Music from the man

Students at Penn State are arguing against Napster.\n Ironic, isn't it? University president Graham Spanier recently signed a deal to subscribe every student in Penn State's dormitories to Napster 2.0, a re-tooled Napster that now functions as both a premium streaming radio service and a pay-per-download file service. The school, through technology fees students already pay, will cover the cost of the premium radio service. Students can download from a collection of over 500,000 major-label songs for 99 cents each.\n According to an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Penn State will be the first, but perhaps not the last university to sponsor Internet music. At least a dozen other undisclosed universities are in negotiations with music services for campus access.\n"This is a plan which we hope will revolutionize the music world," Spanier said. "We believe it will serve as a model for higher education."\nCary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America, served on a committee with Spanier to analyze file sharing in colleges.\n"We've always felt from the beginning that offering legitimate alternatives is an essential ingredient in changing the piracy equation," he said.\nIt's nice that Penn State wants to address the problem. Universities need to come to terms with the fact that online music is a part of college life. But this solution won't address illegal file sharing's biggest attraction -- it's free, if you don't get subpoenaed and sued. Many students continue to fight the RIAA and download despite the round of lawsuits filed over the summer. And though the school is paying for access to Napster's premium streaming radio, there are plenty of free streaming radio stations on the Internet already in use. Many big commercial radio stations have online streams for free through their Web sites. Paying for radio is absurd.\nThis brings up another point of contention -- the deal between the RIAA, Napster and Penn State appears as if the school is handing over student money to the RIAA, already viewed as the devil by young people. And the students don't even get to keep the music their school fees are paying for. They have to pay nearly a dollar per song on top of that to burn the music onto disc.\nIt's like paying the man to stick it to you. Even with over half a million songs to choose from, students will invariably pay for a service that won't have everything they want. Penn State has effectively taken away students' control over their money and handed it to the opposition.\nIn the Chronicle article, Fred von Lohmann of the Electronic Frontier Foundation also opposed the Penn State deal.\n"This is a classic example of trying to force students to take what the record labels are willing to give," he said. "... Napster mostly excludes independent artists."\nPenn State's biggest hurdle is economics. If students are opposed to Napster 2.0, and the university subscribes anyway, there is no guarantee students will ever use the service. If that happens, student fees are being freely sent to the RIAA and Penn State is licking the stamps.