4A the university daily kansan opinion friday, february 27, 2004 EDITORIAL BOARD Suits don't solve music piracy; other ideas better The Recording Industry Association of America filed 531 lawsuits against Internet music downloaders last week. Its tactics are aggressive and highly irrational. Anyone can agree that stealing music is wrong, but lawsuits aren't the way to go. The RIAA should get creative. Cary Sherman, RIAA president, said that her company hoped Internet downloads were only a trend, but suspected many people were finding other ways to download their music. The RIAA has sued 1,445 people since September all varying in age, race and gender. The RIAA wants to get the message across that everyone who downloads music is at risk. But, consumers of Internet music haven't stopped downloading and most likely never will. OURVIEW Lawsuits don't solve the problem of music downloads. Innovative marketing tactics for selling music work better. There are other ways to combat music piracy. Companies such as Pepsi have teamed up with Apple's iTunes to create a program where buying music for a cheap price has become more popular. Pepsi began running advertisements during the Super Bowl to kick off this campaign. Pepsi is trying to poke a bit of fun at the RIAA while encouraging people to join in and change the problem. For two months, people will be able to download 100 million free and legal downloads. Dave Burwick, chief marketer of Pepsi said the program was a success. "We're turning people to buying music online versus stealing it online," Burwick said. College campuses nationwide are looking at alternatives. Penn State has teamed up with Napster to allow students free, limited access to a library of songs to download. Any songs downloaded will cost a student 99 cents. The Napster fee of $9.99 a month has been absorbed into a University technology fee. Companies such as iTunes, Roxio and even Wal-Mart have gotten smart and now offer music downloads for a fraction of the normal price. It's about time other companies look at options to sway the current popular trend. No one can ever defeat a problem by suing it to death. Making music available at a low price without the threat of a lawsuit is a solid idea. PERSPECTIVE Know facts before watching 'The Passion' Once again, the local movie theater is poised to lure us from more important ways to spend our time. Here, I offer a su GUEST COMMENTARY Here, I offer a suggestion on how we John Tyburski opinion@kansan.com may contemplate Mel Gibson's widely anticipated and hotly debated movie, The Passion of the Christ. I must admit I have not seen the film. I do not have a specific agenda for or against Mel Gibson or the film itself. I am not taking any particular position on the specific content or how some individuals may respond to it. I do, however, want to suggest a means for assessing the message. exactly the same allurements and consequences. I have a somewhat cynical attitude toward mass media and film and video entertainment in particular. The media and the arts unequivocally prescribe certain lifestyles and philosophies. Both cinema and television have a startling capacity to deceive because, not only do they espouse certain world views, they supply striking images to reinforce them as well. The result is a unique intrusion on the mind and a dangerous seduction of the imagination, all coming from an unavoidable reduction of truth: Everything is boiled down to what the producers deem fit for the screen, inexorably limited by what fits on the screen. no matter how accurate the film is, we must also understand that the medium is only capable of presenting a small part of a vast story. Therefore, I challenge anyone making inductions from this film to first test it against the written word within the panoply of Scripture before forming solid conclusions. Another result of this gluttonous consumption of the visual is a loss of the capacity for abstract reasoning, and what follows is too often, as author Ravi Zacharias calls it, "a problematic induction." Art is meant to point to something beyond itself, but with movies and television we see via the camera, an inherently deceptive instrument. The camera presents only fragments, and with the help of sound and clever editing, it tricks us into thinking we have seen a complete story. "In short," says film producer David Putnam in Andrew Yule's book *Fast Fade*, "cinema is propaganda," and it is "too powerful to be left solely to the tyranny of the box office." It is television programming, often lacking in adequate epistemological foundation, by which most citizens of the industrialized world come to philosophy. The average American is now watching more than 20 hours each week, according to a February article in Scientific American. By age 18 a person has spent thousands more hours in front of a television than in school. Considering the concurrent increases in the rates of obesity and diabetes, it seems we may be entertaining ourselves to death. Although commanding less of our time, cinema confronts us with After all, as Malcolm Muggeridge points out in his book *Christ and the Media*, John did not write, "In the beginning was video." Rather, he wrote, "In the beginning was the Word." The Word is the best measure for assessing this film and making the right induction; induction by any other means runs the risk of becoming problematic. ation of the Christian world view. How authentic and complete is it? To answer, one must go into this film with an adequate external measurement for determining the adequacy of its epistemological base, otherwise one faces the risk of making a problematic induction on a serious topic. One must know "what ought to be" in order to make pronouncements on "what is." The camera, on the other hand, tricks us into reversing our induction by suggesting that what it presents is "what ought to be." The Bible, particularly the New Testament gospel, serves as the only correct, irreducible framework for assessing The Passion in terms of what it ought to be. We must have a trustworthy point of reference for assessing this film. Even so, The Passion disseminates some iter- Tyburski is a Lecopton doctoral candidate in physiology and cell biology. Nate Beeler for KRT Free for All Call 864-0500 Free for All callers have 20 seconds to speak about any topic they wish. Kansan editors reserve the right to omit comments. Slanderous and obscene statements will not be printed. Phone numbers of all incoming calls are recorded. For more comments, go to www.kansan.com □ You know what is exciting? Looking at my ARTS form and seeing all them all fulfilled. Requirements fulfilled. I was just in the Union and they have KU sweatshirts in Carolina blue. What's up with that? even human. It is whatever will get me to the next mile marker, past the next deadline, through the next billing period or over the current hurdle. Somehow, that feels like a treasonous compromise. 