MBR ISSUE 44

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Malta Business Review DEBATE Why Are Some People Selfish? by Josh Davies Josh Davies Most of us are at least a little selfish, but some more so than others. In order to get what we want in life we tend to reward those who are good to us by being good back to them, and punish those who aren't. But there are a minority of people, known as “Machiavellians,” who pay no regard to these social norms. A new study, published in Brain and Cognition, has managed to visualize what happens in the brains of these Machiavellians when others are nice to them, and found they went into overdrive, working out how best to exploit them, suggest the authors. Named after the 16th Century Italian writer, politician and diplomat Niccolò Machiavelli, the term is used by psychologists to refer to someone who is highly manipulative, deceitful, and lacking empathy. The name derives not because Machiavelli was particularly any of those things, but because of the main character in his most famous work "The Prince" used clever tricks to hold on to power. When it comes to society, it seems that some people are hard-wired this way, exploiting others for their own gain. And scientists are able to work out where people fall on a scale from low- Machiavellian to high-Machiavellian by means of a questionnaire. Hungarian researchers from the University of Pécs used this test to divide a group of students into those with high Machiavellian tendencies in a group of students and those who displayed low tendencies, and then used an MRI scan to see what happened in their brains during a simple game of trust. The game worked like this: The participants were paired up with a partner. Individuals were then given five dollars and asked to decide how much they wanted to “invest” in their partner. The participants all thought that their partner was another student, but in actual fact they were a computer, which was programmed to either return their investment fairly (10% above or below the initial investment), or unfairly (returning only 30% of the initial investment). After this first interaction the roles were then reversed, with the computer partner having to "invest" in the participant. The participants then had to decide whether to give a fair or unfair return. When the low-Machs decided how much to give back to their partners they acted according to the social norms, rewarding their partner when they had given them a “fair” return first, and punishing them when they’d received an “unfair” return. The high-Machs, however, gave everyone unfair returns, regardless of what they’d previously been given. Unsurprisingly, at the end of the game, the high-Machs ended up with the most money. But looking at the high-Machs' brain activity during the task, the researchers found that when the computer partner gave the high-Mach a fair return "Named after the 16th Century Italian writer, politician and diplomat Niccolò Machiavelli, the term is used by psychologists to refer to someone who is highly manipulative, deceitful, and lacking empathy for their initial investment, their brain activity shot up in areas involved in inhibition and creativity. The researchers suggest that this indicates they might have been inhibiting their natural instinct to reciprocate fairness, while at the same time trying to calculate how best to take advantage of their partner. So, it seems that those who are most manipulative and deceitful don’t decide to punish people because they are unfair to them, instead deciding to be unfair to them all the time, which feeds into their lack of empathy. But show them fairness or cooperation, and they start to figure out how best to exploit you. <strong>MBR</strong> Creditline: Josh Davies 52
EU/DIGITAL COPYRIGHT Malta Business Review Parliament adopts its position on digital copyright rules Copyright rules need updating for the digital age • Tech giants must pay for work of artists and journalists which they use • Small and micro platforms excluded from directive’s scope • Hyperlinks, “accompanied by “individual words” can be shared freely • Journalists must get a share of any copyright-related remuneration obtained by their publishing house Parliament adopted its revised negotiating position on copyright rules on Wednesday, adding safeguards to protect small firms and freedom of expression. Parliament’s position for talks with member states to hammer out a final deal was approved by 438 votes to 226, with 39 abstentions. It makes some important tweaks to the June committee proposal. Tech giants to share revenue with artists and journalists Many of Parliament’s changes to the EU Commission’s original proposal aim to make certain that artists, notably musicians, performers and script authors, as well as news publishers and journalists, are paid for their work when it is used by sharing platforms such as YouTube or Facebook, and news aggregators such as Google News. After the vote, rapporteur Axel Voss (EPP, DE) said, “I am very glad that despite the very strong lobbying campaign by the internet giants, there is now a majority in the full house backing the need to protect the principle of fair pay for European creatives. There has been much heated debate around this directive and I believe that Parliament has listened carefully to the concerns raised. Thus, we have addressed concerns raised about innovation by excluding small and micro platforms or aggregators from the scope. I am convinced that once the dust has settled, the internet will be as free as it is today, creators and journalists will be earning a fairer share of the revenues generated by their works, and we will be wondering what all the fuss was about.” AP Images/European Union-EP Fair pay for artists and journalists while encouraging start-ups Parliament’s position toughens the Commission’s proposed plans to make online platforms and aggregators liable for copyright infringements. This would also apply to snippets, where only a small part of a news publisher’s text is displayed. In practice, this liability requires these parties to pay right holders for copyrighted material that they make available. Parliament’s text also specifically requires that journalists themselves, and not just their publishing houses, benefit from remuneration stemming from this liability requirement. At the same time, in an attempt to encourage start-ups and innovation, the text now exempts small and micro platforms from the directive. Protecting freedom of expression The text includes provisions to ensure that copyright law is observed online without unfairly hampering the freedom of expression that has come to define the internet. Thus, merely sharing hyperlinks to articles, together with “individual words” to describe them, will be free of copyright constraints. Any action taken by platforms to check that uploads do not breach copyright rules must be designed in such a way as to avoid catching “non-infringing works”. These platforms will moreover be required to establish rapid redress systems (operated by the platform’s staff, not algorithms) through which complaints can be lodged when an upload is wrongly taken down. Wikipedia and open source software platforms will not be affected The text also specifies that uploading to online encyclopaedias in a non-commercial way, such as Wikipedia, or open source software platforms, such as GitHub, will automatically be excluded from the requirement to comply with copyright rules. Stronger negotiating rights for authors and performers Parliament’s text also strengthens the negotiating rights of authors and performers, by enabling them to “claim” additional remuneration from the party exploiting their rights when the remuneration originally agreed is “disproportionately” low compared to the benefits derived. The text adds that these benefits should include “indirect revenues”. It would also empower authors and performers to revoke or terminate the exclusivity of an exploitation licence for their work if the party holding the exploitation rights is deemed not to be exercising this right. <strong>MBR</strong> Credit: John Schranz, Press Officer/EP www.maltabusinessreview.net 53
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