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Napster Gags University Over Fees
A. S. Bradbury writes "The Register reports that Napster is trying to prevent Ohio University from discussing details of its contract (such as the price). In order to gauge interest for the service, Ohio University posted a survey asking if students would be willing to pay $3 a month in order to opt-in to the service. Sean O'Malley, spokesman Communication Network Services at OU says "Napster called us today and said we should not publicize the details or discuss our contract." Penn State and the University of Rochester both currently have a contract with Napster, but are paying for the service with money that could be used elsewhere, rather than allowing students to opt in."
Somehow I don't really trust what Napster is doing now, is it normal for companies to make this kind of information public or not?
The story makes it sound like Napster has something to hide that when known could cause all kinds of trouble for them.
This is the sig that says NI (again)
Somebody should start drafting the Freedom of Information Act request for this information tomorrow.
They've gone a long way, from being one of the trailblazers in filesharing, to a co-opted bully doing business through the RIAA sue-your-own-customers model.
It sounds like the admission of their discounted price is not going to please their subscribers either. Whoever they are. Anyone around here use it? I don't think they can really compete, to be honest. But I will continue to watch the online music wars with interest.
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
-- Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
"On the plus side, Napster users at the school would be able to download as much music as they like for $3 per month - Windows users only, of course.
Of course! I mean, those iPod/Mac yuppies already have iTunes, and share music with those Communist Loonix weirdos? No way.
Sadly, the DRM restrictions with Napster run high. Users can only make 3 copies of a song before the files become unplayable. In addition, students must pay 99 cents per song to move the file from their computer onto a CD or music playing device.
3 copies? 99 cents to move a song across some copper wires? Well, until the DRM is cracked, anyway.
Students would also only be able to download songs while they are on the school network. Once they leave school their music disappears.
Suuuuure. (See above about the DRM)
Has renting culture ever been more fun?"
*sigh* That statement is sooo true. It's a shame that the Napster name is still attached to this. In it's heyday, Napster showed a hint what a free culture could be - this is just stupid. I can't see thier service surviving in the same market as iTunes, not to mention thier total reliance on DRM to force money out of people. DRM is like balloon - once it's breached, it disappears - forever.
Napster is a zombie - it's already dead, it just doesn't know it yet.
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
Yeah, that's great. What are the chances that Napster is hosting a single band that I'm interested in listening to? Well, thanks to my tuition funds, some freshman kid somewhere can listen to his Limp Bizkit. Awesome. And to think, if I had done a little worse on my SATs, I would have been deprived the privilege of helping society in this way.
Breakfast served all day!
But to include it as part of a mandatory technology fee for ALL students is absurd. Not all students will even have internet access at home...
And that's just the point... This is a service that people would use at home. It has nothing to do with academics, or the health or social life of the students.
The administration at these universities must really have their heads up their asses to try a stunt like this.
Instead of paying to access the University network and paying to access Napster... why not just BYOA, download LimeWire and be free of the following evils:
On the other hand, I never went to University. I know that the U of R is in excess of $30k per year, though, and their student Internet access is a very slow broadband that everyone complains about.
-JemI don't think that's flippant at all... it is pretty much the same kind of volume discount used everywhere else. I just think that regular napster customers might be a little annoyed about the apparent arbitrariness of the pricing system of what is essentially an intangible product. Sure, there is something being transferred here, but it's not like in wholesale/retail markup for example, where the discount actually reflects the decreased overheads in terms of packaging, handling and the like. It's probably splitting hairs, but i think it's a little different in application.
As *some* Australians might say, "same shit, different bucket".
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
-- Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
Oh well. At least they are just dealing with Napster; my student fees go to Microsoft.
Open Source Sushi
maybe a few years ago, but not anymore. once universities learned how to get around laws about being not-for-profit, stuff like this (unis going into asshanded contracts) started to become more and more commonplace.
... i pay twice.
now for some OT which i'm sure will get mod'd down
it's pretty pathetic that the "academic tradition" of openness at universities (i'm speaking of public state schools, not private unis which can do whatever they want for all i care) is slowly being pushed to the wayside. universities are no longer run like places of education, but more like businesses. business has no place in education.
my state's Constitution states that (state college/uni) education must be affordable. in the past 2.5 years since we got stuck with a new president, tuition has consistently gone up. 5 new buildings have been built or are currently under construction, only one of which is used (partially) for teaching. the rest are completely dedicated to research.
the kicker is that this research is almost always funded by gov't grants (read: my and yours $$). yet, if i want to use technology developed on those grants, i have to pay for a license to use it
if a researcher here finds a cure for cancer, the uni's corporate arm will take ownership, and license it. that's damn sad. the days of places of higher education putting out freely available innovations are long gone thanks to the almighty ustpo, and the sad state of using patents to stifle innovation. i can only imagine the american forefathers are rolling in their graves.
vodka, straight up, thank you!
