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Rochester Signs Napster Deal, Hosts P2P Panel
extra88 writes "Following in Penn State's footsteps, the University of Rochester has struck a deal to provide access to Napster's premium service for dormitory residents. From the press release: 'In addition, Napster and the University's prestigious Eastman School of Music will be developing ways in which Napster can begin to provide original content from Eastman students and faculty to service members across the entire Napster network.' What does this mean? Perhaps not coincidentally, the university is also hosting a panel discussion about P2P file sharing on Feb. 16. Cary Sherman from the RIAA, university administrators and others will be on the panel and there is to be a live audio stream of the event."
and tuitions are rising because what? its too expensive for students to buy music in the regular market so now its just included as a tax in their tuition???
"Old man yells at systemd"
I suppose it makes sense for a school of music to embrace Napster, it's not as though they'll have nothing to offer. Presumably they're paying Napster here though, so perhaps they intend to make some of the money back via their "developed services".
I reckon this is probably a move on two fronts though - first it prevents the College being sued because it's officially above-board. Second, it establishes the college as a "happening" place - it's not just teaching string quartet music, it's working with new media in new ways. All very attractive to potential students...
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
I seriously hope someone at this panel makes the RIAA look like the fools they are. Suing their user-base, charging ridiculous prices, forcing draconian DRM (in non US countries) on people, and stiffing the artist.
And yet they wonder why they have such a piracy epidemic on their hands? Someone really needs to say/do something at the event to make a spectacle of the RIAA and how ridiculous what they're saying and doing is.
So now they can get legit music if they can't find what they want on kazaa?:) It must be nice to get something with the ~$700/month dorm fees other than closet-sized room and a lumpy mattress.
I think people will be willing to pay a resonable price for there music. Does this mean the RIAA is finally starting to get the message? Hopefully the future of technology and file swaping will bring us a future of direct music distribution without the RIAA... Heres hoping..
I hear Penn State students are using iTunes predominantly, which makes sense seeing as it works with the iPod.
there is to be a live audio stream of the event
You think they'll have to pay CARP?
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
It's a shame that an educational institution has to make a deal with a corporation to sate the appetitie of the RIAA's lawyers. I'm guessing the cost of this will eventually be passed onto students if they approve the service. Why don't they just pay for all you can watch movies too?
Why do people keep thinking that the new Napster has something to do with P2P?
Yes, I know the answer: "Because that is what the DRM peddlers wanted them to think, which is why they bought the trademark. But at universities and especially here on Slashdot I think we can expect a little more.
What the schools are doing when they sign deals with the new Napster is to drive their students into the acceptance of proprietary, Windows only, closed, locked, DMCA protected file formats that you better not even think about trying to port to your operating system of choice. What they are doing is welcoming into their campuses the future where the devices we use to communicate are not tools tools for freedom, but chains designed to control us. It is the equivalent of putting out a press release that all the dorms have now installed the new "Trusted door" technology, which will only let students out of their dorms when they have a valid reason to do it (I mean, you can't trust students - we know that - so why not have trusted doors instead???)
Stop lauding this. Stop cheering it on. Fight it at every turn. Do not sign up. Do not give them your money. Shout as loudly as you can, at anyone involved, that you will start spending money on music again when it is sold to you, rather then given in some fucked up form of leasing where you own the computer, the law prevents you from figuring out how it works.
Linux is dead in the DRM future. The open web is dead in the DRM future. Everything this site celebrates has no chance of survival when the Internet has become a centralized entity of information control. We have to draw the line HERE because we are the only ones who can. Every time we mention these serives in a positive light we are sowing the seeds of our destruction.
I'll stop now. ARGGG.
I attend, Rochester Institute of Tech(RIT), which happens to be 10-15 mins from U of R, and our faculty has just been "discussing" the idea of dealing with Napster. I didn't think U of R would come out of nowhere and beat us to the punch like that. First they cap our bandwidth, then we get upstaged by some liberal school to the west! :(
"There is no real right or wrong, just what the majority accepts at the time."
On napster, you can only get semi commerical/commercial music. The average college student demands far more for a file sharing service. With high speed access, the tempation is still there to download movies/software/porn which can't be done on Napster. While the students are downloading movies/software/porn, what would stop them from picking up a few tunes along the way?
"Permanent downloads--to burn to CDs or transfer to any of 60 portable music devices--can be purchased for 99 cents each or $9.95 for an album."
They will get access to the Streams (whoop dee doo), which are the equivalent of radio, or shoutcast. It does also say though that they can download locally an unlimitted amount of songs though, so maybe they just can't burn or transfer them, but there are ways around that.
~Brian
What kind of DRM do they employ?
I ask for personally selfish reasons. I'm a graduate student at U of R (not Eastman). I don't live in the dorms, but I do have friends who do.
I'm happy that I'll probably see benefit from this, but I'm not sure it's a good expenditure of University funds.
On the other hand, it is a good idea for a community to pull together and bargain collectively with the music industry. That's really the only way to reach a reasonably fair deal.
http://yetanotherpoliticalrant.blogspot.com
Skull & Bones members with insider connections to the RIAA have received copies of every commercial CD for Yale students at no charge.
I smell a big fat commie-err-Yalie plot.
The second perspective is that Napster 2 doesn't have anywhere near the negotiationing clout of Apple. I wonder how limited the song base is and whether or not the labels get control over what tracks are on Napster 2, because I'm SURE they weren't able to negotiate themselves out of that one. Is this simply labels gaining more control over what people listen to?
