Penn State Launches Napster Music Service

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.

I assume they've banned DC++ ?

[rokzy]

at my uni the DC++ network isn't reachable from uni computers but is from personal computers in campus accommodation. it's so easy and fast a non-free service couldn't compete on equal terms.

Hrm.. The number seems a little low...

[Crasoum]

out of some odd 83k in the school, only 100k songs in three days? That is less then 2 songs per person, over three days. Regardless at least someone is getting a bigger cut (RIAA, Artist, Napster, whatever)

I was wrong

[Crasoum]

About 6 songs per student. (17k)

That's what I get for knee-jerk posting.

for a non yankee.. please explain..

[marcushnk]

What is a "Penn state" ??

Why?

[beelsebob]

There's already a vast number of music stores out there, why didn't they just let the students look at the normal ones? Oh, and while we're at it, didn't iTMS get 1M downloads in 3 days from US mac users when it opened?

Bob

So when is a Penn State student....

[Anonymous Coward]

...going to set up a tunnel through his machine to allow us to connect to the service through his machine?

Hell, I'd even send him a micro-payment for that!

Usage

[vpscolo]

OK now prehaps this might be seens as a troll but being outside the US is there any special reason Penn State gets napster? Why not all universities?

Rus

Re:Hrm.. The number seems a little low...

[Technician]

Shh.. Don't tell anyone. Requested streams without the DJ blather.. Line out - Line in VS $1.00 a song that has to be burned on a CD but not saved to hard drive to keep. Watch for these to appear on the local sneaker net as MP3's on CD and DVD's. Don't expect them to anounce this on or off campus. Someone will figure out how to take the freebie music (well included with tuition) with them. Many will reason it's paid for. It's mine. I'll take it with me.

Re:Sigh...

[MrRTFM]

The average user who clicks OK OK OK OK to get the software/music/whatever installed does not currently give a shit about any DRM crap.

They just want to get it working... now once this simple method of click through installs [ignorance] starts to fail and they realise the CD they bought wont work in their car, or the software they bought wont run after 3 months - they will scream loudly and it will really be heard.

'Poor Grandma Jones saved for 341 months to buy an MP3 for her grandsons new car hifi system - but the evil record producers wont let him listen to it'.

And that's only the start of it - imagine in 2006 when you 'purchase a game' (say DOOM5) - you'll need separate licenses for your home PC, laptop, work PC, PDA, mobile phone, game console, wristwatch PC, sunglasses HUD display unit, etc.. all up - to be able to play the game on your own personal devices (or use the software) you need to pay 6 times the cost of the software. There is no way people will stand for that, and, as a consequence there will continue to be piracy until they start to make it a bit fairer.

Anti-DRM DRM

[locarecords.com]

I run LOCA records [locarecords.com] and I've been thinking that a wrapper that expressly indicates the copyleft properties of a song would be a superb step forward as any kind of sharing method would just check that the wrapper was in place. This could be linked to the Creative Commons licenses so that people can find out more information.

Question is the technical issue of implementation - it really would need to be an extension of the MP3 standard (or Ogg) and would have to be non-changable and able to convince a court should anyone wishing to defend their swapping need to do so.

Maybe a third-party Verisign-type music label could be the answer that holds a database of public domain tracks that 'signs' the MP3 and which can then be checked against in a database?

*shrugs* from a psu student

[dalamarian]

I know all of the rhetoric, like this is "a step in the right direction" but I can't say that I am all that excited. I can't use this service as I live off-campus, don't use XP or 2k and I am not particulary fond of WMA. Not that I am really angry about it (unless my activity fees increase), but I am just not all that excited either. In addition, from my on campus friends, most of them said that it was a lacking in user interface but was still manageable. The biggest gripe was that a lot of artists/songs (popular ones) are no where to be found.

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