I covered the Tenenbaum case earlier in a few posts here earlier this week, but I decided to step back and do a bit a broader analysis in a guest post over at the Citizen Media Law Project blog. Check it out.
Monthly Archives: April 2011
Going rogue
Wired’s Nate Anderson has a great write-up over at Ars Technica of the “Legitimate Sites v. Parasites” hearing before the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee today, and it’s not looking good for Internet intermediaries:
[T]he general mood of the hearing was that tough new steps must be taken. As Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) asked [Immigration and Customs Enforcement director John] Morton during his questioning, “What change in the law would allow you to pursue everyone?”
In his written testimony before the committee (PDF), Kent Walker, Google’s Senior VP and General Counsel noted that such an all-inclusive approach would be impossible and counterproductive:
When it comes to offshore rogue sites, no one should think that imposing additional obligations on search engines, social networks, directories, or bloggers beyond the DMCA [Digital Millennium Copyright Act] will be a panacea. If the site remains on the web, neither search engines nor social networks nor the numerous other intermediaries through which users post links can prevent Internet users from talking about, linking to, or referencing the existence of the site. These links or references will themselves appear in search results, and will enable users to reach the site. Simply put, search engines are not in a position to censor the entire Internet, deleting every mention of the existence of a site. If a rogue site remains accessible on the Internet, relying on search engines to try to make it “unfindable” is an impossible endeavor. [emphasis added]
I recommend reading Walker’s full comments for a robust defense of why the notice-and-takedown immunity provided by the DMCA is essential for innovation.
Additional coverage by Politico, Techdirt, CNET, TorrentFreak, RIAA Blog…
Debating the decline of religion in America
For several decades now, sociologists have upheld the idea that when compared to other industrialized nations, the United States is uniquely religious. An argument for secularization which gained prominence in the 1960s was eventually refuted as Americans showed a remarkable religious vitality.
But some argue that new data about religion in America suggests that religion may indeed may on the decline. In a new book titled The Decline of American Religion, sociologist Mark Chaves looks at some of the evidence:
His conclusion: “The burden of proof has shifted to those who want to claim that American religiosity is not declining.”…
“…[E]very indicator of traditional religiosity is either stable or declining. This is why I think it is reasonable to conclude that American religion has in fact declined in recent decades — slowly, but unmistakably,” Chaves said.
Those indicators of decline, taken from General Social Survey data, include:
- From 1990 to 2008, the percent of people who never attend religious services rose from 13 percent to 22 percent.
- Just 45 percent of adult respondents born after 1970 reported growing up with religiously active fathers.
- In the 1960s, about 1 percent of college freshmen expected to become clergy. Now, about three-tenths of a percent have the same expectation.
- The percentage of people saying they have a great deal of confidence in leaders of religious institutions has declined from about 35 percent in the 1970s to about 25 percent today.
This particular data would seem to suggest a very slow decline – though Chaves himself seems careful to say that the data could also be interpreted to say that there is stability.
Sociologist Bradley Wright looks at some similar data in his book Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites (read a description of the argument here) and comes to a slightly different conclusion. Wright suggests some of the people who now identify as non-religious simply don’t like to identify with organized religion and that many of them still say they have religious beliefs and practices. Wright also briefly argues that the number of committed religious people may not have changed; rather, “cultural” Christians may be those who are now identifying as non-religious.
Time will help settle this debate: in the United States, will religion continue to decline in future years and exactly what shape will this decline take? In the meantime, we will have to see how Chaves’ claim that the burden of proof is now on those who show there is not a decline plays out.
Discussing myths regarding the most segregated American cities
As a follow-up to a recent piece looking at the top 10 segregated cities in the United States (see my discussion here), a Salon writer discusses five myths people have regarding this data.
An interesting read and several sociologists contribute to the myth-busting.
Statistic: “More Than 1,000 Mexicans Leave Catholic Church Daily”
Statistics are often put into terms that the average citizen might understand. Or, more cynically, into terms that grabs attention. Here is an example from a sociologist/historian looking at data about Catholicism in Mexico:
More than 1,000 Mexicans left the Catholic Church every day over the last decade, adding up to some 4 million fallen-away Catholics between 2000 and 2010, sociologist and historian Roberto Blancarte told Efe.
Put this way (and a headline built around this daily figure), this statistic seems noteworthy as it looks like a lot of people are making this decision every day. But later in the article, we get a broader perspective:
In 1950, 98.21 percent of Mexicans said they were Catholic, in 1960 the percentage dropped to 96.47 percent, in 1970 to 96.17 percent, in 1980 to 92.62 percent, in 1990 the percentage dropped to 89.69 percent, in 2000 the country was only 88 percent Catholic, and now that percentage is lower still at 83.9 percent.
