The politics of the digital single market:Culture vs. competition vs. copyright

This paper examines the implications for European music culture of the European Union’s Digital Single Market strategy. It focuses on the regulatory framework being created for the management of copyright policy, and in particular the role played by Collective Management Organisations (or Collecting Societies). One of the many new opportunities created by digitalization has been the music streaming services. These depend on consumers being able to access music wherever they are, but such a system runs counter to the management of rights on a national basis and through collecting organisations who act as monopolies within their own territories. The result has been ‘geo-blocking’. The EU has attempted to resolve this problem in a variety of ways, most recently in a Directive designed to reform the CMOs. In this paper, we document these various efforts, showing them to be motivated by a deep-seated and persisting belief in the capacity of ‘competition’ to resolve problems that, we argue, actually lie elsewhere - in copyright policy itself. The result is that the EU’s intervention fails to address its core concern and threatens the diversity of European music culture by rewarding those who are already commercially successful

Going means trouble and staying makes it double: the value of licensing recorded music online

This paper discusses whether a copyright compensation system (CCS) for recorded music—endowing private Internet subscribers with the right to download and use works in return for a fee—would be welfare increasing. It reports on the results of a discrete choice experiment conducted with a representative sample of the Dutch population consisting of 4986 participants. Under some conservative assumptions, we find that applied only to recorded music, a mandatory CCS could increase the welfare of rights holders and users in the Netherlands by over €600 million per year (over €35 per capita). This far exceeds current rights holder revenues from the market of recorded music of ca. €144 million per year. A monthly CCS fee of ca. €1.74 as a surcharge on Dutch Internet subscriptions would raise the same amount of revenues to rights holders as the current market for recorded music. With a voluntary CCS, the estimated welfare gains to users and rights holders are even greater for CCS fees below €20 on the user side. A voluntary CCS would also perform better in the long run, as it could retain a greater extent of market coordination. The results of our choice experiment indicate that a well-designed CCS for recorded music would simultaneously make users and rights holders better off. This result holds even if we correct for frequently observed rates of overestimation in contingent valuation studies

Decreased serum levels of the insulin resistance-related microRNA miR-320a in patients with polycystic ovary syndrome

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is often associated with metabolic abnormalities in the affected patients such as obesity or a dysregulated glucose metabolism/insulin resistance (IR). IR affects the serum levels of several circulating microRNAs; however, studies on the association between IR-related microRNAs and PCOS are scarce. Therefore, we quantified the serum levels of the IR-associated microRNAs miR-93, miR-148a, miR-216a, miR-224 and miR-320a via qPCR in a cohort of 358 infertility patients, of whom 136 were diagnosed with PCOS. In bivariate correlation analyses, the serum levels of miR-93 and miR-216a were inversely associated with dipeptidyl peptidase 4 serum concentrations, and the miR-320a serum levels were significantly downregulated in PCOS patients (p = 0.02, Mann–Whitney U test). Interestingly, in all patients who achieved pregnancy after Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) cycles, the serum levels of the five IR-associated microRNAs were significantly elevated compared to those of non-pregnant patients. In cell culture experiments, we detected a significant upregulation of miR-320a expression following testosterone stimulation over 24 and 48 h in KGN and COV434 granulosa carcinoma cells. In conclusion, we demonstrated a significantly reduced serum level of the IR-associated miR-320a in our patient cohort. This result once again demonstrates the close relationship between metabolic disorders and the dysregulation of microRNA expression patterns in PCOS

Not even remotely close: How co-location imbalance affects subgroup formation in hybrid teams

Despite the substantial proliferation of hybrid work, little has been done to reconcile extant individual- and team-level perspectives. This is problematic because it does not acknowledge how individuals' hybrid work practices constrain team-level interactions and subsequent outcomes. Specifically, the extant literature does not yet capture the complex configurations that result from team members alternating between co-located and remote forms of collaboration and how these may provoke the formation of subgroups within the team. In this conceptual paper, we introduce the construct co-location imbalance, which we define as the disparity in co-location between different combinations of team members, as a way of capturing geographic configurations in hybrid teams. Through illustrative hybrid teamwork archetypes, we demonstrate the meaning and implications of co-location imbalance on subgroup formation. We then map out a nomological network surrounding co-location imbalance and derive testable propositions on its temporal dynamics and antecedents. Our paper concludes with a discussion of our research's theoretical and practical contributions and directions to advance future research on hybrid teamwork.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Securely stressed: Association between attachment and empathic stress in romantic couples

Stress-related disorders are common in modern societies. What adds to the burden is empathic stress, arising when observing another's stress elicits a stress response in the observer. In romantic couples, we investigated the association between empathic stress and adult attachment-a deep emotional bond between partners-to understand its inherent facets of risk and resilience. Psychosocial stress was induced in one partner ("target") while the other passively observed the situation ("observer"). Stress reactivity was measured in both partners via salivary cortisol, heart rate, high-frequency heart rate variability, and questionnaires. Observers' attachment representations were assessed using the Adult Attachment Interview. We found higher cortisol resonance-that is, proportionality in stress reactivity in targets and observers-in dyads with securely as opposed to insecurely attached (specifically insecure-dismissing) observers. Consistent with attachment as a resilience factor, our results suggest that securely attached individuals are physiologically more in tune with their partners during psychosocially stressful situations, possibly allowing for mutual understanding and triggering supportive behavior. However, suggesting a potential risk inherent to attachment security, in contexts of frequent or extreme partner stress, securely attached individuals may also be prone to excessive empathic stress activation and subsequent health impairments

Design and Characterization of a Novel Knee Articulation Mechanism

Abstract The paper is focused on designing a novel controllable and adjustable mechanism for reproducing human knee joint's complex motion by taking into account the flexion/extension movement in the sagittal plane, in combination with roll and slide. Main requirements for a knee rehabilitation supporting device are specified by researching the knee's anatomy and already existing mechanisms. A three degree of freedom (3 DOF) system (four-bar like linkage with controlled variable lengths of rockers) is synthesised to perform the reference path of instantaneous centre of rotation (ICR). Finally, a preliminary design of the adaptive mechanism is elaborated and a numerical model is built in Adams. Numerical results are derived from simulations that are presented to evaluate the accuracy of the reproduced movement and the mechanism's capabilities

Dealing with digital: the economic organisation of streamed music

© The Author(s) 2020. The intervention of digital service providers (DSPs) or platforms, such as Spotify Apple Music and Tidal, that supply streamed music has fundamentally altered the operation of copyright management organisations (CMOs) and the way song-writers and recording artists are paid. Platform economics has emerged from the economic analysis of two- and multi-sided markets, offering new insights into the way business is conducted in the digital sphere and is applied here to music streaming services. The business model for music streaming differs from previous arrangements by which the royalty paid to song-writers and performers was a percentage of sales. In the case of streamed music, payment is based on revenues from both subscriptions and ad-based free services. The DSP agrees a rate per stream with the various rights holders that varies according to the deal made with each of the major record labels, with CMOs, with representatives of independent labels and with unsigned artists and song-writers with consequences for artists’ earnings. The article discusses these various strands with a view to understanding royalty payments for streamed music in terms of platform economics, offering some data and information from the Norwegian music industry to give empirical support to the analysis