The Constitution gives Congress the power to establish copyright “to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts.” This requires Congress to engage in a delicate balancing act, giving authors enough protection that they will be motivated to create expressive works, but not so much that it hampers innovation and public access to information. Yet over the past half-century Congress has routinely shifted the balance in only one direction—away from access and freedom and toward greater privileges for organized special interests. Conservatives and libertarians, who are naturally suspicious of big government, should be skeptical of an ever-expanding copyright system. They should also be skeptical of the recent trend toward criminal prosecution of even minor copyright infringements, of the growing use of civil asset forfeiture in copyright enforcement, and of attempts to regulate the Internet and electronics in the name of piracy eradication. Copyright Unbalanced is not a moral case for or against copyright; it is a pragmatic look at the excesses of the present copyright regime and of proposals to expand it further. It is a call for reform—to roll back the expansions and reinstate the limits that the Constitution’s framers placed on copyright. Published by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

A consensus has recently emerged among academics and policymakers that US copyright law has fallen out of balance. Lawmakers have responded by taking up proposals to reform the Copyright Act. But how should they proceed? This book offers a new and insightful view of copyright, marking the path toward a world less encumbered by legal restrictions and yet richer in art, music, and other expressive works. Two opposing viewpoints have driven the debate over copyright policy. One side questions copyright for the same reasons it questions all restraints on freedoms of expression, and dismisses copyright, like other forms of property, as a mere plaything of political forces. The opposing side regards copyrights as property rights that deserve—like rights in houses, cars, and other forms of property—the fullest protection of the law. Each of these viewpoints defends important truths. Both fail, however, to capture the essence of copyright. In Intellectual Privilege, Tom W. Bell reveals copyright as a statutory privilege that threatens our natural and constitutional rights. From this fresh perspective come fresh solutions to copyright’s problems. Published by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

Racial and ethnic disparities in health care are known to reflect access to care and other issues that arise from differing socioeconomic conditions. There is, however, increasing evidence that even after such differences are accounted for, race and ethnicity remain significant predictors of the quality of health care received. In Unequal Treatment, a panel of experts documents this evidence and explores how persons of color experience the health care environment. The book examines how disparities in treatment may arise in health care systems and looks at aspects of the clinical encounter that may contribute to such disparities. Patients' and providers' attitudes, expectations, and behavior are analyzed. How to intervene? Unequal Treatment offers recommendations for improvements in medical care financing, allocation of care, availability of language translation, community-based care, and other arenas. The committee highlights the potential of cross-cultural education to improve provider-patient communication and offers a detailed look at how to integrate cross-cultural learning within the health professions. The book concludes with recommendations for data collection and research initiatives. Unequal Treatment will be vitally important to health care policymakers, administrators, providers, educators, and students as well as advocates for people of color.

The Copyright Office has previously highlighted the outmoded rules for the licensing of musical works and sound recordings as an area in significant need of reform. Moreover, the Office has underscored the need for a comprehensive approach to copyright review and revision generally. This is especially true in the case of music licensing the problems in the music marketplace need to be evaluated as a whole, rather than as isolated or individual concerns of particular stakeholders.

This volume shows how, since 1950, the growth of copyright regulation has followed, and enabled, the extraordinary economic growth of the entertainment, broadcasting, software and communications industries. It reproduces articles written by an extensive list of leading thinkers. US scholars represented in readings include James Boyle, Lawrence Lessig, Pamela Samuelson, Mark Lemley, Alfred Yen, Julie Cohen, Peter Jaszi and Eben Moglen. Leading non-US contributors include Alan Story, Brian Fitzgerald and Peter Drahos. These and other authors explain copyright origins, the development of the law, the theory of enclosure, international trends, recent developments, and current and future directions. Today, the copyright system is often portrayed as an engine of growth, and effective regulation as a predictor of economic development. However, critics see dangers in the expansion of intellectual property rights. The articles in this volume focus principally on the digital age, examining how copyright regulation is likely to affect goals of dissemination and access.

This book, written by two leading Swedish economists and first published in 1984, constitutes a threefold contribution to the expanding field of economic discrimination. In the first place, it summarizes different approaches to the economics of discrimination, from the beginning of the British debate on equal pay in the 1890s onwards. Secondly, the book contains analytical chapters that, taking the theory originated by Gary Becker as their point of departure, critique and develop the Beckerian theory in a number of ways; in particular, the phenomenon known as crowding is investigated in different models. Finally, the theories thus developed are applied to a concrete case of discrimination: that of apartheid in South Africa. This is a fascinating title that will be of value to any economics students researching the development of discrimination theory during the twentieth century in particular.

Through an examination of Canadians' complicated roles as agents and objects of globalization, this book shows how Canada's experience of and contribution to globalized governance is characterized by serious imbalances. It explores these imbalances by tracing three interlinked developments: the emergence of a neoconservative supraconstitution, the transformation of the nation-state, and the growth of governance beyond the nation-state. Advocating a revitalized Canadian state as a vehicle for pursuing human security, ecological integrity, and social emancipation, and for creating spaces in which progressive, alternative forms of law and governance can unfold, this book offers a compelling analysis of the challenges that middle powers and their citizens face in a globalizing world.