This signifies that the last decade has seen a drop of more than 4 percentage points, equivalent to almost 4 million people or an average of 1,300 people a day leaving the Catholic Church.
From this decade-by-decade perspective, there is a clear decline from 98.21 percent to 83.9 percent in 2010, a drop of just over 14 percent over 60 years. But this longer-term perspective also helps show that the daily average isn’t really that helpful: are there really 1,300 people each day that make a conscious decision to leave the church? Is this how it works among individual citizens? In this case, it might be better to look at the percentage change each decade and see that the 4.1 percent drop in the 2000s is the largest since 1950.
Additionally, can the average person easily envision what exactly 1,300 people means? This is a large room of people, bigger than even a decent size college classroom but not quite enough to fill a decent sized theater. The Metro in Chicago holds about 1,150 so this is a close approximation.
At least we didn’t get down to another type of common statistic: this data from Mexico breaks down to about 1 Catholic leaving the church every 1.11 minutes.
A 32,000 square foot McMansion?
One aspect of McMasions is that they are large houses. But here is a description of 32,000 square foot home that is called a McMansion:
Coeur d’Alene is interested in all things Hagadone. Even dated things. So I browsed the 20-page, color-photo, online spread in the Robb Report that named Duane Hagadone’s Palm Desert hilltop hideaway as the “2009 Ultimate Home.” Huckleberries has visited Hagadone’s mega-manse before, during the construction phase, when lesser millionaires and townspeople were fighting city approval that allowed the Coeur d’Alene tycoon to construct his 32,000-square-foot McMansion in the viewplane on one of the area’s few buildable hilltops. Now, according to the Robb Report, Hagadone prides himself on having to point out the location of his spread to golfing buddies because the color schemes and the footprint make it hard to see from the plain below. Of all the items featuring Hagadone sizzle enumerated in the article, none impresses Huckleberries more than the three-sided, 4,000-gallon aquarium tunnel leading into the dining area, featuring a shark tank on the ceiling. Mebbe the shark tank is to remind well-heeled Big Fish at Hagadone’s brunches of their humble beginnings.
In my thinking, a 32,000 square foot home is simply a mansion.
So what might make this extra large home a McMansion? Based on this short description, a few possible reasons come to mind:
1. The McMansion idea refers to the recent growth in Couer d’Alene, Idaho. Could this be referring to sprawl and building on one of the areas “buildable hilltops”? (But at the same time, this hints that the home has to be pointed out because it is “hard to see” from below.
2. There is something about the quality or design of the home that is reminiscent of other homes. So it is a big home but more so looks like a copy of other homes, hence the “Mc” prefix.
3. Is this term used just because McMansion is a pejorative term?
Finland schools: raising the overall educational scores by helping the students with the most troubles
There is much angst in the United States regarding the education system and how its students compare to those of other countries. Time presents a different kind of model in Finland (which they oppose to “tiger mothering“) where there is less concern for stardom and more interest in helping the lower kids succeed:
In the ’80s, Finland stopped “streaming” pupils to different math and language tracks based on ability. “People in Finland cannot be divided by how smart they are,” says Laukkanen. “It has been very beneficial.”…
“Finland is a society based on equity,” says Laukkanen. “Japan and Korea are highly competitive societies — if you’re not better than your neighbor, your parents pay to send you to night school. In Finland, outperforming your neighbor isn’t very important. Everybody is average, but you want that average to be very high.” (See 20 back-to-school gadgets.)
This principle has gone far toward making Finland an educational overachiever. In the 2006 PISA science results, Finland’s worst students did 80% better than the OECD average for the worst group; its brightest did only 50% better than the average for bright students. “Raising the average for the bottom rungs has had a profound effect on the overall result,” says MacIsaac.
This is an interesting statistical point as there are two ways a country could go about raising the mean. Instead of trying to raise the average score by putting resources into the gifted or smartest students, the strategy in Finland is to instead raise the bottom group to a higher point.
From reading this article, it sounds like this is possible because of a particular set of cultural values that prizes community or equity over competition. Of course, some might argue that this might not be great for society: where are the next innovators or geniuses going to come from if they aren’t pushed harder? But one could argue on the other side that more help and success for the lower students (who used to be shunted off into lower track classes) helps limit later societal problems and instead promotes a more well-rounded and less bifurcated work force and citizenry.
