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Dell and Napster Going Directly to Colleges
An Anonymous Reader writes "Forbes is reporting on the teaming of Dell and Napster to provide music directly to college campuses. The solution will alleviate network bottlenecks caused by illegal music downloads will enable colleges to use Dell blade servers on campus to store music from Napster's library locally. This will allow network processing speed to remain fast while hundreds of students simultaneously download digital music." From the article: "Campuses were 'shrinking the [available] bandwidth on the network to discourage' illegal downloading, says John Mullen, vice president of Dell's higher education business. He says schools want a way to minimize the impact of music downloads on their networks and encourage students to shift toward legal downloads."
"He says schools want a way to minimize the impact of music downloads on their networks and encourage students to shift toward legal downloads."
It just takes one student sys admin with access to the whole freaking library, and there you have it, piracy at it's best.
"I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection." -- Sigmund Freud
Almost everyone has their base music collection built by now, they would just be adding songs here and there. This won't help bandwidth issues, the big culprit is movie and tv downloads. I would just laugh a rep that came and talked to me about their service.
The solution will alleviate network bottlenecks caused by illegal music downloads...
Funny, I thought that uploading (sharing) copyrighted music files was the illegal part.
In my experience, although "music downloads" sap up a lot of bandwidth on campus networks, I would have to say that more and more the problem is becoming worm/virus/zombie-infested computers coming in from a summer of broadband connections.
A bandwidth shaper can more-or-less block or slow down "music downloading", but a virus spreading on the network is much harder to contain.
So... what about people who like good music?
-FL
"The solution will alleviate network bottlenecks caused by illegal music downloads..."
So by offering a pay service to students who have the capability already to pay, but choose rather to download illegally will alleviate the problem? I think a better solution to the problem is to offer a more reasonable rate per song or per bandwidth utilized for music downloads... Lets say $.10 a song. I would download music for that price on a massive scale.
News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
The push to promote "legal music downloads" on college campuses is only going to come back and bite these schools in the rear. Once they start taking it upon themselves to monitor network usage and to some small extent regulate it as well, they forego their Common Carrier status and put themselves at risk of being held liable when the student users behave badly.
By not restricting the network, they can always claim ignorance and place all the responsibility on the students themselves. The students are the ones breaking or obeying the law, and it is they who ought to be responsible for their actions. The school, by becoming a sort of network nanny, takes an amount of responsibility and can be held responsible because of that.
I think that the schools should either get out of the internet provider service altogether or just let the kids do what they want to do. Trying to ride both sides of the fence is just going to lead to headaches down the road.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
True story.
I used to be a resident advisor at UAH. One morning I woke up and tried to log on to Everquest. No workie. That's OK I thought, maybe an unscheduled patch... so I went to check some other stuff. It didn't work. AIM didn't work. This is all sounding a little fishy so I check my voicemail and sure enough, a bunch of my friends note that every game, filesharing and otherwise service is down, with exception of POP3 email and WWW. Couldn't even IMAP or FTP off-campus.
I brought this to the attention to the housing director, who knew nothing of any plans to alter the network. I knew one of the higher-ups in the network ladder, I talked to him but he was out of the loop. He set up a meeting with the appropriate people. I got there, along with the head of the housing department. Remember, we were represening a bunch of very pissed off college kids living on-campus. The guy blew us off, saying "school is about education" and "If my daughter lived on campus I wouldn't want her playing video games and downloading music." I countered by saying some of us come from thousands of miles away, and this is home, and we need to relax on the weekends when we aren't studying.
Long story short, we ran a petition drive, appealed to the president of the university, and after a few weeks of hard work and lobbying got ports back on a case-by-case basis, but they put in a load-balancing system and metered the filesharing ports to the point of being unusable.
From talking with colleagues from other schools, this seems to be a typical mindset of a University administrator. Good luck, Dell. It sounds like a good idea, but I think it will be a hard sale to make.
-everphilski-
First off, any service that you have to pay for is not going to stop illegal downloading; I think that has already been established, though.
Secondly, having a server on campus with Napster's complete music library seems like it would be a hacker's dream come true.
