Penn State Launches Napster Music Service 249
Owner of Azkaban writes "CNN has a story about PSU launching Napster for its own students." Also at live.psu.edu." This is the service we posted about last fall; in three days, the Penn State system has served more than 100,000 songs.
Re:for a non yankee.. please explain.. (Score:2, Informative)
One of the legacies of Penn is a love of freedom, and this latest embrace of P2P by Penn State is another in a long string of "Live Free or Die" actions.
The story of Penn State is long and quite profound, but it's not quite pertinent to this discussion (except for the love of freedom stuff).
Re:Duh.... (Score:3, Informative)
Iirc those worked at 2400 baud, just like every modem above 2400 kbps.
baud != bits per second, baud is transitions per second, the bitrate depends on the baudrate and the modulation.
Re:Hrm.. The number seems a little low... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:for a non yankee.. please explain.. (Score:4, Informative)
One of the legacies of Penn is a love of freedom, and this latest embrace of P2P by Penn State is another in a long string of "Live Free or Die" actions.
The story of Penn State is long and quite profound, but it's not quite pertinent to this discussion (except for the love of freedom stuff).
Great. Now for the Rest of the Story, told by someone who actually lives in "Penn State".
"Penn State", as the above (non-American) poster uses it, is actually the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. (Derived from founder William Penn, "Pennsylvania" is composed from "Penn" and "Sylvania", and generally means "Penn's Woods".) Pennsylvania is one of two commonwealths (not strictly states) in the U.S.; Massachusetts is the other. (The difference is largely semantic to someone not interested in political theory and the like.) Pennsylvania is the only of the original 13 Colonies that does not have a border on the Atlantic Ocean; it is bordered by New York to the north, Ohio to the west, New Jersey to the east, and West Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware to the south. The only coastline Pennsylvania has is in the northwest region, on Lake Erie; the city of Erie (home to Gannon University [gannon.edu]) is an important port along the Great Lakes.
"Penn State" is the abbreviated nickname for Pennsylvania State University [psu.edu], a governmental-run university with its head campus in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (the state capital); there are a grand total of 18 satellite campuses throughout Pennsylvania. Penn State is known for its football team, the Nittany Lions. For any more detailed information, check the link. (I went to Gannon, so I could tell you more about that school.)
Windows Media Player DRM (Score:2, Informative)
After that it's pretty simple. Insert a hook into WMP software (Google for 'wmrip') to write the un-DRMed data to a separate file. And there you have it -- a WMA file that you can keep.
A simple solution, really.
Re:Not more piracy (Score:4, Informative)
Not necessarily. In the UK at least.
I was speaking to a lawyer friend of mine and he was explaining that "theft" is an extremely complex area of the law and it is entirely possible that if a judge decided that what you have done should be classed as theft, then that is what you'll get charged under.
Couple of examples: British Rail vs a ticket tout. British Rail claimed that the ticket tout was stealing (theft) from them by reselling tickets. Despite the fact that the tickets had been legitimately bought and could be used over and over again - they claimed that it was theft of potential revenues. They won.
One other example: If you managed to find a way to take money from other peoples bank accounts and put it into yours. Technically until you take out the money, you haven't stolen anything. It's just an additional number of zeros added to the end of your bank balance. However - in the eyes of the law, you have stolen and you can be tried and sent to prison for theft (and people have) even though you haven't actually stolen anything.
What I'm trying to say is that although Slashdotters like to think that "theft" and "copyright infringement" are two completely seperate and distinct things (and even I think that too), the law regarding the two is a lot more complex and often means that they cross heavily into each other.
In summary: In the UK at least, when people talk about theft of music by digital copying, they're not completely wrong - but they aren't completely right either.
Re:Usage (Score:4, Informative)
Each administration decides on its own what's worth spending money on and what's not. Penn State decided this was a worthwhile investment for its student body and other schools have not. Personally, I would side with the other schools if I were a student at Penn State, but as I'm not, I couldn't care less.
-N
Re:Anyone? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:for a non yankee.. please explain.. (Score:3, Informative)
Lets hope this was intended as a joke (Score:3, Informative)
Just in case it wasn't and you been in a hole for last year.
This is the new napster. The commercial one, that signed a contract with penn state to take part of the kids fees and give them to the RIAA because madonna is starving to death. Or something like that anyway.
It is legal. Well legal from the RIAA point of view. That of course people with non-ms os (or how about those without a computer? or who don't like riaa music?) have to pay for it yet can't use it is merely one of those boring side effects. (Can you force people to pay for something they can't use?)
Re:Usage (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Usage (Score:2, Informative)
All Universities have the option to develop similar programs to this, but this one specifically was an initiative conducted by PSU.
And also don't forget... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Not more piracy (Score:2, Informative)
Re:for a non yankee.. please explain.. (Score:2, Informative)
There are two more commonwealth states you are forgetting about. Kentucky and Virginia are also Commonwealth states.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)