Cultural Forum helps bring
Carnaval Brasil benefit to UO
I he second annual event is
also being sponsored by the
nonprofit Students Helping
Street Kids International
By Steven Neuman
Freelance Reporter
The EMU Ballroom will be filled
with stomping feet and Latin beats
Saturday when the UO Cultural Fo
rum transforms the space for the sec
ond annual Camaval Brasil.
The Cultural Forum is co-spon
soring the benefit event for the first
time, along with Students Helping
Street Kids International, a local
nonprofit organization that pro
vides educational scholarships for
at-risk kids in countries like Brazil
and Tanzania.
SHSKI, which was founded in 1997
by former Springfield school coun
selor Bob Crites, originally focused its
efforts on Brazil, but the organization
began offering scholarships to chil
dren in Africa after Crites had a
chance encounter with Dr. Jane
Goodall at a conference in Portland.
Courtesy
Proceeds from Saturday’s Carnaval Brasil will go toward helping youths in Brazil.
Currently, the organization helps
six kids in Tanzania in addition to
25 in Brazil.
Deputy Director for SHSKI An
drea Callahan has helped plan the
benefit both years. The first benefit
was sponsored independently
by SHSKI.
"Last year was our first attempt,"
she said. "We were planning to do a
fund-raiser and were trying to bring
in a big name singer, but those plans
fell through."
Callahan saw the problem as an op
ium to BRASIL, page 12
'Private revolution' will end
industry's control of music
One theory of how the dinosaurs
went extinct is that they killed them
selves off. Not on purpose, but because
they just didn't know how to survive.
They grew too large to adapt to their
surroundings. They couldn't see the er
rors of their ways, and their Darwinian
instincts were not quite intact.
The music industry could learn a
lot from history. Just like the di
nosaurs might have done to them
selves, the music industry is slowly
aiding its own self-extinction. The fi
nal vestige of this dying organism is
a last strike, an all-or-nothing bet.
Lawsuits against file-sharers, insane
pricing of CDs and monopolistic
holds on an artist's material are all
prongs of the industry's last strike.
But like any prophetic statement,
there is more warning behind these
words than fulfillment. There is the
possibility of change.
But what can be done? The an
swer is complex. But there is one fa
tal flaw that has become excruciat
ingly obvious to most music fans:
There is no diversity.
Once upon a time, you could lis
ten to the radio and hear a little of
everything. It was like a buffet. The
dishes included hip-hop, soul, rock,
jazz, blues and pop all on the same
station. Today's mainstream sound
is the that of white noise when you
compare it to what is actually hap
pening in this country. The diversity
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in music has exponentially in
creased, while the media for com
municating these distinct and inno
vative sounds have decreased.
The lack of attention to diversity,
coupled with the rise of technologi
cal wonders such as Kazaa and Nap
Carl Sundberg
Reasoning with madness
ster, has given the audience power
once again. This has created one of
the greatest movements in the histo
ry of music. A private revolution, if
you will.
But for the music industry, it is the
source of its collapse.
According to the Recording Indus
try Association of America, the mu
sic industry rakes in $40 billion an
nually. The United States takes
about a third of this. These enor
mous profits are dwindling due to
music pirates. This has turned the
big companies into angry giants,
crushing any and all in their path.
On Jan. 21 of this year, 526 new
I -
lawsuits were filed against music pi
rates, on top of the thousands from
last year. This tactic is merely dealing
with symptoms, not the disease, and
it has done little to stop piracy. Like
the "War on Terrorism," this battle
will continue indefinitely.
One issue in suing file pirates is the
offshore cases. How do you sue some
one in Argentina? Another problem
relates to perception. The average file
pirate doesn't feel he or she is ripping
off any artist, if they think about it at
all. It's the corporate media outlets
that are getting the brunt of the loss.
This is partly right. In a recent inter
view in Progressive magazine, Tom
Morello, guitarist for Audioslave, says
that an average record deal gives the
musician "10 cents on the dollar"
while "the record label gets 90 cents
on the dollar." With this kind of unfair
treatment of artists, it's crazy to think
we even have a music community.
If the labels were smart, they
would invest their money in re
search and development rather than
police tactics. They would seek a
way to please the masses rather than
attack them. They would find ways
of embracing change rather than
fearing it. They would diversify their
sources of revenue rather than
greedily and ignorantly milk a dy
ing cash cow.
Turn to SUNDBERG, page 12
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