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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."
Aren't the contracts that public universities enter supposed to be public information anyway? They are, after all, funded in part by tax dollars.
Every citizen should have the right to know exactly what their hard earned money is being spent on.
I'm sure a lot of universities are agreeing to this in the hopes that it will keep students from "pirating" music and thus keep the RIAA off their backs, but seeing as the students will still have to pay for the songs if they want to burn them to CD or listen to them on a mobile device, just how useful will this be?
Both universities are on i2hub.com ;-)
Why pay the industry when i2hub has everything you want?
In Napster's defence, they're probably counting on giving steep discounts to drive adaptation, then raising the price to a less-steep discount when they have (lol) legitimacy. If the discounted price they gave to the initial colleges is known, everyone will want that price, and they will all be bargaining from a position of power. This kind of information is normal for companies to try and hide from the public.
Not that I'd shed a tear for the New Napster, but this doesn't sound nefarious to me.
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