Tenenbaum oral arguments on YouTube
Having attended the oral arguments before the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Sony BMG Music Entertainment et al v. Tenenbaum yesterday and analyzed my initial impression here, I was pleased to see that the court posted (MP3) the audio of the oral arguments on its website.
Unfortunately, it is often difficult to tell who is speaking given the bare audio. Therefore, I have decided to post the audio on YouTube and annotate it so that listeners can know who is speaking when. I hope many find this helpful.
Here are the links, in 5 parts:
- Part 1: United States as intervenor-appellant. Argument by Jeffrey Clair, Department of Justice, Civil Division. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gLXSnCzgNM
- Part 2: Record labels as plaintiff-appellant. Argument by Paul Clement, Partner, King & Spalding. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s5Omh2bDdA
- Part 3: Electronic Frontier Foundation as amicus curiae. Argument by Julie A. Ahrens, Associate Director, Fair Use Project, Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lqHuukDW-c
- Part 4: Joel Tenenbaum as defendant-appellee. Argument by Jason S. Harrow, Student, Harvard Law School, and Charles R. Nesson, Weld Professor of Law, Harvard Law School. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWy3Wj6XbDk
- Part 5: Record labels’ rebuttal. Clement again. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WI-3YYN3xxY
The argument was before a panel of three First Circuit judges:
- Sandra L. Lynch, Chief Appellate Judge
- Juan R. Torruella, Appellate Judge
- Rogeriee Thompson, Appellate Judge
For even more fun, you can download the briefs here to follow along with the audio. Happy analysis!
In defense of larger Australian homes
In 2009, new Australian homes became the largest in the world, beating even new US homes. But while large homes in the United States are sometimes derided as greedy, unnecessary, wasteful, and simply status symbols, data from one Australian survey suggests homebuyers purchase such homes because they want or need the space:
Homeowners are also increasingly happy to trade the traditional back yard for a larger lounge room and home cinema, according to a survey of more than 2500 people by removalists Grace Removals.
Space trumps neighbours and location, with 19 per cent of people saying the best thing about their home is its size, ahead of the suburb they live in (12 per cent) or being close to family and friends (7 per cent). The toilet was named the most important item in the home by 62 per cent of respondents…
But it’s family considerations, rather than status or greed, that is behind the popularity of so-called McMansions, McCrindle Research personal demographer Mark McCrindle says.
“We have a lot more going on in these larger homes,” Mr McCrindle said. “We are trending towards multi-generational households, where you have children living well into adulthood in the family home. We are also seeing more people work or run a business from home.”
I wonder if such an explanation would fly in the United States. It might be hard to make this case as the average size of the American family has decreased even as the average new house size has risen since World War Two.
The importance of the railroad to Will County’s projected growth
When Will County officials look at a map of Metra commuter rail lines in the Chicago region, they see limited services for a growing region. Indeed, communities like Joliet and Plainfield are quickly growing. Will County officials came together Monday to praise a new study that will look into improving train options for this area:
Several communities have pegged developments to improved service on the Heritage Corridor. But those suburbs have been frustrated in recent years by the slow pace of adding Metra trains.
Local officials said Monday they were pinning their hopes on the Heritage Corridor to help residents get downtown now and in the future.
“I truly believe the need is there more than ever, and the consensus is we are going to see Will County in the next 20 years jump to (more than) 1 million people to become the second-most populated behind Cook,” said Will County Executive Larry Walsh.
The study will help establish the line as part of the proposed high-speed rail corridor between Chicago and St. Louis, Hannig said.
Several pieces of information are interesting:
1. Many might think that the railroad ceased to be important for suburbs around the time that interstates were built (late 1950s in the Chicago area). But these railroad lines still play an important role: they are a commuting option but also give suburbs a flow of people in and out of the downtown as well as a center for which development can be anchored. Along other Metra lines, numerous communities have built condos and mixed-use developments.
2. Will County will have more than 1 million residents in 20 years? This would require growth rates like the county has experienced since the 1950s: in every decade except the 1980s, the county has experienced at least 30% growth. I wonder what DuPage County, the current 2nd most populous county in the region, thinks of this projection.
3. There is some Metra service to Chicago but the options are limited. The article suggests that this limited service leads to limited use: this line is “Metra’s least-used line, with an average weekday ridership of 2,600 passengers.” (A little comparison with these numbers: I believe both Naperville train stations easily exceed this each weekday.) So if the rail service is improved, will this necessarily lead to more riders as the political leaders suggest? Why can’t the officials look at some commuting data to figure out how many Will County residents work in Chicago versus in other suburbs?
Legally Sociable 