- Social justice education: on the march and coming to a school system near you [Frederick M. Hess and Grant Addison, National Review]
- New wave of institutional reform litigation aims to replace democratic oversight of public schools with governance by courts, lawyers, and NGOs [Dana Goldstein, New York Times]
- Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, trying to force a student to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, ignores 75 years of Supreme Court precedent [Scott Shackford] “My Daughter’s Middle School Plans to Teach Her Meek Compliance With Indiscriminate Invasions of Privacy” [Jacob Sullum]
- “The Regressive Effects of Child-Care Regulations: More strenuous requirements raise child-care prices but have little apparent effect on quality” [Ryan Bourne, Regulation and Governing]
- “Denver Schools Stopped ‘Lunch-Shaming’ Kids Whose Parents Didn’t Pay. The Results Were Predictable.” [Hess and Addison]
- Wisconsin public union reform: “A school district’s implementation of Act 10 is associated with an increase in math proficiency on average. The positive impact … is consistent across small town, rural, and suburban school districts.” [Will Flanders and Collin Roth, Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty]
- “Look to the Dutch for true educational pluralism” [Charles Glenn, Acton Institute]
Copyright music takedowns
“Sony Music Entertainment has been forced to abandon its claim that it owned 47 seconds of video of musician James Rhodes using his own piano to play music written by Johann Sebastian Bach.” After Rhodes posted the video to Facebook, Sony sent a takedown notice saying that the performance “matches 47 seconds of audio” owned by Sony. Match-detecting algorithms have become commonplace in the copyright takedown field; in this case, Sony backed down after Rhodes’s tweet about the situation got considerable attention. [Timothy Lee, ArsTechnica]
Sony does own the rights to the performances of important Bach interpreters such as Glenn Gould, so it is possible that a performance influenced by Gould’s would be especially likely to trip a similarity algorithm. But it gets worse. Last year an Australian music teacher named Sebastian Tomczak “posted on YouTube a 10-hour recording of white noise as an experiment” (in sound perception, not copyright practice) and “within days, the upload had five different copyright claims filed against it. All five would allow continued use of the material, the notices explained, if Tomczak allowed the upload to be “monetized,” meaning accompanied by advertisements from which the claimants would get a share.” [Joseph Bottum, Free Beacon]
And finally, from my own recent experience: a comment from a local performance group’s Facebook page about how a recording of a sing-through of Gilbert & Sullivan Utopia, Ltd. triggered a takedown based on supposed copying of an entirely different work, Rossini’s William Tell. The passage that showed too much similarity? The audience applause!
Ted Frank argues at SCOTUS
“Mr. Frank [former Overlawyered blogger Ted Frank] argued his own case on Wednesday, a rarity in the Supreme Court, and he exhibited comprehensive knowledge of the law and an only occasionally halting style.” [Adam Liptak, New York Times] The transcript of oral argument, in which several Justices expressed doubt that the lower court had adequately pinned down standing issues, is here. More on Frank v. Gaos and the cy pres issues it raises: Richard Wolf/USA Today, Daniel Fisher, Jim Copland, SCOTUSBlog, Federalist Society SCOTUSBrief video; earlier here, etc.
