p2pnet.net News:- The Big Five record labels’ RIAA and Joint Committee of the Higher Education and Entertainment Communities shoe-horned Napster II into the US university system, opening the way for other music industry supplied and backed services such as Sony’s and Apple’s, with Microsoft looming in the background, to follow.

For the moment, Napster II is the only game in town - as far as campuses are concerned, anyway.

But Napster II’s owner Roxio can use all the help it can get in schools and elsewhere and it’s now pitching the University of Ohio, in the process providing an interesting look into its pricing efforts of which, hitherto, little was known, as well as other aspects of its ’service’.

Revelations include the fact that downloaded files become unplayable when subscription are cancelled or users graduate and/or transfer; and, downloaded tracks can only be played on a computer.

The university has an online form here through which it’s asking possible punters to indicate whether they want Napster II, or not.

Called Student Opinion Survey: Napster on Campus, it says:

“Ohio University is considering forming a partnership with Napster to provide an online music downloading service to students at a discounted rate. For the program to work, a fairly large percentage of students would have to sign up for the service.

“To help us gauge whether a Napster contract is worth pursuing, please take a few moments to read the program description and answer the six questions below.”

Note: at a discounted rate.

Features of Napster’s Current Offer

• Optional service - you choose whether to sign up or not
• $3.00 per month, billed directly to your student account
• Access to full Napster catalog (600,000+ tracks)
• Unlimited downloads, on campus or off
• Unlimited streaming
• Local server - on-campus download speeds of under a minute per track
• Can listen to downloaded tracks offline
• “OU Top Picks” streaming radio station
• Local bands can put their songs on the OU server

Limitations

• No Mac version yet
• Files can be copied up to 3 times. After the 4th copy, the file becomes unplayable.
• Can only play downloaded tracks via computer
• To burn to CD or MP3 player, you must purchase tracks separately
• $0.99 per track or $9.95 per album (You only pay this if you want to burn to CD or MP3 player.)
• Purchased tracks have no restrictions - unlimited copying, no expiration
• Cannot download new tracks during summer or winter breaks
• Tracks already downloaded still playable during breaks
• Downloaded files become unplayable when you cancel your subscription or graduate/transfer
• Alumni subscription available
• Purchased tracks will always work regardless of your subscription status

The questions students are supposed to answer include:

1 - Should the University implement this service? Yes No
2 - Would you subscribe? Yes No
3 - Do you think other students would subscribe? Yes No
4 - Do you feel this would be a viable alternative to illegal downloading? Yes No
5 - On a scale of 1 to 10, how effective would this be in reducing illegal downloads at Ohio University?

No Effect 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Very Effective
6 - What would make this service more attractive to you?

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 13th, 2004 at 4:24 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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