Not sure this one is going to work out.
is plain stupid. Who needs access to the outside world to download illegal mp3s when... on a student's campus. Seriously, if these folks have their personal computers on an intranet, nothing preents them to do massive file sharing through ftp servers and the like.
\u262D = \u5350
And the way it saved bandwidth (obvious) was by using a local caching server.
This is a pretty good idea... which is why I hope that Apple isn't too proud to copy it. I'm sure that the Apple/iPod/iTMS combo would provide a much more slick, and efficient implementation of this kind of system. They would probably even implement features showing you what was currently most popular on campus, letting you "be hip" with a minimum of effort (and this would also make the servers more efficient, since most people would download already cached content).
I'm less excited about a Dell+Napster interface. But that's just me! (and I'm not even a Mac zealot!)
"Hardware vendor sells file cache" is hardly a big deal.
My Journal
Why is it assumed that college students (or high-school, or middle-school) need to have hot-and-cold running music, enough that colleges should be persuaded to provide special accomodation for it? I can't be the only one to find a retail music pipe (financially benefitting the music industry, and I'm sure the schools, too) a bit removed from the schools' likely missions. How about a chocolate pipe, too? College kids like chocolate! And how about a pneumatic tube stuffed with clothing from the Gap flowing through each dorm? Grab a T-shirt you like (and if you don't like any, just get some because "that's what college students are supposed to be, like, doing these days"), and it'll be debited to your campus-cash card linked to your ID.
Nothing wrong with getting music online: there are lots of free offerings, and quite a few music-for-money sites with various pros and cons. And when colleges provide both housing and networking it doesn't make sense to have them locked down to academic-only use (more work than letting it be open, and hoping that it sometimes and somewhat benefits enough people either academically or as a creature comfort to be worth having it in the first place), but shouldn't it pretty much end there?
I don't like to think of music (inspired creative effort made manifest in a series of notes and words, expressing and eliciting a range of emotional states, divine / sublime) as the equivalent of those perpetually-on sodium-discharge lights, a commodity background prop that's simply expected to be everywhere you look (or listen).
Apple (and others) have shown that it's perfectly possible to sell music piecemiel online; great! What sense does it make for a college administration to tie themselves to one vendor of a product that doesn't even have anything to do with the reason that college exists? Why not just say "OK, you've got an Internet connection to every dorm room; how you use it isn't worth micromanaging, but please only do legal things."
Only semi-cynical, I think it has to be because colleges want to make money, and aren't always as particular as they could be about how they go about it.
Rant, rant, rant.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
It looks like this could be competition for Ruckus Network, which provides a file-sharing service to [some] universities and colleges.
"Teleporting Rodents with D-Cell Battery Displacement" theory -- IgnoramusMaximus (692000)
...just try implementing it with no-bugs and no round-about way in. The solution will alleviate network bottlenecks caused by illegal music downloads will enable colleges to use Dell blade servers on campus to store music from Napster's library locally. This will allow network processing speed to remain fast while hundreds of students simultaneously download digital music.
Hmmm? Looks like the schools will be paying to maintain the hard drives themselves (since it doesn't clearly specify who's paying for the servers) and are only really offered the service to host Napster's collection. The solution looks good for Dell and Napster, they can profit off of the school hosting the files for them just using internal network bandwidth. How exactly does this save bandwidth (maybe on the internet but internally bandwidth is still used)?!
A download is still a download, it's just that in this case the download comes from within the network instead of outside the network -- bandwidth is still used.
He says schools want a way to minimize the impact of music downloads on their networks and encourage students to shift toward legal downloads.
Until some student hacks into the system and spreads the leak to their friends and instead of downloading through the internet they'd get it from the internal network -- internal P2P! I suppose in this case the students could claim the downloads were 'legal' even if they used a hack to access them.
Dell and Napster are signing themselves up for a lot of work here, seems very similar to gambling to me, because they have their reputation on the line but on the other side of the coin...profit!
