More and more universities are signing on with Napster to provide legal digital music download service to their students. The fees going to Napster are being drawn from student fees and are mandatory. It doesn’t seem fair to tax all students for a service that only some will use… and even less fair to impose a tax of this kind on all students because of the illegal actions of a few. I don’t like the smell of this.
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3 replies on “Napster Signs up more Schools”
I don’t see how it’s any different from any other kind of student fee or tax for that matter. I pay taxes for all kinds of things I’ll likely never use and I pay student fees for all kinds of services I’ll never use. It’s just the way it works.
Yeah, I can see that. I guess the bigger issue with this one is the way the schools are being coerced into it by being threatened with legal action when their students illegally download music. The $3 per month per student is their ‘get out of jail free’ insurance, I guess.
I think you’re right as far as what the school’s intention is for doing this. In that respect, I think the schools are totally misguided. Sure, Napster is great if you want something mainstream and easily accessible, but it’s pretty useless if you want something obscure. Studies have shown that the obscure stuff is disproportionately represented in P2P networks. It’ll be interesting to see what develops.