Friday, February 20, 2009

The Dynamics of Social Welfare Policy or Copyrights Paradox

The Dynamics of Social Welfare Policy

Author: Joel Blau

The first edition of The Dynamics of Social Welfare Policy reinvented the standard social welfare policy text to speak to students in a vital new way. This second edition builds on its strengths, with a more accessible graphic design and a thorough update of the effects of recent political and legislative changes on social welfare programs.
The book begins by discussing how social problems are constructed. After an analysis of social welfare policy, its purposes, and functions, a unique policy model bolsters the text's overarching progressive narrative. Through this model, students learn how five key social forces-ideology, politics, history, economics, and social movements-interact both to create and to change the social welfare system. By applying this model to five critical social welfare policy issues-income security, employment, housing, health, and food-the text demonstrates to students that every kind of social work practice embodies a social welfare policy. The model is also telling in identifying the triggers of social change and the effects of race, class, and gender.
By applying the policy model to the latest developments in social welfare, the chapter-long case studies in this second edition equip students with knowledge about social welfare policy and the tools for comparative analysis. With this knowledge, students begin to understand that both the whole and the parts of the social welfare system affect what they actually do as social workers. Once they grasp this concept, they'll understand why it is so important to learn social welfare policy.
The Dynamics of Social Welfare Policy 2E captures the fluidity and change inherent in social policy like noother textbook. Its approach remains the most invigorating, forward-thinking one available. Highlights from this edition include:
* Revised data in text, charts, and graphs show how government policies are proving the points made throughout the chapters
*Exhaustive statistics are included about every major social program's budget, benefits, and participants
*Underlying policy model has been updated in response to the evolving political environment
*Content and writing style are appropriate to both bachelor's- and master's-level programs
*More graphics and attractive new two-color interior design make debates easier to grasp and the book easier to navigate
Visit www.oup.com/us/dynamics for access to the instructor's manual and test bank.



Book about: Not Your Mothers Cookbook or The Edible Tao

Copyright's Paradox

Author: Neil Weinstock Netanel

The United States Supreme Court famously labeled copyright "the engine of free expression" because it provides a vital economic incentive for much of the literature, commentary, music, art, and film that makes up our public discourse. Yet today's copyright law also does the opposite--it is often used to quash news reporting, political commentary, church dissent, historical scholarship, cultural critique, and artistic expression.
In Copyright's Paradox, Neil Weinstock Netanel explores the tensions between copyright law and free speech, revealing how copyright can impose unacceptable burdens on expression. Netanel provides concrete illustrations of how copyright often prevents speakers from effectively conveying their message, tracing this conflict across both traditional and digital media and considering current controversies such as the remix and copying culture rampant on YouTube and MySpace, hip-hop music and digital sampling, and the Google Book Search litigation. The author juxtaposes the dramatic expansion of copyright holders' proprietary control against the individual's newly found ability to digitally cut, paste, edit, remix, and distribute sound recordings, movies, TV programs, graphics, and texts the world over. He tests whether, in light of these developments and others, copyright still serves as a vital engine of free expression and he assesses how copyright does--and does not--burden speech. Taking First Amendment values as his lodestar, Netanel argues that copyright should be limited to how it can best promote robust debate and expressive diversity, and he presents a blueprint for how that can be accomplished.
Copyright and free speech will always stand in sometension. But there are ways in which copyright can continue to serve as an engine of free expression while leaving ample room for speakers to build on copyrighted works to convey their message, express their personal commitments, and create new art. This book shows us how.



Table of Contents:
Introduction: A "Largely Ignored Paradox"     3
From Mein Kampf to Google     13
What Is Freedom of Speech? (And How Does It Bear on Copyright?)     30
Copyright's Ungainly Expansion     54
Is Copyright "the Engine of Free Expression"?     81
Copyright's Free Speech Burdens     109
The Propertarian Counter-Argument     154
Copyright and the First Amendment     169
Remaking Copyright in the First Amendment's Image     195
Notes     219
Index     269

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