Penn won't ban access to Napster

University President Judith Rodin sent a letter yesterday to the attorney for heavy metal band Metallica and rapper Dr. Dre announcing that she will not ban access to Napster on campus. In the letter, Rodin explained that banning the Internet service would go against the University's educational mission by denying students freedom of inquiry and expression. "We find your request troubling because it asks us to impose a blanket ban on access not simply to specific unlawful material, but to a tool that facilitates access to a broad range of materials," Rodin's letter reads. Instead of banning the service, Rodin wrote that Penn will attempt to educate students, faculty and staff about the laws and school policy regarding copyright infringement, such as computer ethics training given to the Class of 2004 this year during New Student Orientation. Howard King, the attorney representing Metallica and Dr. Dre, said he was "obviously disappointed, but not shocked" at the decision, and that he did not expect to be filing a lawsuit against Penn or the other schools who rejected his request. Rodin received a letter earlier this month from King asking the University to consider forbidding student access to the Internet site. Penn was among 29 prominent schools who received the letter. At least 11 of those schools, including Penn, have refused to do so. Metallica and Dre have said that the service Napster provides -- allowing users to download music files for free -- constitutes serious copyright infringement. Furthermore, they feel universities are hot beds of Napster usage due to the high speed Internet connections they provide for their students. But Penn's letter claims that, under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act -- which stipulates that Internet service providers cannot be held accountable for illegal activity on their networks if they are unaware of the activity -- limiting Napster is not Rodin's responsibility. "Our policies prohibit the use of the University's electronic resources to intentionally infringe intellectual property rights, and the University investigates and takes appropriate action when allegations of specific infringement are brought to our attention," the letter states. King said that this is not the end to the matter. "We hope to be maintaining a dialogue with the University, and hopefully they will see things our way," King said. King added that his clients do not understand why Penn is ignoring the issue of copyright infringement. "If the issue was child pornography, the University would certainly take steps there," King said. "The University has an obligation [to ban Napster]... not just legally, but morally and ethically," he added. The first three schools to receive a letter from King were the University of Southern California, and Indiana and Yale universities last spring. When they did not agree to the letter's request, a lawsuit was filed against them by Metallica and Dre. The lawsuit was dropped after each school instituted policies limiting Napster use on their campuses, but many were left wondering if the artists' attorneys would use the threat of a lawsuit to sway the universities they contacted this month. King, however, tried to put a rest to this concern. Although he said his office will be responding to the University's decision in some way, he assured that "no one is getting sued next week." At the moment, "We don't have a big enough stick to shake" at an institution like Penn, King said.