Legal file sharing is a joke
If the Daily Bruin Editorial Board is going to urge students to use legal services to download music (“UCLA will turn you n for illegal file-sharing,” Viewpoint Nov. 5), they may as well urge students not to listen to any music at all.
That’s because legal file sharing, as it is currently constituted, is laughable for not only serious lovers of music, but particularly for college students.
Almost every online music store uses a form of Digital Rights Management, a series of restrictions placed on files such as not being able to burn them to a CD. In this way, you’re not so much buying the file as you are buying the right to play it.
Along the same lines, downloadable files are not always universal. Ruckus, for instance, offers files which are not compatible with Apple’s iPod.
Considering that many UCLA students own an iPod, what sense would it make to use Ruckus? None. Or, for that matter, the other services that the university’s Get Legal initiative has touted in the past that also didn’t support the iPod?
And then there’s the iTunes Store, which supports the iPod. It also sells files that are less than CD quality and that are digitally protected, not to mention outrageously overpriced.
Apple recently released a 160 GB iPod, which it said can hold up to 40,000 songs.
Guess how much it would cost to fill this iPod up with 99-cent songs purchased off iTunes? How does almost $40,000 sound?
Even if you have a 40 GB iPod, you’re still looking at over $10,000 to fill it with iTunes songs. Would any sane person pay the price of a luxury sedan to fill up an iPod with low-quality, DRM-restricted files? I sure hope not.
I find it disheartening that the editorial board failed to make any sort of argument about this multifaceted issue and instead just parroted a letter the university sent out to students a couple weeks ago.
It’s unrealistic to ask broke college students to spend money downloading music when so much of it is available to them for free.
And, of course, people can argue until they’re blue in the face about the moral implications of file sharing and whether it is, in fact, stealing in the basic sense of the word.
Yet the fact that so many students (many of them at UCLA) feel no remorse in downloading music is indicative of a sea change.
Coincidentally, “Sea Change” is a great album by Beck that everyone should go download.
Mark Humphrey
UCLA alumnus, class of 2007
Former Daily Bruin music editor,
Former member of the Daily Bruin Editorial Board
Be aware of student safety issues
As evidenced by the Daily Bruin Crimewatch blog, there are many crimes in different places on and around campus. These places include campus buildings, residence halls, Westwood apartments and areas that surround campus.
It is for this reason that the Undergraduate Students Association Council Student Welfare Commission will kick off the second annual Campus Safety Awareness Week. With recent events like the shootings at Virginia Tech and even the Taser incident at Powell library last November, campus safety remains a priority for students, faculty and staff.
Campus Safety Awareness Week was designed to educate students on different issues including sexual assault and violence, responding in emergency situations, and understanding one’s rights as a student.
Students will find out about on and off-campus resources, be able to view an art exhibition on sexual assault and violence, contribute to the Virginia Tech Quilt Project, and attend a workshop from the American Civil Liberties Union.
We invite all students and the UCLA community to learn about resources that are available and take part in the other events that will be happening the rest of the week.
We must all do our part in ensuring that UCLA is a safe place for all. Campus Safety Awareness Week can be a start.
Gregory Cendana
Campus Safety Director, USAC Student Welfare Commission
Fourth-year, sociology
Jonathan Pham
USAC Student Welfare Commissioner
Fourth-year, physiological science