The Jurisprudence of Transformation: Intellectual Incoherence and Doctrinal Murkiness Twenty Years After Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music

Examining recent judicial opinions, this Article analyzes and critiques the transformative-use doctrine two decades after the U.S. Supreme Court introduced it into copyright law in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music. When the Court established the transformative-use concept, which plays a critical role in fair-use determinations today, its contours were relatively undefined. Drawing on an influential law-review article, the Court described a transformative use as one that adds “new expression, meaning or message.” Unfortunately, the doctrine and its application are increasingly ambiguous, with lower courts developing competing conceptions of transformation. This doctrinal murkiness is particularly disturbing because fair use is a key proxy for First Amendment interests in copyright law. This Article traces the evolution of transformative use, analyzes three key paradigms of transformative use that have gained prominence in the post-Campbell environment, and offers suggestions for a jurisprudence in which transformative use is a less significant component of the fair-use analysis

Fissures, Fractures & Doctrinal Drifts: Paying the Price in First Amendment Jurisprudence for a Half Decade of Avoidance, Minimalism & Partisanship

This Article comprehensively examines how the U.S. Supreme Court’s adherence to principles of constitutional avoidance and judicial minimalism, along with partisan rifts among the Justices, have detrimentally affected multiple First Amendment doctrines over the past five years. The doctrines analyzed here include true threats, broadcast indecency, offensive expression, government speech, and strict scrutiny, as well as the fundamental dichotomy between content-based and contentneutral regulations

Know Your Audience: Risky Speech At The Intersection Of Meaning And Value In First Amendment Jurisprudence

Using the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2014 decision in Air Wisconsin Airlines Corp. v. Hoeper as an analytical springboard, this article examines the vast burdens placed on speakers in four realms of First Amendment law to correctly know their audiences, in advance of communication, if they want to receive constitutional protection. Specifically, the article asserts that speakers are freighted with accurately understanding both the meaning and the value audiences will ascribe to their messages, ex ante, in the areas of obscenity, intentional infliction of emotional distress, student speech, and true threats. A speaker’s inability to effectively predict a recipient’s reaction to his message could result in a loss of speech rights and, in turn, lead to either criminal punishment or civil liability. Dangerous disconnects and chasms between speakers and audiences can arise, negating free expression when a message’s meaning or its value is lost in translation. Ultimately, speakers should not be forced to engage in complicated guesswork and multiple layers of abstraction in order to safely exercise their First Amendment rights

“Defamation Live”: The Confusing Legal Landscape of Republication in Live Broadcasting and a Call for a “Breaking News Doctrine”

Live, broadcast defamation is a murky area of law garnering surprisingly scant scholarly attention. But because libel law typically creates republication liability for broadcasters who air defamatory statements uttered by third parties—even when news organizations have no idea what the third parties are about to say— broadcasters covering live, breaking news events face significant risks of liability for remarks by people at the scene. This Article analyzes the case law of live and spontaneous broadcast defamation, explores the statutory backdrop in such cases and, ultimately, proposes a solution in the form of a “breaking news doctrine” that relieves broadcasters of republication liability if five prerequisites are satisfied

Free Speech, Fleeting Expletives, and the Causation Quagmire: Was Justice Scalia Wrong in Fox Television Stations?

This Article concentrates on one particular issue raised in the Fox Television Stations ruling - the critical question of causation of harm caused by mass media messages and, in particular, the quantum of evidentiary proof needed by a federal agency to demonstrate causation sufficient to justify restricting the speech in question. The issue is ripe for review

Toward an understanding of youth in community governance: Policy priorities and research directions

For more than a decade, many researchers and practitioners have endorsed a “positive youth development” approach, which views adolescents as active contributors to their own development and as assets to their communities. As part of this shift, youth are increasingly being invited to engage in community governance. In youth organizations, schools, community organizations, and public policy arenas, youth are making strong contributions to advisory boards and planning councils, and are integrally involved in key day-to-day functions such as program design, budgeting, outreach, public relations, training, and evaluation. State and local policy-makers are also beginning to endorse the engagement of youth in community governance. This policy endorsement, however, has largely occurred independent of scholarship on adolescent development. In this Social Policy Report, our aim is to help bridge this gap. We discuss the cultural context for youth engagement, theoretical rationales and innovative models, empirical evidence, and priorities for policy and research. Why involve youth in community governance? Three main theoretical rationales have been established: Ensuring social justice and youth representation, building civil society, and promoting youth development. Moreover, across the country, innovative models demonstrate that the theory can be effectively translated into policy. Finally, a strong research base supports the practice. When youth are engaged in meaningful decision-making – in families, schools, and youth organizations – research finds clear and consistent developmental benefits for the young people. An emerging body of research shows that organizations and communities also derive benefits when youth are engaged in governance. Several directions need to be pursued for youth engagement to exert a maximum positive impact on young people and their communities. We recommend three areas for policy development. First, public awareness of the practice needs to be better established. Societal expectations for youth remain low and negative stereotypes remain entrenched in the mass media. Second, more stable funding is needed for youth engagement. It will be especially critical to support community-based youth organizations because these places are likely to remain the primary catalysts for youth engagement in the civic life of communities. Third, it is necessary to build local capacity by supporting outreach and training through cross-sector community coalitions and independent, nonprofit intermediary organizations. These entities are best positioned to convince stakeholder groups to chart, implement, and sustain youth engagement. It is equally important to broaden the scientific context for youth engagement in community governance. Priorities for scholars are to focus research on understanding: the organizational and community outcomes that emanate from engaging youth in governance; the competencies that youth bring to governance; and how the practice of youth engagement can be sustained by communities

An efficient synthesis of 1,6-anhydro-N-acetylmuramic acid from N-acetylglucosamine

A novel synthesis of 1,6-anhydro-N-acetylmuramic acid is described, which proceeds in only five steps from the cheap starting material N-acetylglucosamine. This efficient synthesis should enable future studies into the importance of 1,6-anhydromuramic acid in bacterial cell wall recycling processes

Youth Representation on County Government Committees: Youth in Governance in Kenosha County, Wisconsin

The Kenosha County Youth In Governance program was created to build leadership skills and civic engagement opportunities for high school-aged students by placing two youth representatives on each of the Kenosha County Board of Supervisors standing committees. In reviewing data from 3 years of youth participants, the program was effective in increasing civic engagement and leadership skills of young people. Respondents reported specific increases in knowledge of county government, connection to community, empowerment, communication skills, and confidence. Effective program practices were also identified from reviewing statements made from youth participants

Multi-defect modelling of bridge deterioration using truncated inspection records

Bridge Management Systems (BMS) are decision support tools that have gained widespread use across the transportation infrastructure management industry. The Whole Life Cycle Cost (WLCC) modelling in a BMS is typically composed of two main components: a deterioration model and a decision model. An accurate deterioration model is fundamental to any quality decision output.There are examples of deterministic and stochastic models for predictive deterioration modelling in the literature, however the condition of a bridge in these models is considered as an ‘overall’ condition which is either the worst condition or some aggregation of all the defects present. This research proposes a predictive bridge deterioration model which computes deterioration profiles for several distinct deterioration mechanisms on a bridge.The predictive deterioration model is composed of multiple Markov Chains, estimated using a method of maximum likelihood applied to panel data. The data available for all the defects types at each inspection is incomplete. As such, the proposed method considers that only the most significant defects are recorded, and inference is required regarding the less severe defects. A portfolio of 9,726 masonry railway bridges, with an average of 2.47 inspections per bridge, in the United Kingdom is the case study considered