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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (May 26, 2000)
Illegally downloaded tunes may surf fans into jail ■A local music store strives to educate consumers on the copyright laws violated in services such as Napster By Simone Ripke Oregon Daily Emerald The controversy over the popu lar MP3 service provider Napster has been raging with some musi cians suing the company and fans being banned from access. While the issue has raised an abundance of questions among users, there have been few answers. Napster, which provides access to music in the MP3 format, has quickly gained popularity among music lovers, especially college students nationwide, but a New York federal judge recently ruled the company was breaking copy right law by providing its users free music. Metallica and the Recording Industry Association of America sued Napster and de manded its users be banned from access to their works. In an effort to close the void be tween the issues and to help edu cate music consumers and Nap ster users about the consequences of downloading music for free, Eu gene digital record company Rum blefish Records teamed up with other companies to launch the Downloadable Music Awareness project, or D.M.A. Rumblefish Records’ CEO and founder Paul Anthony said the goal of D.M.A. is to educate consumers about the consequences of their actions when downloading music for free from MP3 providers such as Nap ster. “There’s just an unbelievable amount of lack of awareness,” he said. “When you ask someone... if they feel bad about downloading music, they say they don’t.” D.M.A. fliers point out that the No Electronic Theft Act, or N.E.T. Act, has been enforced since May 1 and has provisions for penalties ranging from fines of $100,000 to $250,000 and prison terms of one to three years for as little as the re production or distribution of one copyrighted work. Currently, Rumblefish Records, Portland-based Supertracks and audio key technology company Cognicity comprise D.M.A. But Anthony said both the RIAA and Artists’ Coalition Against Piracy have commended the project’s ef forts and might be considering ei ther a coalition with D.M.A. or even the undertaking of a joined project. Michael Robb, vice president of sales at Cognicity, said his compa ny decided to participate in D.M.A. in an effort to convey to music lovers and consumers that there might not be music in that form in the future if they continue to consume it for free. “The biggest thing is that people need to be aware of the content rights of the content owners,” he said. Rumblefish Records’ projects coordinator Jeff Trinci said D.M.A. will help inform students and oth er digital-music consumers to learn about the consequences their consumption of free MP3 might have. “D.M.A. is important basically because people need to be aware that the copyright infringements that they are committing are ille gal,” he said. D.M.A. fliers have been handed out around campus, the communi ty and are available on the compa ny’s Web site. Anthony said so far the response of consumers to the flier has been positive. “It always sparks conversa tions,” he said. He said the flier provides some answers to the issue’s and recent developments regarding Napster and copyright laws. “Everyone bitches and moans about Napster, but no one offers a solution,” he said. Trinci and Robb said it is too early to tell how successful Fines for pirating Under the No Electronic Theft or N.E.T. Act consumers of free MP3s can expect the following conse quences: Crime: reproduction or distribu tion of one or more copyrighted works Penalty: $100,000 fine and 1 year in prison or Crime: reproduction or distribu tion of 10 or more copyrighted works Penalty: $250,000 fine and three years in prison source: Downloadable M usic Awa reness project D.M.A. will be and how large it will grow. Robb said it seems to make sense for people in the music in dustry to join and participate in the effort to educate consumers of music. 0019471 To earn a 4*00 in Brewology all you need to know is STEELHEAD* n 9 Award-Winning Micro-Brews □ Sonps, Salads □ Ribs n Fresh Pizza □ Sandwiches n Pastes n Burgers □ Spirits n Home-Made Rootbeer TAKE A BREW HOME IN STEELHEAD'S BOX O' BEER Steelhead Brewing Company 199 East 5th Avene Eogeie, OR Phone 686-2739 Eugene, OR - Birliigame, CA - Fisherman’s Wharf, San Francisco, CA - Irvine, CA Rape revenged with sword attack ■ MohamedTarish Al Hameli allegedly stabbed a friend whom he accused of raping his 14-year-old wife TACOMA, Wash. — A commu nity college student has been charged with using a sword to try to kill a fellow student whom he accused of raping his 14-year-old wife. Mohamed Tarish Al-Hameli, 25, pleaded innocent Wednesday to attempted first-degree murder. Pierce County Superior Court Judge Brian Tollefson set bail at $200,000. The 22-year-old man who was stabbed was listed in satisfactory condition Wednesday at Har borview Medical Center in Seat