Is it a fair deal to tell tales on the tabloids?

Legal context. A recent High Court judgment, Fraser-WoodwardLimited v BBC and Brighter Pictures Limited, is of key interestto those that use or advise upon the use of copyright materialfor the purposes of criticism or review. Key points. This case involved the use of newspaper photographsof David and Victoria Beckham in a television documentary aboutthe relationship between celebrities and the press. The programmeillustrated its theme using screenshots of tabloid newspaperpages, which inevitably included a number of photographs. Theclaimant was the copyright holder in respect of a number ofthe photographs, and alleged that their reproduction in theTV programme was an infringement of copyright. The defendantssuccessfully relied upon the fair dealing and incidental inclusiondefences to copyright infringement. Practical significance. Although each fair dealing case willultimately turn on its own facts, Mann J gave a very usefulreview of the state of copyright law in this difficult area.     

Differentiating among racial/ethnic groups and its implications for understanding juvenile justice decision making

Both theory and research have been refined to gain a better understanding of when race and ethnicity matter in justice proceedings. In the present research, this line of inquiry was continued by differentiating among minority youth to assess the extent being African American, Native American, and Asian American influenced juvenile justice decision making and how these effects compared to one another and Whites. Utilizing an interpretation of the symbolic threat thesis that emphasizes stereotyping, the authors anticipated Native Americans to be responded to more severely than African Americans, followed by Asian Americans who were anticipated to be responded to more like Whites. The results indicated partial support for these expectations.     

The right to die: state courts lead where legislatures fear to tread

The right to die may be among the most legally complex and culturally sensitive areas of civil rights to emerge in our time. The thorny issues associated with a terminally ill individual's right to self-determination, and the disposition of individuals who are incompetent to make right to die decisions for themselves, promises to keep all parties involved - health care professionals, medical ethicists, families, lawyers, judges, and state legislators -busy for some time to come. To this point, the state courts have taken the lead in the right to die debate, while the state legislatures have tended to drag their collective feet. This article lays the case law groundwork for right to die decision making, then goes on to assay the legislative responses to the issue that have been rendered in the fifty states.     

Community midwifery and state measures: the new midwifery in British Columbia

The New Midwifery, a form of community midwifery rooted in home birth and intensive prenatal and postnatal care, has attracted great controversy since its appearance in British Columbia in the early 1970s. On the one hand, this form of community midwifery has endured despite legal prohibition. Midwives derive an income from their practices, obtain necessary supplies and equipment, and are active in lobbying for recognition through the State. On the other hand, community midwifery is marginalized and illegal. Out-of-hospital births comprise less than one percent of births in British Columbia (and nationwide). Community midwives are excluded from the provincal Medical Services Plan and they lack hospital privileges if their clients are transferred to hospital. Community midwives are more likely than medical personnel to be tried for criminal negligence causing death and subject to prosecution under theMedical Practitioners Act of practicing medicine without a license.Community midwifery illustrates the structural limits placed on female birth attendants working outside the norm of professionally accredited, hospital situated childbirth. It is concluded that State measures in Canada structure power relations in a dialectical fashion. This includes measures to consolidate the monopoly status of the medical profession and the nursing profession, while temporizing about demands for independent midwifery practice. State powers are however relatively autonomous of dominant economic groups such as the Medical profession. Not all prosecutions of community midwives are successful, and contradictions in State policies surrounding monopolistic powers and civil liberties, and gender relations are evident.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association Meetings, University of Manitoba, June 1986. The author is grateful for resources provided through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Department of Anthropology and Sociology (University of British Columbia), and the School of Criminology, Simon Fraser University. Comments from Carol Bullock, Nanette Davis, Bob Ratner, Livy Visano and the Journal referees have been helpful in revising this paper.     

The impact of health maintenance organizations and competition on hospitals in Minneapolis/St. Paul

The Healthcare Educational and Research Foundation (HERF) in Minneapolis undertook a two-year research project to study the effects of health maintenance organizations (HMOs) and competition on the hospital industry in Minneapolis/St. Paul. This article summarizes HERF's major findings surrounding three key questions: (1) do the HMOs in Minneapolis/St. Paul use fewer hospital resources relative to conventional payers?; (2) do recent overall community trends in inpatient use suggest evidence of hospital utilization-reducing effects attributable to HMOs?; and (3) given the highly visible competitive process among Minneapolis/St. Paul providers, do hospital cost and revenue data suggest any evidence of cost-containment? The findings (based on data through 1982) indicate that for comparable patients, Twin Cities HMOs appear to use fewer medical care resources per hospitalized patient. There was, however, no clear evidence of community-wide, utilization-reducing effects directly attributable to the "competitive effect" of HMO introduction and development in the market. In addition, there was no empirical evidence that HMOs (which had enrolled 25 percent of the consumer market by 1982), or other large buyers of inpatient services, have selected hospitals on the basis of price as hypothesized by competition advocates.