Yesterday, someone sent us what was obviously a hard-core sales email from a top Penn State University official on behalf of an equally hard-core commercial company, namely Napster II.

It didn’t have a header or anything else to identify it and tempted though we were, because there was no way of knowing who sent it, we didn’t use it.

But we kept our fingers crossed (thanks Nicholas : )

Now read on >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

From: Executive Vice President and Provost
To: L-PROVOST-ANNOUNCE03@LISTS.PSU.EDU
Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2003 11:14 AM
Subject: Update and Information about Napster

Dear Penn State Student,

Penn State announced that it has reached an agreement with Napster to provide its "Premium Service" at no additional cost to students and at a reduced rate to faculty and staff. I would like to use this opportunity to answer some frequently asked questions regarding this initiative.

First, what is Napster? Napster is the leader in legal online music services and provides access to over 500,000 songs. Thanks to our partnership with Napster, Penn State students will be able to play songs directly from the network, download songs onto their hard drives, and transfer songs to other computers–all for no additional cost to students. Students can listen to and download to their hard drives an unlimited number of songs for as long as they are enrolled. Students will also have the opportunity to purchase tracks that they can burn onto a CD for 99 cents per track or an entire album for only $9.95. Purchased tracks may also be transferred to a portable device. Furthermore, the Napster service offers artist bios, album information, premium radio stations, and exclusive tracks unavailable elsewhere.

So who gets it and when? Because this is a pilot program that requires different sign up technology for both Napster and Penn State, the service will be phased in during 2004. In Phase I, students living in the residence halls at all campuses will have the service available starting Spring Semester. In the second phase, beginning in Fall Semester 2004, all Penn State students will be eligible for the service regardless of where they live.

How will I sign up? Students will have to enroll in the service using their Access Account ID and password just as they do to get email, look at their grades, etc. The service will be available to students who live in the residence halls at the beginning of Spring Semester. A pamphlet will be in your postal mailbox and a website - http://napster.psu.edu - will be available then. Both will describe in detail how to register for the service. The information will be provided to students living off campus before the service is made available to them.

Will the IT Fee be increased to fund Napster? The answer is no, it will not. The IT fee will no doubt increase next academic year, but by no more than would ordinarily be necessary to support the University’s IT infrastructure and other applications. There will be no additional increase because of our contract with Napster. This is possible because the cost to the University of providing Napster for students, although confidential, is very low as a result of Penn State being the pioneering school to launch an on-line music service. Penn State has worked closely with Napster and the recording industry to design a new service for college and university students.

Will Penn State still enforce its policies concerning improper uses of our network? Yes, Penn State has long viewed copyright infringement as a serious matter. There is simply no excuse for stealing music. Penn State will continue to undertake a vigorous campaign to educate everyone at the university about the legal and moral implications of illegal file sharing and will continue to enforce policies against it.

I urge you to use and explore the new Napster when it becomes available to you. We believe you will be very pleased with the service. Penn State is providing a legal alternative to the improper sharing of pirated music, in partnership with a company that has more than half a million tracks with flexible copying rights. The features of the service are listed below, as are answers to some common misconceptions.

Sincerely,

Rod Erickson
Executive Vice President and Provost

PS: The Holidays Season is upon us, and it’s a time of gift giving. Where can I get a portable player that works with Napster? Portable players that support Secure WMA (Windows Media Audio) files will play purchased Napster tracks. They are available from Dell, Rio, and Creative, and Samsung. The Penn State Computer store has the Samsung player (model YP910) available for a discounted price.

Features of the Napster/Penn State Service.

* Search music catalog to easily find a specific artist, album, or track.
* Browse through Napster content by music genre, their new additions,
the charts and check out what others are currently streaming.
* Manage your own personal music library of tracks and albums
purchased from Napster along with MP3 and WMA files from your
personal collection. Access all of your music centrally and create
playlists of your choice.
* Browse other member’s collections and learn more about Napster
listeners.
* Use your Inbox to send and receive favorite songs and playlists
to and from other Napster members.
* Download an unlimited number of high quality music files to your
computer. You can listen to these downloaded tracks online and
offline as often as you like.
* Listen (via streaming) to an unlimited number of full-length
tracks while you are connected to network.
* Listen to Napster’s quality pre-programmed radio stations. Skip
forward or back, loop through all the tracks on the station and
download your favorites.
* Get details on Napster’s services on their web site
.

Common Misconceptions about the Service:

* To listen to music you must be connected to the Internet. This is not true. You can listen to downloaded tracks without being connected to the Internet.
* The University is subsidizing the reduced premium service for alumni with student funds. This is not true. At this time, no decision has been made to provide this service to alumni. If it is, alumni, like employees and their families, will pay Napster directly for the service. No funds will come from the University for their subscriptions.
* The network will not support streaming. Streaming is a key feature of the service. Napster plans to install most of its music on a server at Penn State to facilitate such streaming. Although there might be some initial delays as the system is fine tuned, there should be excellent service to all on-campus users as the system is implemented.
* Songs cannot be burned onto CD. Tracks purchased by the individual can be burned onto CDs if the user’s equipment supports it. They can also be played on any portable player that supports Microsoft’s Digital Rights Management.
* Firewalls are being installed primarily to stop Kazaa. The primary purpose of firewalls is to protect students from computer worms and other programs that have caused many problems for students.
* The service is unavailable on Macs. With the addition of Microsoft’s Virtual PC with Windows XP, most Macs will be able to use Napster.
* Already downloaded tracks won’t work in Napster. The Napster client is a full music jukebox program and supports the inclusion of any music in the MP3 format among others.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 11th, 2003 at 8:15 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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