It's a nice idea but it suffers from a common implementation flaw (like attempts at forcing the CD to be inserted to run an application), if there's a legitimate way in someone will sniff it enough to make their own way in to the data.
Forbes is reporting on the teaming of the RIAA and the Yakuza to go directly to college campuses and start slapping people around.
I don't know... The "unlimited access to 1,000,000" is something both Napster and Yahoo are pushing. I've been using Yahoo's for only a few days now, and the $7/month covers me listening to a whole lot of CDs I've always wanted to listen to. Most of them I wouldn't have taken a chance on purchasing, and definitely wouldn't now that I have listened to them. Still, that's a lot of access to a lot of music even if I don't get to keep it.
This new services has nothing to do with the old napster except the name and the universities would be hurting themselves by allowing this sort of encroachment.
Can you play Napster on a platform other than DRM'd versions of MS-Windows? No. And when DRM is installed, it affects the whole machine, not just the music player. That's another two strikes against the idea.Then there's the WMA format itself. Many universities are funded at least in part by federal and state money. As such they should not be party to helping a recidivist company illegally leverage it's desktop monopoly to break into new markets, even by proxies like Dell and Napster. WMA is part of the core of major anti-trust legal trouble in Europe already. Don't drag the universities into that mess.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
schools want a way to minimize the impact of music downloads on their networks and encourage students to shift toward legal downloads
Uhmmm yhea. What about all the warez iso's, dvd rips of movies, dvd images, and porn that kids are gonna download and share with each other?? They are just as likely a bandwidth hog than any music downloading.
"So, Mr. School Admin, why is it that you're going with this service that won't work on 90% of the students' music players, and can't even be burnt to CD?"
- 23 )
"Well, Dell is a, uh, leading provider of technology to education, but mostly we've just always enjoyed big sacks full of money."
(should probably credit: http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php?date=2000-10
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
Quick, someone call Dell & Napster! Tell them that an Anonymous Coward on Slashdot doesn't need thier service and to halt all production immediately!
I don't plan on using this service for some of the exact same reasons you do. Additionally, I prefer listening to the actual CD itself in most cases. Or when I do listen to my digital library, I like knowing I ripped it myself with my own personal fanatical settings and preferences.
But I still fail to see why that merits a boycott just because you, personally, have no need for their service and product. Is this service going to do you harm some how? Is it going to prevent you from doing exactly what you are doing so far? No. Because you won't participate in it.
It's actually a rather decent offering with a specific market in mind. Clearly you and I aren't part of that market, but why ruin it for those who might be?
Grow up.
My campus (Southwest Missouri State University) just went to this plan with Napster, much to the chagrin of our computer community. The student government association said it sounded like a great idea while most of the students complained about it. The issue isn't that students have to pay to subscribe for the service, but rather that it is paid for by a student fee increase. This means that every student pays a fee for this service, including the ones that A) don't use it and/or B) don't have a computer. Moreover, the students that really download a lot are going to continue doing it through established mediums such as Kazaa or Bittorrent which will have a larger library than the ones Napstar establishes on the local servers. In general, it's a waste of money, but maybe it'll convince them to lift the bandwidth limit they imposed on campus last year. That's about the only benefit I can see from putting this plan into effect: a false sense of security from which many can benefit. Probably not worth the fee increase though.
What makes you think that universities could be considered for Common Carrier status. I think maybe you should go look up what Cammon Carrier means in the telecommunications industry. Since neither ISP's nor Cable networks are considered common carriers I think a private network like a University would have no chance. Just so you know, you can't claim common carrier, it's a classification that the FCC bestows on you and it comes with massive regulation.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
Supposedly, they let us download as many files as we want, except they'll expire in a few months when the 'free trial subscribtion' ends. There were even talks of having this program paid for by our tuition but luckily that got squashed.
'Services' like this are not going to work; people are just not as dumb as the RIAA and the gooneys that work for them believe they are, IMHO.
Yes, tis true. We are the future!
... has come to be like running water or electricity: a basic need. College campuses must understand that and act accordingly. You wouldn't cut everyones electricity just because there's someone with a stereo real loud, or you wouldn't cut the whole block's running water just because there are stupid kids throwing water balloons at cars in the street.
