Penn State offers free Napster use
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. – An agreement reached last week between university officials and the Napster online music service will soon enable most Penn State students to obtain free, legal music on their personal computers.
The program will come at no additional cost to students, Penn State President Graham Spanier said. Expenses will be included in students’ $160 information technology fee, but the fee will not increase as a result of the agreement.
The pilot program will be released to 18,000 on-campus students Jan. 12 and expanded to off-campus students next fall.
–The Daily Collegian
Bill threatens early decision
(U-WIRE) MEDFORD, Mass. – Early decision hurts minority enrollment and should be discouraged, said Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), who has proposed a bill that would introduce federal penalties for institutions that allow the process.
The bill singles out institutions that offer early decision, give preference to legacy students or have minority graduation rates 10 percent below the national average.
Schools that refuse to comply with the proposed legislation would be forced to double financial aid offers to minority students on federal scholarships and create programs to improve minority graduation rates. The proposal argues that the early decision process favors richer, non-minority students.
MIT suspends file-sharing system
(U-WIRE) CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – A file-sharing network created by two Massachusetts Institute of Technology students was shut down indefinitely last week.
Keith Winstein and Josh Mandel created The Library Access to Music Project with the hope that they would be able to share music with students across the campus legally. The program broadcast music, which they had attempted to legally license, over MIT’s cable network.
Last week, MIT was told that some of the assurances made about the legality of the service might have been false. Following this announcement, MIT officials temporarily suspended the program until they are certain that the service is legal.
–compiled by Julie Gordon
and Marcus Mrowka
