Napster II at Rochester U
p2pnet.net News:- University of Rochester Napster II sign-ups are at about the “level of demand” the university had expected.
So says a DemocratandChronicle.com report here, going on that students were able to start subscribing on March 15, the first day of classes after spring break and slightly more than a month after UR announced it would provide the service for free to its on-campus students.
The service is a marketing ploy conceived by the Big Five record labels and implemented by their RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America). Penn State was the first US university to be blessed.
The RIAA has oozed the Roxio ’service’ onto the campuses under the pretext of saving students from being prosecuted by its owners, the labels, for sharing music without their [the labels'] permission.
At UR, “So far, close to 1,200 students have signed up,” provost Charles Phelps, an enthusiastic RIAA supporter, is quoted as saying, going on that the university has 3,700 on-campus students, “but roughly 25 percent of them cannot access Napster because their computers don?t meet the system requirements.”
By this fall, both UR and Penn State plan to make Napster available for free to all of their students, says the report. “UR also is planning a series of educational efforts in the fall regarding digital music piracy, Phelps said, from freshman orientation to a two-credit course.”
Would ’sales’ perhaps be a more appropriate word than ‘educational’?
Be that as it may, the “additional publicity should boost the number of students subscribing to the service,” the story has Phelps stating.
He also says, “This is what we call a ’soft launch’.”
Is that an accepted academic term?
DemocratandChronicle.com says UR will pump out subs for free “at least through the 2004-05 school year”.
Presumably, that means students will have to start paying for Napster II after that.
hmmmmmm
