Sampling Increases Music Sales: An Empirical Copyright Study

The Supreme Court instructs that the most important consideration in analyzing fair use is the effect on the market for the original. Employing music sales data, this article presents evidence of digital sampling's effect on the sales of sampled songs. Our results indicate that a reassessment of fair use in the area of music sampling is needed since sales of sampled songs increased after being repurposed within new songs. These results are robust and highly statistically significant. Findings of this nature favor a judicial determination that sampling constitutes a fair use, even when considering the influence that a new work has on extant licensing markets for sample clearance. This article argues that the current sample–licensing market is a product of aberrant antisampling case law arising from a lack of relevant empirical data and nonutilitarian judicial opinions. As set forth herein, the goal of encouraging creative activity without hindering copyright owners’ capacity to financially gain from their work is served by implementing a limited presumption of fair use for sampling. The findings are further applicable outside of the fair use analysis, as the study is important in the private law when viewed through a law and strategy lens. Forward thinking music firms should reframe their approach by encouraging sampling of their works to secure cost‐free advertising and achieve a competitive advantage.     

Cardiac Ventricular Laceration Due to Child Abuse: Abusive Ventricular Laceration

Traumatic cardiac ventricular ruptures in children are rare. Only a single case of left ventricular rupture due to child abuse has been reported. We report a child who sustained a fatal left ventricular apical rupture. It appeared to have resulted from hydrostatic forces resulting from abusive blunt thoracic injury. That he was being abused was previously missed when he was presented to the emergency department with facial pyoderma. It was not noted that he also had lip and oral mucosal injury, sites not affected by staph toxins. As a result, his underlying, abusive and secondarily infected, facial flow type scald burn was not appreciated. Within a week thereafter his fatal injury occurred, accompanied by extensive and obvious associated abusive injuries. Postmortem high‐detail whole body computed tomography scanning aided the autopsy. Although rare, ventricular rupture from abusive blunt thoracic injury can occur.     

Reanalysis of the Trotter Tibia Quandary and its Continued Effect on Stature Estimation of Past‐Conflict Service Members

Forensic casework from past‐conflicts relies on the corrected historical Trotter data for stature estimation in Fordisc. For roughly 10 years’, stature estimation using this data has produced point estimates for the tibia that are on average 1.25 inches less than the other long bones. This issue was identified after applying the equations derived from Fordisc to the USS Oklahoma commingled assemblage. Reevaluation of Fordisc revealed that a correction factor of 20 mm, instead of 10 mm, was mistakenly applied to the Trotter tibia data. Historical forensic anthropology reports written at the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency were utilized to identify that the overcorrection is isolated to Fordisc 3 with an error rate of 5% of known antemortem statures falling outside of the prediction intervals that relied on the tibia. Further evaluation of the Oklahoma sample indicates the 10 mm correction is still producing point estimates less than the other long bones.     

IMPACTFUL YEARS

The 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) gives people inside and outside the country a chance to assess what the key achievements of the past decades have been, and where China is heading.     

What is Hate Speech? Part 2: Family Resemblances

The issue of hate speech has received significant attention from legal scholars and philosophers alike. But the vast majority of this attention has been focused on presenting and critically evaluating arguments for and against hate speech bans as opposed to the prior task of conceptually analysing the term ‘hate speech’ itself. This two-part article aims to put right that imbalance. It goes beyond legal texts and judgements and beyond the legal concept hate speech in an attempt to understand the general concept hate speech. And it does so using a range of well-known methods of conceptual analysis that are distinctive of analytic philosophy. One of its main aims is to explode the myth that emotions, feelings, or attitudes of hate or hatred are part of the essential nature of hate speech. It also argues that hate speech is best conceived as a family resemblances concept. One important implication is that when looking at the full range of ways of combating hate speech, including but not limited to the use of criminal law, there is every reason to embrace an understanding of hate speech as a heterogeneous collection of expressive phenomena. Another is that it would be unsound to reject hate speech laws on the premise that they are effectively in the business of criminalising emotions, feelings, or attitudes of hate or hatred.     

Initial Findings from a Feasibility Trial Examining the SafeCare Dad to Kids Program with Marginalized Fathers

Few studies have explored the direct impact of behavioral parent training programs on child maltreatment behaviors among marginalized, at-risk fathers. This feasibility study examined SafeCare® Dad to Kids (Dad2K), an augmented version of the evidence-based child maltreatment prevention program SafeCare, to determine the acceptability and initial efficacy of the program for improving father parenting skills and reducing maltreatment risk. Ninety-nine fathers were enrolled in the study and randomized to the SafeCare Dad2K Intervention (n?=?51) or comparison (n?=?48). Intervention fathers participated in 6 home visiting sessions and comparison fathers received parenting materials via mail. All fathers participating in the study completed a baseline and 8-week assessment (post-intervention) of maltreatment behaviors. In addition, intervention fathers completed feasibility and parenting skill measures. A significant main effect emerged indicating decreases for both groups in psychologically aggressive behaviors. No significant group by time findings emerged for child maltreatment behaviors. Father intervention completers endorsed high satisfaction ratings for the program and demonstrated significant improvements in targeted father-child interaction skills. Based on the high rates of acceptability and initial improvement in positive parenting skills, findings demonstrate the feasibility for involving at-risk fathers in behavioral parent training programs targeting child maltreatment prevention.     

Multiplex short tandem repeat amplification of low template DNA samples with the addition of proofreading enzymes

Abstract:  With <100 pg of template DNA, routine short tandem repeat (STR) analysis often fails, resulting in no or partial profiles and increased stochastic effects. To overcome this, some have investigated preamplification methods that include the addition of proofreading enzymes to the PCR cocktail. This project sought to determine whether adding proofreading polymerases directly in the STR amplification mixture would improve the reaction when little template DNA is available. Platinum Taq High Fidelity and GeneAmp High Fidelity were tested in Profiler Plus? STR reactions alone and in combination with AmpliTaq^® Gold. All reactions included the additional step of a post‐PCR purification step. With both pristine low template DNA and casework samples, the addition of these polymerases resulted in comparable or no improvement in the STR amplification signal. Further, stochastic effects and artifacts were observed equally across all enzyme conditions. Based on these studies, the addition of these proofreading enzymes to a multiplex STR amplification is not recommended for low template DNA work.     

History of interpersonal violence, abuse, and nonvictimization trauma and severity of psychiatric symptoms among children in outpatient psychiatric treatment

In a clinical sample of child psychiatry outpatients, chart review data were collected for 114 consecutive admissions over a 1-year period at a Child and Adolescent Outpatient Psychiatry Clinic. Data included history of documented maltreatment, potentially traumatic domestic or community violence, neglect or emotional abuse, and noninterpersonal stressors as well as demographics, psychiatric diagnoses, and parent-rated child emotional and disruptive behavior problems. On a bivariate and multivariate basis, any past exposure to interpersonal violence-but not to noninterpersonal traumas-was related to more severe disruptive behavior problems, independent of the effects of demographics and psychiatric diagnoses. Noninterpersonal trauma and psychiatric diagnoses were associated with emotional problems; exposure to interpersonal violence appeared to partially account for this relationship despite not being independently associated with emotional problem severity. History of exposure to interpersonal violence warrants clinical and research attention as a severity marker and potential treatment focus in psychiatric outpatient services for children, particularly those with disruptive behavior problems.