HEADLINES in Brief

Technology

Fox subpoenas YouTube over “24” Episodes. After a YouTube user… Technology

Fox subpoenas YouTube over “24” Episodes. After a YouTube user posted entire episodes of the hit TV show before its season premiere, 20th Century Fox sued the Google-owned company and demanded they take down the clips and disclose the identity of the user, according to Reuters.

Ravi: I’m going to side with YouTube on this one. I think media corporations need to acknowledge that most people do not perceive uploading and downloading videos as a serious crime. Moreover, it’s impractical and economically inefficient to try to sue every site or user that does this kind of thing. The Internet is just too big and too unregulated to be policed like that. Use that money toward a better marketing campaign, or better yet, come up with some ways of integrating online videos into your business models.

ABC, for example, makes every new episode available on its Web site for free. That’s a brilliant idea: If you miss a show, you watch the hi-def version – and some 30 second advertisements – on the official network site and stay hooked for the rest of the season. Ultimately it comes down to simple economics: If you offer people a better alternative for no switching cost, then they will quickly abandon YouTube and flock to the better quality content. Fox and others might do well to embrace the technology rather than to sue it to the ground.

Kimberly: If we look at this situation from a legal context, I think the court will rule in favor of YouTube. It is important to acknowledge the 1984 case Sony v. Universal Studios, which found that VCR manufacturers cannot be found liable for what someone does with the product as long as there are also non-infringing purposes of the technology. YouTube is not soliciting copyrighted material and allows individuals to post non-copyrighted materials. The precedent set forth in the VCR manufacturing case should apply.

National

Students get the Message: Leave phones at home. According to USA Today, high schools nationwide are imposing stiffer punishments on students whose cell phones interrupt classes and make it easier to cheat.

Ravi: But why stop there? Let’s do it at the college level, too. There is nothing more annoying or distracting than having a chorus of “MMMBop” interrupt a lecture. Cell phones are useful – some would argue they’re necessary – and I agree with that fact. Even still, I take the extra half second to put it on vibrate before I go to a meeting or a lecture. A ringing cell phone interrupts the lecturer’s train of thought and detracts from the reason that your parents paid school taxes or your tuition: to learn.

Though it hasn’t hit high schools yet, several colleges have installed cell phone signal blockers in lecture halls. High schools, on the other hand, are dealing with it directly, confiscating cell phones for weeks or even months. Cheating is a different story. Cheating is not a new phenomenon and has happened without the aid of cell phones and will continue if cell phones are taken away. It is upon the school to proctor exams carefully, especially during standardized tests.

Kimberly: I think that it is absolutely ridiculous that high school, middle school and even elementary school students feel the need to carry cell phones, or rather that parents have become so paranoid that they allow their 9-year-olds to carry cell phones. Many parents have argued that having a cell phone is for emergencies and for when they need to reach their child at school. Here is the solution: Call the front office, and the message will get to the student. There are five children in my family, and using the phone in the front office has always worked. I think teachers and school administrators are completely justified in taking cell phones away. Honestly, if the school principals have the right to ban tank tops or eating in class because it is disruptive, then they have every legal right to take away cell phones blasting the latest hits on the pop charts.

World

Saudi princess: Let my gender drive. At the World Economic Forum last Thursday, Princess Lolwah Al-Faisal of Saudi Arabia announced that if she could change one thing about her country, she would let women drive, the Associated Press reports.

Kimberly: Al-Faisal is the daughter of a former Saudi king and sister to both the Foreign Minister and outgoing Saudi ambassador to the United States. She is a prominent member of the royal family, and one of the country’s most influential female figures. This is the first time she has publicly denounced the ban, and I think that it is a step in the right direction for women’s rights issues. Driving represents independence, and if women cannot drive themselves to work or to take their children to school, then other efforts toward equality remain merely trivial.

Ravi: First of all, I like the idea that world leaders can “engage in frank