tle. Sheriffs detectives are inves tigating the rape accusation, deputy Ed Troyer said. Sheriffs deputies gave the fol lowing account: A neighbor told authorities Tuesday night he heard yelling and saw Al-Hameli, a student at Pierce College, running from an apartment in Lakewood, a suburb south of town near Fort Lewis. In the apartment, the neighbor found a bloodied and badly in jured man and applied towels to the man’s wounds. He then sum moned authorities from a nearby pay telephone after finding the phone in the unit had been pulled from the wall. The injured man, who had been stabbed in the legs and arms and at least once in the chest, told deputies a friend from the up stairs apartment had stabbed him with a sword but he did not know why. Deputies followed bloody foot prints upstairs, where they found Al-Hameli covered with blood and hugging his young wife. A few feet away, a small, bloody sword lay on the floor. Al-Hameli told the deputies he acted in revenge after his friend admitted raping his wife the pre vious day and apologized. Troyer said emergency dis patch operators received three calls from Al-Hameli and his wife Monday. First Al-Hameli said his apart ment had been burglarized and his wife was missing. An hour lat er, his wife called for help from a pay phone, but deputies could find neither her nor her husband. Then Al-Hameli called from St. Clare Hospital, saying he had tak en his wife there because she had been raped. The Associated Press I Crayola crayons declared asbestos-free ■The company counters reports with a test of its own, but results have yet to be completely verified By Jennifer Brown The Associated Press An independent testing lab hired by Crayola said Thursday that the nation’s most popular crayons do not contain asbestos, conflicting with a published re port earlier this week. RJ Lee Group of Pittsburgh found no asbestos in talc, which is used to keep crayons from breaking, or in the completed crayons. The independent lab report conflicts with a report by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer this week that two government-certi fied labs found asbestos in crayons from three major manu facturers. The asbestos, which can be harmful if inhaled, was re portedly found in talc. Of 40 crayons that were tested for the P-I, 32 were contaminated above trace levels, the newspaper reported. The newspaper said Thursday the labs had re-examined their findings and stand by the conclu sions. “We’re glad that Crayola says their crayons are free of all as bestos fibers. We’ll be even happi er if the Consumer Products Safe ty Division makes the same deter mination,” P-I reporter Andrew Schneider said Thursday after noon, speaking for himself and co-writer Carol Smith. “Lots of other labs throughout the country are now examining crayons for asbestos, and it will be interesting to see what their analysis shows.” RJ Lee, which has nearly 15 years experience in asbestos analysis for government agencies and private firms, conducted three tests on the talc and on two different color crayons. Tests were on Crayola’s pink carnation and orchid. The new results were forward ed to the Consumer Product Safe ty Commission. “The combination of those techniques, which definitively determine whether or not as bestos is present, confirmed that the talc used in Crayola crayons and the finished products do not contain asbestos and are safe for consumers,” said Dr. Richard Lee, president of RJ Lee and a consult ant on asbestos analysis for the Environmental Protection Agency. Asked about the discrepancy, * Lee said it was possible the news- * paper’s labs misidentified the compound. The newspaper re fused to release their labs’ results, Crayola spokeswoman Tracey Muldoon Moran said. “It has been common in the past for labs to misidentify talc fibers and cleavage materials as asbestos. That may be what hap pened in the case of the Seattle re port. However, without their re port and data, we cannot determine if their findings are a result of misidentification,” Lee said in a statement released by Easton, Pa.-based Crayola. There are no known reports of anyone getting sick from using or making crayons. And asbestos-re lated illness tends to result from exposure to airborne fibers — usually in an industrial setting. On Wednesday, Crayola said it was researching alternatives to talc, though the company main tains its products are safe. Meanwhile, the poison control center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia received many calls from parents worried about the safety of crayons, Dr. Kevin Oster houdt said Thursday. “I’m telling people that’s it’s too early for panic. Kids have used crayons for 100 years and no toxic effects of asbestos have ever been noticed in those children,” the pediatrician said. “If there is as bestos in crayons it needs to be re moved and we need to quickly and effectively investigate the sit uation. “But we don’t need to panic and we don’t need to throw out our crayons just yet.”
