Jason Schultz Thinks Music Lawsuit Will Benefit Older Artists

The New York Times, March 27, 2011 by Ben Sisario
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/28/business/media/28eminem.html?pagewanted=1

Jason M. Schultz … who helped write a friend of the court brief on behalf of the Motown Alumni Association … said that recording contracts made in the early days of digital music reflected the labels’ failure to recognize that technology’s potential. “The record companies would strike these deals with artists in a way that favored them,” Mr. Schultz said. “But when the digital revolution came around, those contracts ended up favoring artists. The record companies guessed wrong.”

Barry Krisberg Wants Greater Oversight of Youth Prisons

-California Watch, March 23, 2011 by Louis Freedberg
http://californiawatch.org/dailyreport/state-keep-some-youth-correctional-facilities-open-9407

“Our county juvenile justice system is akin to the Wild West,” said. “There are no real standards, and as a result, practices can be good in some places and horrible in other places.”

-The American Prospect, March 29, 2011 by Steve Yoder
http://prospect.org/cs/articles?article=closing_the_door_on_juvenile_lockups

Barry Krisberg … applauds the move away from state lockups. But he says giving control to localities is “fraught with complicated issues,” and he fears that we’re in danger of creating a system of “justice by geography. You have a range of local options in California,” he says. “Some are not too bad; some are horrendous.”

Pamela Samuelson Applauds Google Books Ruling

-The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 22, 2011 by Jennifer Howard
http://chronicle.com/article/Judge-Rejects-Settlement-in/126864/

He went on to quote from a statement submitted by Pamela Samuelson, a professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley, who wrote that academic authors “are committed to maximizing access to knowledge,” while the plaintiffs “are institutionally committed to maximizing profits.”

-The New York Times, March 22, 2011 by Miguel Helft
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/23/technology/23google.html?scp=1&sq=Berkeley&st=nyt

“Even though it is efficient for Google to make all the books available, the orphan works and unclaimed books problem should be addressed by Congress, not by the private settlement of a lawsuit,” said Pamela Samuelson.

-Contra Costa Times, March 22, 2011 by Brandon Bailey
http://www.contracostatimes.com/business/ci_17673453?nclick_check=1

Other critics praised the judge for rejecting a plan they viewed as sharply contradicting the nation’s copyright laws. “That’s what copyright law stands for. Nobody gets to use your work without your permission,” said Pamela Samuelson.

-The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 23, 2011 by Marc Parry
http://chronicle.com/article/A-Copyright-Expert-Who-Spoke/126877/

“Libraries have been very, very careful over time about protecting the privacy interests of their user base. And Google was not willing to make commitments to essentially accomplish an equivalent level of protection. When we’re talking about a corpus of books that millions of people in the U.S. would be using, not to have any serious privacy commitments here really was distressing.”

-Inside Higher Ed, March 23, 2011 by Steve Kolowich
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/03/23/judge_rejects_google_books_settlement

Samuelson had argued that it would be inappropriate for Google and the publishers to profit from the use of orphaned scholarly works—which she believes comprise a disproportionately large number of the orphans—when the academics who wrote them probably intended that they be as freely accessible as possible.

-The New York Times, March 23, 2011 by Claire Cain Miller
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/24/business/media/24google.html?_r=1

“The next thing to do is think about going to Congress and getting legislation that would make particularly orphan works available to the public.”

-San Jose Mercury News, March 27, 2011 by Chris O’Brien
http://www.mercurynews.com/chris-obrien

“The settlement would give them a monopoly that they would potentially use to fix prices,” said Pamela Samuelson, a professor of law at UC Berkeley, who has been among the most vocal opponents of the deal. “When the DOJ (Department of Justice) came out against the settlement that was a very significant development.”

-Beyond Chron, March 29, 2011 by Irvin Muchnick
http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=9031

The federal government, after constructively intervening in Google, should find a way to coordinate the cases and spur Congress to codify compulsory licenses…. In an email exchange with Samuelson, a fellow Berkeleyan, she expressed sympathy for my viewpoint. “I am working on legislative alternatives,” Pam told me, “and an extended collective licensing regime is an interesting idea.”

David Kirp Opposes Paddling of Schoolchildren

San Francisco Chronicle, March 21, 2011 by David L. Kirp
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/03/20/EDC81I7KH6.DTL

According to the U.S. Department of Education, in 2006-7, the last school year for which national statistics are available, 220,517 students, some as young as kindergartners, suffered some form of corporal punishment. The schools’ “justifications” included acting out, being late to class, wearing “suggestive” clothing—even flunking a test.

Jennifer Urban Explains Ambiguity of ‘Fair Use’

San Francisco Chronicle, March 20, 2011 by John Diaz
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/03/19/INMS1IBQU2.DTL

Jennifer Urban, a UC Berkeley law professor who studies fair-use issues, said courts tend to use two tests in determining fair use. One, whether the purpose of the inclusion of copyrighted material was to simply replicate it or “transform it” for another purpose – such as commentary. Two, “did you use more than you needed?”

Alan Auerbach Supports Corporate Tax Reform

-The San Diego Union-Tribune, March 18, 2011 by Mike Freeman
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/mar/18/tapping-into-offshore-cash/

“One thing virtually all economists would agree on is that if you think this kind of tax on repatriation is bad, it would be better to remove it permanently and reform the tax system rather than have these holidays every few years.”

-Agence France-Presse, March 28, 2011 by Andrew Beatty
http://yhoo.it/dLWjz2

“If you want to get the corporate tax rate down from 35 to 28 percent—that is a 20 percent cut in the tax rate—you have to increase the tax base by 20 percent, or offset it,” said Alan Auerbach…. “That is a big increase.”

Barry Krisberg Deplores Increase in CA Prison Population

-The Atlanta Post, March 16, 2011 by Charlotte Young
http://atlantapost.com/2011/03/16/numbers-of-young-african-american-women-in-prison-rise/

According to Barry Krisberg … African American girls face brutality, emotional and sexual abuse once they are in the prison system.

-The Economist, Special Report, March 17, 2011
http://www.economist.com/node/18359882?story_id=18359882

Now, as Barry Krisberg of Berkeley Law School points out, some 170,000 people are locked up there, and CCPOA has 31,000 members. From the air California can look like an archipelago of prisons.