At the beginning of this week, a The Tartan spokesperson revealed to Readme in an exclusive interview that CMU Administration and The Tartan were planning on reviving a copyright dispute that is over a century old against Radford University. As it turns out, CMU is not the only institution with a publication named The Tartan, with RU's student publication also sharing this exact name. "Given our school's namesake, we would be remiss not to pursue legal action in the name of the great American spirit of enterprise and capitalism", explains the spokesperson.
Details for legal action against RU were discovered when a group of students was rummaging through the UC's backrooms searching for old The Tartan articles for archival purposes, particularly one article whose content shall not be named. Upon discovering documents detailing the feud, they were forwarded to CMU Administration. Curiously, the cease and desist letter was supposed to be sent in 1921, the same year RU's newspaper began, but a whole 57 years before RU's publication, originally known as The Grapurchat, had changed its name to The Tartan. Perhaps Andrew Carnegie's business acumen allowed him to see the future and stop the dark timeline of a competing University stealing our beloved publication's name, or perhaps, being the ruthless capitalist that he was, he decided that he owns the very concept of a studentrun college publication. Unsure of the grounds for the original feud, as well as the original plans for escalating legal action, CMU administration and CMU's The Tartan has decided to hire a team of priests and priestesses from various religions in the hopes of communing with the ghost of Andrew Carnegie (and maybe Andrew Mellon too as a little bonus, not that he matters).
Pushback against CMU's decision has been vocal. Some have voiced how petty it is to revive a copyright feud that is now over a century old. Furthermore, attempting to commune with the ghost of Andrew Carnegie is not without risk. Expert spiritologist John Spirit explains "Communing with [Andrew Carnegie's ghost] could bring calamity to campus if he discovers the absolute state of American work ethic. In my expert opinion, I would suggest that the University set up fake steel mills and hire child actors to be the workers.”
RU has only just received the cease and desist letter, and we all await their response with bated breath.
