eigenhändige Notizen und Entwürfe, 21 Blatt; 3. Max Horkheimer, Gordon W. Allport, Gilbert Freyre, Georges Gurvitch, Arne Naess, John Rickman, Harry S. Sullivan, Alexandre Szalai: "Statment on Tensions Affecting International Understanding"; Typsokript mit eigenhändigen Unterschriften, 5 Blatt; 4. Biographische und bibliographische Angaben zu den Verfassern von 3. a) 4 Blatt, mit eigenhändigen Notizen von Max Horkheimer b) 9 Blatt; 5. 2 Photos; 6. Max Horkheimer [?]: "An International Social Science Institut"; Typoskript mit eigenhändigen Ergänzungen, 2 Blatt; 7. Cantril, Hadley: "The Human Sciences and World Peace. The Unesco Projekt 'Tensions Affecting International Understanding'" a) Drucksache, 4 Blatt, mit eigenhändigen Notizen von Max Horkheimer b) als Typoskript vervielfältigt 4 Blatt; 8. Einladungen, 4 Blatt; 9. Kehoe, Kathleen, UNESCO: 1 Brief mit Unterschrift an Max Horkheimer, Paris, 18.06.1948, 1 Blatt; 10. Janowitz, Morris: 1 Brief- Kopie an Max Horkheimer, New York, 17.06.1948, 1 Blatt;

The role of cardiovascular comorbidities in ovarian cancer survival

Objective. One facet of cancer care that often goes ignored is comorbidities, or diseases that exist in concert with cancer. Comorbid conditions may affect survival by influencing treatment decisions and prognosis. The purpose of this secondary data analysis was to identify whether a history of cardiovascular comorbidities among ovarian cancer patients influenced survival time at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. The parent study, Project Peace, has a longitudinal design with an embedded randomized efficacy study which seeks to improve detection of depressive disorders in ovarian, peritoneal, and fallopian tube cancers. ^ Methods. Survival time was calculated for the 249 ovarian cancer patients abstracted by Project Peace staff. Cardiovascular comorbidities were documented as present, based upon information from medical records in addition to self reported comorbidities in a baseline study questionnaire. Kaplan-Meier survival curves were used to compare survival time among patients with a presence or absence of particular cardiovascular comorbidities. Cox Regression proportional models accounted for multivariable factors such as age, staging, family history of cardiovascular comorbidities, and treatment. ^ Results. Among our patient population, there was a statistically significant relationship between shorter survival time and a history of thrombosis, pericardial disease/tamponade, or COPD/pulmonary hypertension. Ovarian cancer patients with a history of thrombosis lived approximately half as long as patients without thrombosis (58.06 months vs. 121.55 months; p=.001). In addition, patients who suffered from pericardial disease/tamponade had poorer survival than those without a history of pericardial disease/tamponade (48 months vs. 80.07 months; p=.002). Ovarian cancer patients with a history of COPD or pulmonary hypertension had a median survival of 60.2 months, while the median survival for patients without these comorbidities was 80.2 months (p=.014). ^ Conclusion. Especially because of its relatively lower survival rate, greater emphasis needs to be placed on the potential influence of cardiovascular comorbid conditions in ovarian cancer.^