Napster Strikes Deal With GWU 234
ParticleMan911 writes "In an attempt to thwart illegal music downloads, GWU has struck a deal with Napster to allow every student living on campus a free subscription to Napster's streaming audio service. Every one of the 700,000 songs on Napster will be available to stream on each students' computer. GWU is not disclosing how much the streaming service, available to all users at $9.95/Month, is costing them, but the first year trial of the service has been donated by an anonymous donor. Will this method help get rid of illegal music downloads, or simply be a handy tool to use while your real mp3s are downloading?"
Too bad (Score:5, Interesting)
And What About all the Other Traffic? (Score:5, Interesting)
Addictionware... (Score:5, Interesting)
Bit or a waste (Score:5, Interesting)
Quality? Access? (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, what about those who'd prefer to use their own "system" to listen to their music? This covers the gamut from those using alternative OS's to those who simply prefer a particular player (Winamp, Foobar2000, etc.). If this is a Windows-only, WMP/Proprietary Player-only scheme, it definitely isn't going to be all that popular.
Lastly, what about portables? Can you put one copy of a song on a portable of your choice?
There's too many imponderables with this scheme, and if it's typically restricted streaming (which I think it'll be, with Napster the source), then the best this thing can hope to be is a very fast preview for songs that people will want to buy/download.
Re:i can't believe it... (Score:3, Interesting)
senator hatch is the one who sponsered the legislation to take away everyones rights to share music. hiring his son is a valid critisism. there is a conflict of interest. we don't let senators work for lobbying firms when they leave congress for the first few years, so why would we let their children work as lobbyists. seems unethical. who would be a greater influance in how a senator votes? a former senator selling them on some legislation, or their own children who's salary depends on what their father does?
Re:One in the same (Score:3, Interesting)
But what about after the introductory period? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Too bad (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:For those not keeping track... (Score:5, Interesting)
The Napster offering is lame, the students cannot use it from home, nor can they play the teathered tracks without being connected to the network and logged into Napster. The streaming quality of 96kbps is pathetic, and most new albums and additions are buy-only, making the service almost completely useless. I'd rather listen to internet radio at a higher bitrate. As far as limmited network traffic, it probably does work, because those people who would use Kazaa anyway would maybe like it, and since each school then buys a RAID array Napster Server to host the service on-site, less people will be wasting my bandwidth
What a perverse society you are building (Score:2, Interesting)
where commercial companies come into schools and market their products directly to children, is there anywhere left in America free of sales pitches ?
kids should be suing companies for exploiting minors, still i guess as far as control is concerned better to have a society uninformed than informed, who else is gonna fight rich peoples arguments in Iraq/Iran et al
lemmings come to mind
My Alma Mater did what?! (Score:4, Interesting)
Is it me or did this come out of nowhere?
I guess donating money really has influence (no, it wasn't me who did it).
Then again, GW has done this before. They aligned Pepsi, can't find a single Coke on campus, have to go to the nearby Watergate or even further to get one. They also put fridges and microwaves in every freshmen room, and you had to ask to remove it or they'd automatically charge you. Not sure if they still do that, it's been 5 years or so since I was there.
The network on campus was quite good, they even had fiber optic installed in most dorms. So, I don't doubt the sharing of files in campus is quite rampant, and it will no doubt continue.
I'd be furious. (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not the college's job to enforce the law. They don't have to follow me when I walk into a store to make sure I don't shoplift. They don't have to monitor my financial transactions (even if I make them on a university computer) to ensure I don't commit securities fraud. And they certainly don't need to spend MY TUITION DOLLARS so that I don't infringe on some corporation's copyrights.
Add into the mix that they're spending my money on proprietary formats with proprietary DRM, supporting companies and causes I universally revile, and I'd frankly prefer they spent the money dumping feces in the center of campus.
Oh -- and a college education is DAMN EXPENSIVE these days. We're talking $40,000 every year. For four years, that's $160,000. And it's increasing steadily by about 5% per year. College tuition absolutely drains all but the very wealthy. It's only barely tolerable when you can convince yourself that that money is being spent on education. But the idea of spending my family's sweat, blood, and tears on nothing more than MAKING COPYRIGHT BARONS HAPPY is just insane. I'd be furious.
Re:My Alma Mater did what?! (Score:4, Interesting)
It's because Apple isn't offering the schools anything. If you think Napster's taking advantage of them, you should see Apple's offer:
"Let us advertise on your campus and you can bear our bandwidth costs with an on-campus server! FREE!"
I was _at_ the meeting with Apple when they were talking to our school. The non-techies at the meeting had a similar opinion of the proposed offer. If you think Napster2 is screwing schools, you've never seen what Apple is pushing - something that gives them free advertising, costs the school money, and has zero chance of doing anything about the overall problem.
-Erwos
Could this have something to do with (Score:2, Interesting)
A law student recently told me that when testing for the bar, one of the more popular questions to test your ethics is to ask if you've ever downloaded music illegally. If you say yes, you're cooked. Since GWU is in DC I'm going to take a wild guess and say they have a law school. If that law students story really was true, this could keep every half intelligent law student from perjuring themselves as their first act of BECOMING a lawyer
Cflix (Score:4, Interesting)
The advantage of the Cflix service is that popular movies/tracks don't eat up expensive internet bandwidth and are stored on-site.
One other advantage to the Cflix service is that it can be seen as a teaching aid (with the online campus library) instead of a purely entertainment oriented solution.
I don't really see the advantage of Napster/iTunes over the Cflix service...besides brand recognition.
Re:DRM is a doomed concept (Score:3, Interesting)
Problem is, that right now, I'm typeing from my first linux install (mandrake 10.0), and after taking a good look around it, even being a n00bie, I rather like it; it was easier and faster to install than windows (the windows CD-Key makes it more difficult to install, heh) and it all works outta the box (that's partially due to good hardware planning on my part). Infact, a few more stable versions, a better driver library, and mabye a few more user-oriented applications and automations and my educating myself, and I think it may be ready to give to my parents (of course, they get no root). Point is, there's something better out there already, and people are already moving onto platforms the RIAA/MPAA won't neccissarily be able to lock down as easily as they can windows.
Point here is, there's already vaible alternatives to the RIAA/MPAA's produces in circulation. As p2p services get more popular and search services for smaller bands are introduced, the RIAA will become a big, expensive pile of crap and 2 different cultures will arise; the dwindeling one that fallows the RIAA via traditional media sources, and the one that fallows internet music.
They aren't afraid of their music being pirated half as much as they are afraid of loosing market dominance through their monopoly.
I'm a GWU Student (Score:4, Interesting)