图 Damn, pink is my favorite color. even human. It is whatever will get me to the next mile marker, past the next deadline, through the next billing period or over the current hurdle. Somehow, that feels like a treasonous compromise. I saw a bus giving off an ungodly amount of smoke and I thought to myself: That is where global warming comes from. I think that people on K-10 need to stay in the right lane if they are slower traffic. Thev suck. even human. It is whatever will get me to the next mile marker, past the next deadline, through the next billing period or over the current hurdle. Somehow, that feels like a treasonous compromise. 图 The NRA says that guns don't kill people, people do, but I think that the guns helps. CORRECTION In Thursday's University Daily Kansan Dave Chappelle's name was misspelled in the column, "Male Chivalry a lost tradition, keep kindness alive." PERSPECTIVE Be your own superhero: never lose sight of goals "Nobody told me growin' up would be this way / Nothin' but stress and work all day / Not much time to play when you gotta get paid / Runnin' round in circles like a rat in a maze / I feel cheated, bamboozled, and run amuck / The system that made me age is corrunt... " — Joe Good (of SoundsGood), Peter Pan from the 2002 album, Joe Good and Miles Bonny Present... When I was a kid, I used to want to be a superhero. I memorized the origin story of just about every major player in the universe of comic literary figures — Spiderman, the X-Men, Batman — and I longed for the day when my name would be mentioned among their ranks. COMMENTARY That day never came as there were never any radiative spiders around, I was born without a mutant gene and there was no chip on my shoulder burdensome enough to turn me into a somber dark knight like Bruce Wayne. Cornelius Minor opinion@kansan.com These days, my spandex-clad-hero complex has been eclipsed by the frenzied nature of a life that has grown to encompass classes, work and all the activities in which I engage as I aspire to a different kind of greatness - success. What were once concrete childhood dreams of vanquishing evil have yielded to my young adult hopes to make it from Monday to Friday without incident or missed due dates. What I stand for these days is not a superhuman quality. Most days it's not Though I know that I will never be a Captain America, there are persisting aspirations — dreams to change the world or desires to be bigger than the things that constrict me — that often get lost in this business of life. They are hidden behind everyday tasks. Sometimes I go weeks caught up in the fury of being and forget to think about them. That leads me to wonder: Beyond just getting by or getting over, what are the ideas that consume our lives? If we are what we think and what we struggle for, are we simply a campus of extracurricular activity balancers, last-minute homework-doers and Bottleneck party-goers? Do we, collectively and individually, strive for anything larger? In what ways are those hopes visible? This week, I spent a lot of time considering that quest for success, and how it has transformed me. As I talked with several of my friends, I wasn't surprised to find that many of us have changed in similar ways. At some time in the progression of our lives the daily activity that was once beautiful, exploratory and carefree has become more urgent and mandatory. We have not lost the flavor and pizzazz with which we live life, but we seem to have forgotten the multiple passions with which we dreamed its infinite possibility. That small lapse has meant a world to my lived experience personally. When I think about the types of people who we have the ability to become, I can only imagine how our unwillingness to dream today will have adverse effects on the quality of tomorrow. Even though I stay busy, it is imperative that I remember that my constant activity is not just for a degree that will eventually yield a job. There is a greater Companies have made fortunes off selling us heroes primarily because we have ceased to be so for ourselves. When I was younger, I wanted to be as big as my dreams would allow me to be. I wanted to fly, to fight, to challenge and to inspire. Fundamentally my dream was and still is to contribute. These days, I just want to make it through the week, and as my days get increasingly frantic, I look forward to weekends when I plug in to my PlayStation 2. From there, I play the hero quite frequently. It would be a ridiculous waste of talent if those were the only times that I ever got to do it. Minor is an Atlanta graduate student in American studies. He is the co-host of Voice Activated, J.KHK 90.7FM, 7 p.m., Thurs. KANSAN challenge that lies on the other side of those things. There is the challenge of creating a world better than the one my parents left me, and there is the challenge of forging opportunity for those who will come after me. Michelle Rombeck editor 864-4854 or miburhenn@kansan.com Andrew Vaupel managing editor 864-4854 or vaupel@kansan.com Meghan Brune and Johanna M. Maska opinion editors 864-4924 or opinion@kansan.com Danielle Bose business manager 864-4358 or adddirector@kansan.com Stephanie Graham retail sales manager 864-4358 or adsales@kansan.com Matt Fisher sales and marketing adviser 864-7688 or mflafer@kansan.com Meelcol Gibson general manager and news adviser 864-7687 or mglibon@kansan.com Editorial Board Members Kendall Dix ■ Amanda Flock ■ Lynzee Ford Laura Francoviglia ■ Kelly Gregory Amy Hammontree ■ Kelly Hollowell ■ Teresa Lo Stephanie Lovett **■** Mindy Deborne Greg Holmquist **■** Ryan Scarrow **■** Sara Behukn-e Kavin Flaherty **■** Brandon Gay **■** Zack Hermanway Alex Hoffman **■** Kevin Kampolvirth Amy Kelly **■** Cameron Koaling **■** Courtney Kuhlen **■** Brandi Mathiesen **■** Travis Metcalf Mike Norris **■** Jonathan Reeder **■** Erin Riffey Norris Jonathan heeder Erin kirey Alessia Smith Kari Zimmerman .