2008 Woodie Awards
Letters to the Chronicle
Issue date: 10/11/07 Section: Opinions
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Safe Ride Home to be cancelled this weekend
On behalf of the St. Cloud chapter of the Delta Zeta Sorority, I regret to inform the public that our organization will not be sponsoring our annual Safe Ride Home program during Homecoming this weekend. Due to various circumstances beyond our control, including changes in MnSCU policy and liability issues for our national organization, we are no longer able to sponsor such an event. It is our hope that people will continue to choose safe options while celebrating, even without the Safe Ride Home program. Please be safe, responsible and watch out for each other. Happy Homecoming to everyone!
Alexis Gorshe
President
Delta Zeta Theta Mu
Piracy is a serious crime that faces real penalties
It is appalling that a company would want to produce a product and make money from selling it. Not only that, but they also be protected from pirates stealing it! It's a shameful and selfish industry, I know.
Yes, I can do that sarcasm thing as well. In the Oct. 8 issue, Andy Downs took a satirical approach at trying to explain why Jammie Thomas should not be prosecuted by RIAA, and instead be allowed to download music illegally. Thomas, of course, is an SCSU alumna convicted of "willful copyright infringement," for 24 songs she shared over the Internet.
I think this has to do with the bigger picture of stealing music (and videos) off the Internet, which I will try to address the best I can, rather than the specific case (there have been many other settlements).
First, we have to understand a few things. We have to understand that a firm's goal is to profit maximize. (Please understand I generalize a lot and that there are many complexities in market economics.) A useful tool for many companies to do this is copyright, which gives them the exclusive rights to their product (an idea so fundamental it was included in the Constitution).
We also have to understand that people respond to incentives (both positive and negative). These not only include financial incentives, but also moral and social incentives. To understand why someone might want to steal, we have to look at the incentives. For someone to steal, say a CD, from a store, there is the financial incentive of not having to pay for it. The moral disincentive is that the person probably thinks it is wrong to steal. The social disincentive is the risk of being caught, which is rather high, and the stigma of being associated with criminal activity. The criminal steals when the financial incentive outweighs the other disincentives. (Again, this is very generalized.)
The difference with doing all of this online is the social disincentives virtually disappear. You can steal from the comfort of your home with very little risk of ever being caught.
RIAA seeks to change this. While the chances of being caught online are still small, this first RIAA case to go to trial is one step closer to making the disincentives seem bad enough.
None of us likes to spend money, but stealing is illegal, unethical and increasingly risky.
Benjamin Seghers
Second-year student
Int'l business major
Plot twist being revealed in review is uncalled for
As a fan of the work of David Cronenberg, I've probably read 50 reviews of "Eastern Promises." John Yehambaram's is the first one I've read that gave away the plot twist. He's hardly doing a service neither to the film nor to movie-goers. Shame on him!
Catherine Doyle
Albuquerque,
New Mexico
On behalf of the St. Cloud chapter of the Delta Zeta Sorority, I regret to inform the public that our organization will not be sponsoring our annual Safe Ride Home program during Homecoming this weekend. Due to various circumstances beyond our control, including changes in MnSCU policy and liability issues for our national organization, we are no longer able to sponsor such an event. It is our hope that people will continue to choose safe options while celebrating, even without the Safe Ride Home program. Please be safe, responsible and watch out for each other. Happy Homecoming to everyone!
Alexis Gorshe
President
Delta Zeta Theta Mu
Piracy is a serious crime that faces real penalties
It is appalling that a company would want to produce a product and make money from selling it. Not only that, but they also be protected from pirates stealing it! It's a shameful and selfish industry, I know.
Yes, I can do that sarcasm thing as well. In the Oct. 8 issue, Andy Downs took a satirical approach at trying to explain why Jammie Thomas should not be prosecuted by RIAA, and instead be allowed to download music illegally. Thomas, of course, is an SCSU alumna convicted of "willful copyright infringement," for 24 songs she shared over the Internet.
I think this has to do with the bigger picture of stealing music (and videos) off the Internet, which I will try to address the best I can, rather than the specific case (there have been many other settlements).
First, we have to understand a few things. We have to understand that a firm's goal is to profit maximize. (Please understand I generalize a lot and that there are many complexities in market economics.) A useful tool for many companies to do this is copyright, which gives them the exclusive rights to their product (an idea so fundamental it was included in the Constitution).
We also have to understand that people respond to incentives (both positive and negative). These not only include financial incentives, but also moral and social incentives. To understand why someone might want to steal, we have to look at the incentives. For someone to steal, say a CD, from a store, there is the financial incentive of not having to pay for it. The moral disincentive is that the person probably thinks it is wrong to steal. The social disincentive is the risk of being caught, which is rather high, and the stigma of being associated with criminal activity. The criminal steals when the financial incentive outweighs the other disincentives. (Again, this is very generalized.)
The difference with doing all of this online is the social disincentives virtually disappear. You can steal from the comfort of your home with very little risk of ever being caught.
RIAA seeks to change this. While the chances of being caught online are still small, this first RIAA case to go to trial is one step closer to making the disincentives seem bad enough.
None of us likes to spend money, but stealing is illegal, unethical and increasingly risky.
Benjamin Seghers
Second-year student
Int'l business major
Plot twist being revealed in review is uncalled for
As a fan of the work of David Cronenberg, I've probably read 50 reviews of "Eastern Promises." John Yehambaram's is the first one I've read that gave away the plot twist. He's hardly doing a service neither to the film nor to movie-goers. Shame on him!
Catherine Doyle
Albuquerque,
New Mexico