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- Napster wasn't dead and noone uses it
- It was free
- You could download copyrighted material (as you can with all other p2p networks - would the students care about anything else than the latest R&B albums or the latest action movie?)
Spreading your own works (music for instance) is a good thing to do over filesharing networks if someone downloads it.. However I assume that mp3.com (if it still existed) or similar would be a far better place as in the file sharing networks there is such a massive load of stuff available that you have to search specific things which i seldom beleive will be nothing but specific titles of copyrighted albums, movies, games etc.Anyone have experience with this? Is spreading your own unique creations really worth it over p2p networks? I would doubt that it is, but again, I wouldn't know..
So yeah. I'm a PSU student. They've just installed firewalls everywhere on campus to block out everything, but internet, napster, im.
No IM file transfers. No incoming ssh connections. No Network games. No Kazaa. etc.
PSU signed a deal with napster because one of the board members is on the RIAA commision. There is also some administrative link to Napster.
The big problem is that what they've put in place basically says "We don't trust you. At all."
We've had bandwidth restrictions for two years (1.5G up/ 1.5G down)
PSU: Listening to streams are free - there is a server at PSU run by Napster to make them clearer. Downloading to computer also free. burning file to CD $0.99 per track or $9.95 per CD. Songs worth downloading? zero. http://napster.psu.edu (outside accessible?)
Since we all connect to the net through our ISPs what if music producers cooperated with Internet Access Providers to make music available inexpensively? What if free music download (a la Napster) was bundled into internet access fees? Such scale would allow the fees per user to be reduced even further. Cheap(er) music download is a worthy goal since nothing is really free.
This is a stupid idea. The university is going to pay for music to be streamed from Napster, but students won't be able to download, burn, or transfer this music. They're still going to rip it off.
Moreover, giving students access to high quality streams of full songs is really really dumb. Come on, have we already forgotten our older bootlegging methods? If it makes noise, it can be recorded. One can either run a line out to a tape deck or find something like Audio Hijack to record system audio to the harddisk.
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That's annoying. Apparently you can't access their web site with ECN turned on. In case it's causing problems for anyone else who turned on ECN in their kernel config, you can turn it off with 'echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_ecn'. And yes, that does mean they are violating RFC 793. Anyway, if you're getting a connection refused error, and are using ECN, that's probably why. You can, as always, send complaints to webmaster@rochester.edu.
Well, it's not the first time for such to happen. Look at it, Orkut, a similar venture by another Ivy League college.
Not something I'd want to associate myself with, given the prophecy of doom another one of these ventures
shows with their photo of them "Leading the Way to Darwin". Fine, I'll be glad to welcome their demise...
"Forget the engineers." -Carly Fiorina, briber of MIT Technology Review.
I believe in real life Napster offers a combination of most songs you can download and play on one computer, plus a portable - however they also offer streamed songs, and probably for the school to reduce costs I am imagining they are going to provide streaming service only so the students can't burn CD's.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
After reading the news release for this part of the discussion :
If this didnt get a bit closer to advocating a police state under the rules of the RIAA as far as they care, then this
is at least in my opinion quite fitting for the definition of a police state. You have the encouragment of turning people in,
the monitoring of clear and non traffic for more than just the average security/quality/maintenance problems most universities
have/had, and you're also a private university. The only shining points are with the initial funding of this, but if this sticks,
the students not stuck with it are going to look elsewhere to colleges where they can concentrate on their studies
of their choice versus RIAA indoctrination.
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for those curious as to how bloodthirsty UR really is, tuition this year was on the order of ~24,000 ,which is higher than Harvard (Harvard students pay higher room and board). I live off campus, but getting that "we have to raise tuition by x% this year to better serve you" letter just pisses me off. How about they use some of their $1x10^9 endowment and drop tuition next year? How's that for a novel idea?
Yup.
It seems that there a lot of unelected people out there who have decided that they will decide who we will be giving our money to. Buy a PC, some of your money will go to Microsoft, attend a uni, some of that will go to the RIAA members.
Read, L
"and there is to be a live audio stream of the event."
And the MP3 will be on Kazaa about 20 minutes after the event.
"Straddling the sword of technology..."
I wonder if there is a way for students to 'exempt' from paying the portion of thier tuition that goes to Napster. Like opting out of PRIG ?
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I think it's good to ask Mr. Undercofler these questions because so far the information about "original content" has been extremely vague. You probably haven't signed a release which would allow the commercial distribution (which is what a deal with Napster would be) of any performance or composition by you so I doubt it's going to "just happen."
The panel is about P2P file sharing and was scheduled before the Napster deal was made (or finalized at least). While having someone from Eastman on the panel might make sense they do have someone from the Yellowjackets to represent the "creatives." The Yellowjackets press and sell CDs which probably makes the topic more relevant to them than to most Eastman students (that's not meant as a value judgement at all).
This wasn't leaked, the link is to a press release from the UofR and Roxio (owns Napster). It's also the top story in the current issue of the Campus Times. Previous issues of the Campus Times have had stories about the university investigating making this kind of deal (the Napster service part, not the "original content" part). You may find this Q&A page informative.
At this point they're not specifically making the Napster service a part of tuition so in a sense, you may be paying for it. Of course the release says they plan on making the service available to non-dorm residents too. The university has a lot of revenue beyond tuition or room & board. They're also doing this deal to reduce the amount of bandwidth used, thus saving money. I doubt the money saved on bandwidth will cover the cost of the Napster deal but if a significant number of students stop using other means of getting music and switch to Napster, it'll make a real difference.