The Lion's Eye Opinion October 10, 2005 Letter to the editors Less For Your Money The idea expressed on page 6 of the 26 September issue of "The Lion's Eye' that prices are set by the quality of a product evidences a gross mispercetion of the marketplace. In truth, prices are set according to what the market will bear. A good example of this is store brand versus name brand cereal on the shelves of grocery stores. The contents within the respective boxes are identical. Yet one, the brand, carries a higher price because its recognition value is able to command it. Not only has the quality of gasoline not advanced over the past several years, ghtmare on Elm “Halloween 3” neither has that of bread, toothpaste or milk. Ni 4 Nonetheless, their prices have Sires 2nd Seek also escalated due in general to the inflation- ary effect (i.e., the costs of Kate Larkin Josh Phillips Tyler Harvey raw materials, labor, manufacturing, etc. Marketing English Landscape Contractor have all gone up). “The Others or Hide “The Evil “28 Days Later” “The Exorcist” Dead Trilogy” Kelly Griffith John Kerns Nikita Sergeivic DUS . DUS Yurkovsky LA The two largest cost components to a gallon of gasoline are the raw material (crude oil) and taxes (federal, state and local). Governments dictate the latter while OPEC in general and the Saudis in particular set the former. -Prof. Lindsey Murdah Music. Downloading. Copyrights. I'm sure you've all heard these words recently, espe- cially if you are an avid music fan. The Record Industry Association of America (RIAA) has been doing every- thing they can to stop the illegal transfer of music. Napster, once the champion of illegal music acquisition, is now a pay-to-play company. Kazaa, another popular downloading program, is so full of viruses it would make Bill Gates' head spin. The next step was to attach anti- piracy software to the CD's themselves. About a year ago, I was talking with a nd of mine in the cafeteria. We were talking gm about new albums, and he brought up the Velvet Revolver CD, "Contraband." : My friend is an avid music fan, and likes to ¢ Letter from the editors Diversity Award Needs Support Currently in progress, I've been working with the Council of Commonwealth Student Governments (CCSG) at University Park to cre- ... ate and implement an award benefiting stu- dents only at the Commonwealth campuses (That means YOU). This award in-the-making is aimed towards individuals on campus who make backup copies of his albums. foster diversity. What this means is that indi- Unfortunately, the Velvet Revolver didn't want viduals on campus who hold events to increase to be backed up. : ; cultural and ethnic awareness, or simply go out Apparently his CD drive started making of their way to understand others and their cul- Strange noises, and refused to read the CD. He tures, would be eligible for this award upon its tried other CD's, and the CD drive continued to § . . . make weird noises. The RIAA "Slither"-ed implementation. Each campus would nominate theit are iio the: SOMTler. 20 to speak and a person at the end of each academic year who oo his CD So Ata peak, would first, have to accept the nomination, then ; : § ; In order to repair the drive, he had to submit an essay to CCSG; the Diversity restore the system, effectively putting the com- Committee at CCSG would then be responsible puter in its original state. Thankfully, he backed up most of his files. The system restore did fix his CD drive, but it must have been at a great inconvenience. So the RIAA's solution to the downloading problem is for voting on a winner. That student would receive an award of $1,000. Collectively, the Commonwealth has been able to amass $1,000 towards this self-renewing scholarship. Our total needs to be $20,000 in order for the inter- est to roll over the $1,000 each year, allowing for the next person to be awarded the money. In the future, look for updates on the award in the paper and possible fundraisers on campus. Donations are also always welcome. If you or anyone you know is interested in helping out with this cause, please feel free to contact me. -Andrew Walter Download Music and Destroy Your CD Drive to mess with the computers of people with good inten- tions. Okay, so they can't readily discern between those who upload CD's for distribution purposes and those who upload CD's for personal use. In such a large world with such advanced home computer technology, such a feat is nearly impossible. I think that disruption of a system which people pay upwards of a thousand dollars for is absolutely ridiculous. How can the RIAA justify randomly throwing out programs that are harmful to people's computers? My guess is that their philosophy has something to do with "do unto others as you i would have them do unto you." Internet piracy | has caused harm to the RIAA's income, so || their response is to cause harm to the medi- I ums used in piracy. But this is a careless tactic, as evidenced by my friend's situation, People whose inten- tions are good get caught up in the storm. And it is now that I ask you this: What next? Will CD's soon contain some sort of sensor that whenever a CD is placed into a computer with Internet access, a message will be sent to the RIAA? By David Hardison Oh, by the way, the FBI also has a new tactic. They've created a brand-spanking new anti-piracy logo. I suppose all the music- pirates are shaking in their pirate boots, knowing that the FBI's grand scheme to cut back on piracy involves differ- ent color arrangements. Lions Eve Editorial Board 05°06 Managing Editor: Gerry Dungan Pee Editor: Matt Kelly Associate Editor: Dan Delaney Copy Editor: Andrew Walter Business Manager: Shana Goldson Sports Editor: Katie News PENNSTATE Delaware | County The Lion's Eye Contributing Staff: David Hardison, Amar Ganti, Sean Collins, Justin Couch, Michelle Roche, John Miller, Sharon Achilles, M. Bruder, Frank Friday, P] D’Anunnzio STAFF ADVISOR: Professor Lynn Keyser Contact the Lion’s Eve: e-mail: gmd138@psu.edu, telephone: 610-892-1258, office: 202 Commons
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