The Notes You Don’t Play: An Empirical Analysis of the Ninth Circuit’s Filtration Problem in Music Copyright Cases

The Ninth Circuit’s approach to music copyright cases has failed to provide artists with a clear landscape of the boundaries of copyright protection for creative works. Perhaps most disconcerting is the doctrine’s lack of rigid guidance as to which elements of a composition are protected by copyright. Since the court’s controversial ruling in Williams v. Gaye, which showcased the court’s failure to differentiate between protectable and unprotectable musical elements, the literature has taken a greater interest in analyzing the effects of this muddied doctrine. In their 2019 article, Christopher Jon Sprigman and Samantha Fink Hedrick theorize how the doctrine of the Ninth Circuit creates a “filtration problem” that allows weak copyright claims to pass through the court’s analysis and expose juries to irrelevant, potentially confounding, elements of a song. However, no one has yet quantified the effects of the filtration problem. To fill this gap in the literature, this study conducts original quasi-experimental research to observe the extent to which mock jurors’ assessments of substantial similarity in musical compositions varies based on the elements included in the audio representations of compositions they listen to. Participants were randomly assigned to assess either a high-similarity song-pair or a low-similarity songpair. Within each group, different audio representations of the songs were presented, representing varying levels of filtration. Participants who listened to the most-filtered representation, the piano reduction, when assessing the low-similarity song-pair, were less likely to find similarity between the songs that those who listened to the commercial recordings. Conversely, for the high-similarity song-pair, those who heard the piano reductions were more likely to think the songs were substantially similar compared to those in the recording group. The results of this study suggest that the effectiveness of filtration depends on the relative similarities of the elements filtered and those that remain across audio representations. The piano reduction, as the most-filtered representation, appeared to be a valuable tool for highlighting protectable elements and removing irrelevant factors that could confound jurors’ assessments. Based on these findings, this Article recommends that the Ninth Circuit adopt piano reductions as the standard audio representation for compositions played in music copyright trials. By doing so, the court can mitigate the detrimental effects of the filtration problem, making it more difficult for plaintiffs with compositionally dissimilar songs to succeed on copyright claims while simultaneously strengthening the claims of musician-plaintiffs against genuine instances of copying

Assessment Methods for Innovative Operational Measures and Technologies for Intermodal Freight Terminals

The topic of freight transport by rail, is a complex theme and, in recent years, a main issue of European policy. The legislation evolution and the White Paper 2011 have demonstrated the European intention to re-launch this sector. The challenge is to promote the intermodal transport system to the detriment of road freight transport. In this context, the intermodal freight terminals play a primary role for the supply chain, they are the connection point between the various transport nodes and the nodal points where the freight are handled, stored and transferred between different modes to final customer. To achieve the purpose, proposed by the EC, are necessary the performances improvement of existing intermodal freight terminals and the development of innovative intermodal freight terminals. Many terminal performances improvement is have been proposed and sometime experimented. They are based both on operational measures (e.g. horizontal and parallel handling, faster and fully direct handling) and on innovative technologies (e.g. automatic system for horizontal and parallel handling, automated gate for data exchange) inside the terminals, with often-contradictory results. The research work described in this paper (developed within the EU project Capacity4Rail) focusses on the assessment of effects that these innovations can have in the intermodal freight terminals. The innovative operational measures and technologies have been combined in different scenarios, to be evaluated by a methodological approach including to other an analytical methods and simulation models. The output of this assessment method are key performance indicators (KPI) setup according to terminals typologies the proposals and related to different aspects (e.g. management, operation and organization. In the present work suitable KPIs (e.g. total/partial transit times) for to evaluate have been applied. Finally, in addition to methodological framework illustrated, a real case of study will be illustrated: the intermodal rail-road freight terminal Munich-Riem (Germany)

Analytical methods and simulation models to assess innovative operational measures and technologies for rail port terminals: the case of Valencia Principe Felipe terminal

