Penn State's deal with the revamped Napster, which requires purchasing songs, allows students to download from a catalog of 500 million songs. "[Students] will be able to download the music to use on three personal computers as long as students are at Penn State," according to The Times. However, if students want to burn CDs or keep songs on their computers beyond graduation, they will be forced to pay $.99 per track.
The Times reported that individuals can already pay $.99 per son and $9.95 for an album, along with a $9.95 monthly subscription fee. Penn State President Graham Spanier told The Times that the subscription fee the university has agreed to pay for the service is significantly less than what the public pays. The cost of the service will come out of the students' annual information technology fee.
According to The Times, Spanier acknowledged that it was strange for a university to provide contemporary downloadable music for its students, but defended the administration's actions. "Today's college students have told us how important this is to them," he told The Times.
The Times reported that Spanier and Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America, recently headed a committee of university officials and representatives of the entertainment industry. According to The Times, the committee discussed the recent increase in file-sharing which some conclude might have led to a decrease in album sales.
Though Spanier believes the new service will decrease the number of files illegally downloaded at Penn State, students are more skeptical. An editorial in the Penn State newspaper predicted that students will still download from services like KaZaA because it is free, unlike the Napster service, according to The Times.