--MaxPowerDJ
I'd rather go on iTunes (which I do) and download a song for 99 cents and keep it forever and not have to worry about paying upkeep to keep my music playing.
Universities should not be wasting money on services like these. It is a waste of money that could be pumped into, I dunno, education? Its even more of a waste considering the majority of students won't even use the service either, considering the students want an *MP3* player, they can get a student discount on an iPod at the campus Apple store...not to mention getting an iPod Mini free if they buy an iBook. That transfers the burden on the students and not the university itself.
Regardless, the campus IT departments should simply block ports on their networks disabling P2P usage, and ban/restrict students caught using P2P programs. Taking a proactive approach would also most likely shield the universities from a court action by the RIAA or the MPAA by consistently showing the university is not negligently tolerating piracy on their networks. That is a better approach than forking over a blank check to Dell and Napster for hardware/services that won't even be used by the majority of students.
I think I shall contact the alumni center of my ol' university (UC Davis) and vent my displeasure over any such offer that might've been put forth by Dell and Napster.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
- there have got to be higher priorities for colleges
- Napster is a fading light, which is moreso confirmed by this
- college students are adults (or in some cases near-adults); they can choose what to do with their time- they're paying the tuition
- if we don't get music one way we'll find 10 others
- how does downloading differ from listening to the radio? i could record off the radio if i so chose.
- the bigger issue of the government cracking down on piracy so supposedly "fiercely" proves how skewed america's priorities are - it's simply an issue of the record companies not getting that other few million, boo hoo.
Mod this up!
The grandparent post has no idea what he is talking about, and I can't believe that it has +5 Insightful.
College networks are private networks and are not Common Carriers. It is like saying people who work for Ford abusing their Internet previleges, but saying that Ford has no part in it whatsoever. There is a reason why all corporations have policies on what you can do with their networks.
+5 Insightful my ass.
facts: downloading music illegally is a pain in the ass. problems like quality, difficulty in finding what you want, bandwidth on both supply and demand ends, and the fear of getting arrested all are things that discourage illegal music trading.
So why does it still go on? This is the easy part: Legally purchased music is expensive enough that the trouble and risk are worth it. If you want to eliminate (or at least reduce it to irrelevance) you need to lower the price below the "pain in the ass" threshold.
99 cents a song seems to be the current pricetag everyone is being offered. Sounds low, right? But when a CD I can buy for $9.99 is going to cost me $14 to download, downloading just became my THIRD choice, behind purchase and piracy.
Basically, the music industry is using online distribution as a new and better way to gouge the consumers at at even GREATER gross margin than ever before. They don't have to make the CD's, ship them, or worry about inventory at all, it's the deal of the century for hte record companies.
$5 a CD, .50 a song. Piracy will blow away like dust in the wind, and profits will soar like never before.
I just hope they don't automatically charge students for the stupid mp3s.
STUDENT: What's this "music usage" fee??
CASHIER'S OFFICE: Oh, that's so you can download music from the school's servers
STUDENT: But i dont want to download music from the school's servers, i got other sources
CASHIER'S OFFICE: Oh, well, sorry, everyone has to pay
STUDENT: WTF?? What about this "multipurpose building fee"
CASHIER'S OFFICE: That's the gym
STUDENT: I don't use the gym
CASHIER'S OFFICE: Doesn't matter, you still have to pay
STUDENT: !!#$%@#$~$@%&&#
damn universities...
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
As I have said numerous times before but I'll say it again.
ISP's are considered by the FCC to be ESP's (Enhanced Service Providers). They are NOT subject to the same regulations as Telecom Common Carriers, they are not regulated under Title II, and they are exempt from the access charges of long distance carriers ("Access charges" are fees collected by the local telephone companies for the origination or termination of any interstate or foreign telecommunication).
All in all ISPs are end users of the telephone network, like you and me, and while they are not entirely responsible for the content which crosses their network, they may be required to monitor and turn over the names of their customers who engage in illegal activity which is something that common carriers are protected from.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.