Session 4: What Should Be the Conditions on Libraries Digitizing, Maintaining and Making Available Copyrighted Works?

A discussion of the conditions that should be applied to libraries and archives in their digitizing, maintaining and making available copyrighted works

Rescue Model for the Bystanders' Intervention in Emergencies

To investigate an effect of social interaction on the bystanders' intervention in emergency situations we introduce a rescue model which includes the effects of the victim's acquaintance with bystanders and those among bystanders. This model reproduces the surprising experimental result that the helping rate tends to decrease although the number of bystanders $k$ increases. The model also shows that given the coupling effect among bystanders, for a certain range of small $k$ the helping rate increases according to $k$ and that coupling effect plays both positive and negative roles in emergencies. Finally we find a broad range of coupling strength to maximize the helping rate.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure

Covert action failure and fiasco construction: William Hague’s 2011 Libyan venture

In 2011 William Hague, then British Foreign Secretary, authorized a Special Forces team to enter Libya and attempt to contact rebels opposed to Muammar Gaddafi in the unfolding civil war. However, its members were detained by the rebels, questioned and ejected from the country. This article puts the literature on public policy failures into dialogue with that on covert action as a tool of foreign policy. It asks: why did this not develop into a fully-fledged policy fiasco when journalists and politicians alike judged it to have been a major error of judgement on Hague’s part? Using narrative analysis of the contemporary reporting of this incident, we argue that the government – possessing the advantage of information asymmetry accruing from operational secrecy – was ultimately able to win the battle of narratives in a frame contestation process. The study of information asymmetry can enhance the recently revivified research into foreign policy failures

Remembering Catherine Kitty Genovese: A public forum

To mark the fortieth anniversary of the tragic death of Catherine Kitty Genovese on March 13, 1964 in NewYork City, a public forum hosted by Fordham University brought together an interdisciplinary group of experts to look back on this sad event. What follows is a summary of this forum, joined by 100 New Yorkers and the mass media. Even four decades after this tragedy was brought to world-wide attention by the book Thirty-eight witnesses (Rosenthal, 1965), new facts continue to surface about this haunting crime and its aftermath (DeMay, 2004). This forum addressed some timely questions, such as: (1) Were Genovese-type situations rare or common in the past, or even today? (2) How did mass media coverage of Ms. Genovese\u27 1964 tragedy impact society? (3) Why does this woman’s tragedy continue to move us so deeply today, even those of us who were not yet born in 1964? (4) Should U.S. duty-to-aid laws encourage or even oblige citizens to come to each other’s aid in crises if they can safely do so--as is typically the law in other nations? The forum benefited from the expertise of 10 panelists who review diverse aspects of this topi