Inhibiting musical freedom
In a decision Friday, April 28, a U.S. federal court decided that it agreed with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) definition of what a copyright violation is.
This court ruling against mp3.com has severely stifled innovation in the digital music arena and will prevent authorized users from gaining access to music they have duly licensed.
What my.mp3.com did — which the RIAA found so horrible — is it allows users to play their music over the Internet. The RIAA claims it is taking a stand against music piracy. Not a single case of music piracy has been prosecuted against my.mp3.com.
If you look at the members of the RIAA (Time Warner Inc.’s music group, Sony Music Entertainment, Seagram Co.’s Universal Music Group and BMG), you can see their motive: profit.
RIAA members have no place in the digital music scene. The consumers will interact directly with the artists. Your favorite songs will be available instantly. The artists will make more money; the consumers will pay less. And you’ll be able to listen to music you own wherever you are. There’s only one thing standing in the way — the RIAA.
Anybody want to go and chain themselves to an endcap in Sam Goodys?

Jay Schneider

e-commerce group

department of information science

Who is Olsen, really?
The upcoming Eugene City Council races can significantly change government in Eugene. We can make City Hall more open, more inclusive and more committed to grassroots democracy. We can control development so that it contributes to everyone’s quality of life and not just the bank accounts of a few aggressive developers. Or, we can keep the good old boys in.
Unfortunately, the public may not know the real story on some of the candidates, including Tracy Olsen. Olsen is too conservative for Ward 3. Olsen has been endorsed by the developers’ lobby (the Lane County Homebuilders Association). Not surprisingly, none of the environmental groups has endorsed him.
But the biggest concern I have about Olsen is his claim to being a good downtown citizen. His bar, Doc’s Pad, could be a place that generates rowdy, drunken behavior. Olsen ought to clean up his own business before trying to run the city.
I’d like to see more hard-hitting journalism about who this candidate really is.

Joy Marshall

Eugene resident

Genocide Project kills itself
So, Justice for All is planning on bringing back the Genocide Project to campus next year — I thought that they would have learned from their mistakes the first time.
If there is one thing that I learned from last fall, it is that freedom of speech comes with responsibility. There’s a difference between showing one’s pro-life views “to encourage discussion” and organizing a horrifying show of gruesome photographs, which it can’t be denied, had the goal of making people sick and angry. Obviously, abortion is a serious subject and one that should not be taken lightly on both sides.
As a devout vegetarian and animal rights activist, I have many options when trying to get my ideas across, and I have learned that the more productive ones always involve respect for other people. If I choose to stand on a street corner and show photographs of animal cruelty and encourage people to talk, that is different from shoving photographs of dead animals in people’s face. But this is what GAP does. Shock value has its place in getting one’s views across, but it infringes on the possibility of actual learning and dialogue.
So let JFA express its views. But if it can’t do it in a mature, responsible and productive way that shows the campus community that it has something important to say, then it should rethink its purpose. I hope that JFA and the campus community realize this and make sure that GAP is not brought back next year.

Boris Dolin

linguistics

Freud analyses protests
Freud would have a field day with the current protests.
A high court ruled that students can be charged incidental fees to support groups they do not approve of. Some in the “I agree with Ryan” crowd may disapprove of homosexuality, yet those students must pay to support one such group.
The “I agree with Phil” crowd realizes that Nike CEO Phil Knight does not have to donate to a University that supports a group he disapproves of. Knight’s disapproval seems to stem from there being no industry representation in that group. Knight seems to support “heterorepresentation.”
Everybody recognizes that gifts of $30 million benefit the University, and the product of heterosexuality, children, benefits society. There is also a growing realization that both heterosexual relationships and hetero-represented sweatshops include some degree of oppression that needs to be worked out and may drive some to homo-whatever.
The interesting point, I believe, is where Knight said the fabric of trust was shredded by the University. There is a certain fabric of trust of sexuality when boy chasing girl will eventually produce children in a stable relationship, but boy chasing boy does not produce that benefit and does not engender the same degree of trust.
Of course, Freud said that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, so maybe there is no underlying motivation behind recent controversies, and shoes are just shoes. On the other hand, we are seeing a lot of “Thank you Phil” shirts and on the appropriate day a lot of Mother’s Day cards.

Earl Gosnell

Eugene resident

Knight’s right
It appears that the staff at the Emerald still does not have a clue of what is going on. You are buying into a bunch of crap that the union and a bunch of left wing college professors are trying to sell. How about helping the people in this country? It seems that this would be a better cause. Going to southeast Asia to “help” the workers there who are clambering for jobs to feed themselves and their families could only mean a loss of work if unrealistic wages were imposed. Now at least they are in a better position than they were before they had a job.
By the way, Nike CEO Phil Knight’s money is his to give or not to give. He does not have to consult you or anyone else if he wants to stop donating to the University. Did anyone at the University give him the courtesy of a call? Knight is a person who has done a great deal for the University. He got short shrift from the University, and now everyone is crying because he pulled out his money.
As much as the loss hurts, I understand Knight’s reasoning completely. If I had been in his position I would have done the same thing.

Richard Katz

reader

Alumnus backing students
As an alumnus (honors college, 1971), I would like to commend the University for joining the Worker Rights Consortium. The recent furor over this decision painfully reminds us that we alumni sometimes get to thinking that our contributions to the University should confer upon us some special privilege or influence on how the place is run.
In fact, the purpose of our contributions is not to promote our own interests or egos but to help provide students a liberal education. Such an education necessarily involves challenging the status quo, not blindly endorsing it.
Students at the University have a fine history of challenging the power structure of the larger culture and aligning with those segments of society that have not been treated justly by the powers that be. Stick with your principles
and don’t be intimidated by t
he millionaires or corporate America. They don’t need the endorsements of students and universities to make money. Workers on the other hand need all the help they can get.

Terrel Templeman, Ph.D.

alumnus

Good riddance to Phil
So Nike CEO Phil Knight says he’s going to take his millions and go home if we don’t keep in step behind his agenda. Good riddance to him!
Knight’s donations to the University — if they were freely given gestures of philanthropy — have been welcome. If, however, they were given with the expectation that we would sacrifice our freedom of thought and our sense of right and wrong in exchange for some pretty buildings, then his “donations” have no place at an institution of higher learning. In today’s money-driven society, the academic world justifies its existence by living and teaching that knowledge, virtue and courage have higher value than the desire for money.
The Bible teaches that it profits a man nothing to gain the world and lose his soul. The University may have given up $30 million of the devil’s money, but it has kept its integrity. In my book, that means we’ve come out way ahead.

Andrew Ross

alumnus, law class of 1994