I do agree about boycotting but that doesn't work in a country of 300 million. Even if every loyal Slashdotist never buys RIAA or MPAA or whatever international product the company won't see a significant drop in sales. And they'll probably blame it on priacy anyways. We need laws now. Or at least assemblies. Capitalism only works on small groups Captain Boycott wouldn't care if the boycotters were only 0.001% of his sales.
Why don't you guys have friends or journals?
One source of ulcers for school administrators is the threat of being sued by the **AA or a major software vendor. That liability towers over bandwidth costs. If a university were to engage in some kind of contract with a company to fill student computer entertainment demands in a legal manner, the unversity would be somewhat legally shielded as they have appeared to have made a good faith attempt to curb piracy. Even if students start figuring out proxying methods to still get their P2P through the school's gateway, a DA would be less inclined to whipe out their endowment.
Drexel Univserity, for example, made a deal with Microsoft years back to let them hand out CDs to students packed with often-pirated software. This was not to save money on bandwidth from inevitable piracy, it was not a decision influenced by ethics; rather it was purely a cover-your-ass legal rhetorical maneuver because they did not want to get sued one day. An investment at a bargain price.
And what's with the title of this article anyway, talking about a company's non-disclosing pursuits, when the jist of the article addresses whether or not this should be an opt-in or general budget thing? Would anyone complain if their university comped everyone free HBO during this last Sopranos season? I doubt it, because this internet piracy thing is the incendiary hot button water-cooler thing whereas everybody knows HBO is a Good Thing (and that it is not TV).
Essentially, it seems that the RIAA wants to force universities to tax all the students in order to pay for the music listening of those who might otherwise download music illegally off the Internet.
It's a great deal for the RIAA. They don't have to make quality products, they get paid for every student regardless of the students use of the service. The only choice the students have is to go to another school.
I would have no objection to an opt-in setup. The FSF has already proposed a very reasonable setup that would allow ISPs to sell unlimited music exchange to customers for a reasonable fee that would go to the recording companies.
Interestingly enough, the RIAA has refused to consider such a reasonable solution and has recently discussed raising prices. This seems odd behavior for a group trying to gain customer acceptance of a flegling business model.
It seems to me that by raising the prices for downloading music, the RIAA is going to give new incentive to pirate their music. Doubling their prices, though, allows them to whine to Congress that now they are losing twice as much money as before. Oh no! In response, our congressional representatives will be pushed to create more poorly crafted legistlation that makes more citizens into criminals and assures the RIAA continuous revenue regardless of the quality of music they produce.
If you object to this kind of treatment, boycott the RIAA the week of July 4th. Don't buy any music. Don't listen to the radio. Show the RIAA that it's bullying behavior has it's consequences.
-All that is gold does not glitter - Tolkien
www.ra
of the ones who will actually be PAYING for the service, then they should just tell Napster to go piss up a rope.
OU: We are going to find out what our students think of this. After all, they're the ones affected.
N: No! You can't do that! It's a secret!
OU: We're not sure we like that...
N: Tough luck. We don't want those numbers out there.
OU: Well then, we regret to inform you that signing up with your service is not in our best interests. Don't let the door hit you on the way out...
FWIW, i have worked with sales people in a software company before.
The policy for sales to acedemia was to; Quote 50% of the commerical price (which was insanely out of a universities reach). Then just as the would be purchaser is about to walk away from the deal grovel to them how having the software being used in classes is a great asset to the company in the future and simply ask them 'what can you afford?'
It was claimed that in general you got the most amount of money from the buyer as possible. Sometimes a salesperson would even get away with tacking on a couple of grand to the 'most they could possibly afford'.
Before you say this is evil just rememeber that this meant all schools, rich or poor, could afford to buy the software, and almost all did.
If educational instuitions disclosed what they paid then the average sale price to acedemia drop down to the lowest price ever paid. Businesses would avoid trying to discount at all costs, because they would fear loosing revenue elsewhere. Setting a static educational price has it's drawbacks, you'll probably end up cutting some schools out of the market.
I think there was also a policy that if product was used by a commerical branch/startup/division of a school, the starting price quoted was 100% the commerical rate and the customer was treated like any other commerical buyer.
Uh, if the RIAA is suing you, it's because you are illegally infringing their copyright, and they have full right to sue you. How are you one of their customers if you're not paying for their content?
The RIAA doesn't sue customers, it sues pirates who are avoiding paying for their copyrighted materials, violating copyright holder rights. If you're a customer, you've legally paid for the material in some way and aren't on Kazaa ripping artists off.