October 31 roundup
- Attempts to ban digital contraband are often fated to be both intrusive and futile [J.D. Tuccille]
- “The Gender Pay Gap: Why We Fight The Narrative” [Ryan Bourne, Cato]
- “He’s Back! Steven Wise’s Nonhuman Rights Project Seeks Habeas Corpus For An Elephant” [Ted Folkman, Letters Blogatory, Wise’s previous go and generally]
- Regulatory battles between hotel industry and AirBnB spread across U.S. [Robert McCartney, Washington Post]
- Concept of international human rights “has been swept into a broad river of campaigns for social justice, global economic development, environmental protection, multiculturalism, tolerance, access to water and sanitation, and more” and diluted in the process [James Kirchick, Commentary on new Aaron Rhodes book The Debasement of Human Rights: How Politics Sabotage the Ideal of Freedom; Cato forum from May with Rhodes, Kirchick, Roger Pilon, and Ian Vasquez; Rhodes interview with John Couretas and Caroline Roberts, Acton Institute]
- “Pro-tip from the Third Circuit for attorneys requesting fees: Don’t have a single-spaced, 6- to 8-point font, 44-page fee petition including ‘hundreds of inappropriate, unethical entries that would likely be illegal if billed to a client.’ You might find yourself facing no fees, a sanction, and a referral to the attorney disciplinary board.” [John K. Ross, IJ Short Circuit, on Young v. Smith]
“New App Lets You ‘Sue Anyone By Pressing a Button'”
The developer of Do Not Pay, a free app for fighting parking tickets, has now turned his attention to small claims court [Caroline Haskins, Motherboard]:
The app works by having a bot ask the user a few basic questions about their legal issue. The bot then uses the answers to classify the case into one of 15 different legal areas, such as breach of contract or negligence. After that, Do Not Pay draws up documents specific to that legal area, and fills in the specific details. Just print it out, mail it to the courthouse, and voilá — you’re a plaintiff. And if you have to show up to court in person, Do Not Pay even creates a script for the plaintiff to read out loud in court.
“Feds Order Google To Hand Over A Load Of Innocent Americans’ Locations”
Following robberies, the FBI is hitting Google with “reverse location” orders demanding that it turn over information on all users who were near crime locations at times crimes were committed. “Those users could be Android phone owners, anyone running Google Maps or any individual running Google services on their cell,” which will include many innocent persons. In a Henrico, Virginia, case, the FBI ordered Google to supply identifying information on all users within a several-block radius in a busy area. “Requests like this act as ‘general warrants’ and may violate the Fourth Amendment because they are not tied to a specific device,” said Jennifer Lynch, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. [Thomas Brewster, Forbes]
Wage and hour roundup
- Politicians interfere with a complex industry they don’t understand: when the $15 minimum wage came to New York car washes [Jim Epstein, Reason: article, 13:32 video]
- “D.C. Repeals a Minimum Wage Hike That Restaurant Workers Didn’t Want” [Eric Boehm, Reason] “Tipping lawsuit leads popular Salem restaurant to declare bankruptcy” [Dan Casey, Roanoke Times]
- Challenging a premise: “Why a federal minimum wage?” [Scott Sumner] “Pew Map Shows One Reason a National $15 Minimum Wage Won’t Work” [Joe Setyon, Reason]
- New evidence on effects of Seattle $15 minimum: benefits go to workers with relatively high experience, “8% reduction in job turnover rates as well as a significant reduction in the rate of new entries into the workforce.” [NBER] “Minimum wage hike in Venezuela shuts stores, wipes out many jobs” [Hans Bader]
- “Ontario labour minister’s office vandalized after minimum wage cap announced” [Canadian Press, CBC background of Ford provincial government rollback of Wynne-era labor measures]
- DoL plans new rules on joint-employer definition [Jaclyn Diaz, Bloomberg; Alex Passantino, Seyfarth Shaw, earlier]
Ballot measures on tax issues
The Tax Foundation has published its guide for this year to tax-related ballot initiatives. Among the measures: easier transferability of Prop 13 limited assessment to another home (California), new taxes on business to fund homelessness programs (San Francisco), replace flat with progressive income tax (Colorado), require two-thirds legislative vote for tax hikes (Florida), create taxpayer cause of action against unlawful expenditures (New Hampshire), carbon tax (Washington).
Harvard’s magical way of applying thumbs to scales
This sentence deserves an award: “Harvard has testified that race, when considered in admissions, can only help, not hurt, a student’s chances of getting in.” [Anemona Hartocollis, New York Times, via Ramesh Ponnuru, National Review]
Speaking in Kansas next week
I’ll be giving lunchtime talks at two law schools in Kansas next week, courtesy local chapters of the Federalist Society. On Monday I’ll visit Washburn University Law School in Topeka, where Prof. Joseph Mastrosimone will provide comment. And then on Tuesday I’ll speak at the University of Kansas School of Law in Lawrence. My topic at both campuses will be “A Libertarian Looks at Employment Law.” Come say hello!