Universities may soon bring legal Internet jukeboxes to dorm rooms. Going so far as to meet with various commercial service providers to create a viable business arrangement. Then possibly mask an unknown percentage of the cost through increased tuition fees. Or apparently, the burden could be picked up by the schools themselves. This concept is being pursued vigorously by a committtee formed of members from universities and music industry officials.
The theory is to give students subsidized,
unlimited access to legal services which will quickly endear them to the idea of
subscribing to music. Thus, weaning them off the illegal modes so popular
at present. Meanwhile, recording industry officials and music services will use the opportunity to create a new music market. Providing themselves a source of income that could prove quite significant.
"We think it's very important that students are offered a legitimate alternative" to file-trading networks, said Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America. "We are hopeful that some music services and some universities will do some pilot projects, so they can gain some understanding of how that market might work." University officials have shorter-term goals as well. The rampant use of file-swapping services has flooded their internal networks with unpredictable data traffic and has exposed their students and even the institutions themselves to the potential of legal liability. Sponsoring legitimate services would remove those headaches, some university administrators believe. ADVERTISEMENT
"It is going to work," said Peter Fader, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business who has been independently pushing administrators to pursue on-campus music services. "It's just a question of who does it first and best." An early meeting with university officials, attended by representatives of most of the big music services such as Apple Computer's iTunes, Pressplay (now Napster), and Listen.com's Rhapsody, showed just how much of a gap in expectations had to be closed before any service could get off the ground. According to attendees at the May meeting, university officials initially pressed for a campus service that would resemble a paid version of Kazaa, in which an unlimited number of MP3s could be downloaded by students. Existing versions of the paid services would not be enough to entice students away from Kazaa, the university representatives said. ADVERTISEMENT
The music services, along with a representative from Universal Music Group, explained that difficulties in licensing would make a Kazaa-style service impossible, however. |
The potential of this new market has the full attention of people in the technology community as well. For instance, Venture capital firm, Battery Ventures is very interested. However, partner Scott Tobin said the firm is still looking into it and hasn't invested yet.
Every digital music service realizes the value of this unique college market concept. They believe it is "important" to offer legitimate online music services to students on the campus. They have taken the stance that this will help facilitate the fight against piracy. According to Seth Oster, a spokesman for Napster: "We've been working on it for a long time."
C|Net has the full article.
Source: news.com.com