The topic of freight transport by rail is a complex theme and, in recent years, a main issue of European policy. The legislation evolution and the White Paper 2011 have demonstrated the European intention to re-launch this sector. The challenge is to promote the intermodal transport system to the detriment of road freight transport. In this context intermodal freight terminals, play a primary role for the supply chain, they are the connection point between the various transport nodes and the nodal points where the freight are handled, stored and transferred between different modes to final customer. To achieve the purpose, it is strengthen the improvement of existing intermodal freight terminals and the development of innovative intermodal freight terminals towards higher performance (ERRAC, 2012). Many terminal performances improvements have been proposed and sometime experimented. They are normally basing on combinations of operational measures and innovative technologies (e.g. automatic horizontal and parallel storage and handling, automated gate and sensors for tracking systems data exchange) tested in various terminals, with often-contradictory results. The research work described in this paper (developed within the Capacity4Rail EU project) focusses on the assessment of effects that these innovations can have in the intermodal freight terminals combined in various alternative consistent effective scenarios. The methodological framework setup to assess these innovations is basing on a combination of analytical methods based on sequential algorithms and discrete events simulation models. The output of this assessment method are key performance indicators (KPIs) selected according to terminals typologies and related to different aspects (e.g. management, operation and organization). The present paper illustrates the application of the methodological framework, tuned on the operation of various intermodal terminals, for the validation on today operation and the assessment of possible future scenarios to the case study of the Principe Felipe sea-rail terminal in Valencia

An Analytic and Probabilistic Approach to the Problem of Matroid Representibility

We introduce various quantities that can be defined for an arbitrary matroid, and show that certain conditions on these quantities imply that a matroid is not representable over $\mathbb{F}_q$. Mostly, for a matroid of rank $r$, we examine the proportion of size-$(r-k)$ subsets that are dependent, and give bounds, in terms of the cardinality of the matroid and $q$ a prime power, for this proportion, below which the matroid is not representable over $\mathbb{F}_q$. We also explore connections between the defined quantities and demonstrate that they can be used to prove that random matrices have high proportions of subsets of columns independent

Observing Turbulent Fragmentation in Simulations: Predictions for CARMA and ALMA

Determining the initial stellar multiplicity is a challenging problem since protostars are faint and deeply embedded at early times; once formed, multiple protostellar systems may significantly dynamically evolve before they are optically revealed. Interferometers such as Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy (CARMA) and Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) make it possible to probe the scales at which turbulent fragmentation occurs in dust continuum emission, potentially constraining early stellar multiplicity. In this Letter, we present synthetic observations of starless and protostellar cores undergoing fragmentation on scales of a few thousand astronomical units to produce wide binary systems. We show that interferometric observations of starless cores by CARMA should be predominantly featureless at early stages, although wide protostellar companions should be apparent. The enhanced capabilities of ALMA improve the detection of core morphology so that it may be possible to detect substructure at earlier times. In either case, spatial filtering from interferometry reduces the observed core substructure and often eradicates traces of existing filamentary morphology on scales down to 0.025 pc. However, some missing structure may be recaptured by combining data from the ALMA full science and Atacama compact arrays.Astronom

Piscataquis & N. Somerset Counties (ME)

With permission from school principals, students at 5 schools in Piscataquis and N. Somerset Counties in Maine were given a link to an anonymous, electronic survey between February and May, 2019. Participation was voluntary. The schools had a combined 666 students enrolled during 2018–2019, 578 of which took the survey for a participation rate of 87%. Every question was optional, so the number of responses varies by question. Fact sheets for all schools and each county are available online at: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/rural_youth_futures

North Bend High School (OR)

With permission from the school principal, students in grades 7–12 at North Bend High School were given a link to an anonymous, electronic survey in May 2019. Participation was voluntary. North Bend High School had 772 students during 2018–2019, 260 of which took the survey for a participation rate of 34%. Every question was optional, so the number of responses varies by question. Fact sheets for all schools and each county are available online at: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/rural_youth_futures

Sedomocha Middle School (ME)

With permission from the school principal, students in grades 6–8 in SeDoMoCha Middle School were given a link to an anonymous, electronic survey in February 2019. Participation was voluntary. SeDoMoCha Middle School had 242 students during 2018-2019, 199 of which took the survey for a participation rate of 82%. Every question was optional, so the number of responses varies by question; middle schoolers had fewer questions to answer. Fact sheets for all schools and each county are available online at: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/rural_youth_futures

Greenville Consolidated School (ME)

With permission from the school principal, students in grades 6–12 at Greenville Consolidated School were given a link to an anonymous, electronic survey in February 2019. Participation was voluntary. Greenville Consolidated School had 106 students in these grades during 2018-2019, 94 of which took the survey for a participation rate of 88%. Every question was optional, so the number of responses varies by question. Fact sheets for all schools and each county are available online at: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/rural_youth_futures

Piscataquis Community High School (ME)

With permission from the school principal, students in grades 9–12 at Piscataquis Community High School were given a link to an anonymous, electronic survey in February 2019. Participation was voluntary. Piscataquis Community High School had 120 students during 2018–2019, 120 of which took the survey for a participation rate of 100%. Every question was optional, so the number of responses varies by question. Fact sheets for all schools and each county are available online at: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/rural_youth_futures