Schools differ on Napster

Out of 29 universities across the country who have been asked to ban the Internet music site Napster on their campuses, Penn is one of only four who have not yet responded to the request. At least 10 schools -- including Stanford and Princeton universities, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Michigan, the University of Florida and the University of California at Los Angeles and Berkeley -- have refused the artists' demand. But Penn, as well as Boston, Columbia and Harvard universities, have all remained silent about what their decision will be. According to University spokeswoman Phyllis Holtzman, Penn's official decision will be announced "any day now," and Harvard is expected to reply by tomorrow. Penn officials have said they would be uncomfortable banning Napster until a lawsuit against it is resolved by the courts. An attorney representing Metallica and Dr. Dre, longtime opponents of the program that allows users to download copyrighted music files for free, sent 29 schools a letter two weeks ago asking that they voluntarily ban Napster from their servers. Many in the music industry feel the service constitutes serious copyright infringement, and that universities are a hot-bed of Napster usage. The University of Southern California and Indiana and Yale universities were the first schools to receive letters from the administration. They at first refused to comply, but after a lawsuit was filed against them last year, each began to limit access to Napster on its campus. Penn State had been rumored to have banned Napster last week, but officials said the rumor was not true. According to Penn State spokesman Stephen MacCarthy, the university did not restrict Napster access, but sent an e-mail reminding students of copyright laws. In response, over 200 students e-mailed the university to complain. Even though Penn State did not ban Napster, MacCarthy said officials there still "believe that [they] are in complete compliance" with what Metallica and Dre asked them to do. "Our students need to be able to access a wide range of sites," MacCarthy said, "but it's not our business as long as it's legal." Princeton officials, on the other hand, said they will not interfere with what students do online until they do something illegal. Princeton spokeswoman Marylin Markas said, "Princeton feels that students and faculty members should be able to use all services available to them within the limits of the law." And since the matter of whether or not Napster is legal is still under consideration by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, it is still within those limits. Both Penn State and Princeton say that their computer networking policies do not go against the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which was instituted in 1998 to apply copyright laws to new technologies. The Act says that Internet service providers are not responsible when copyright infringement occurs on their networks, as long as they are unaware of such activity. Napster opponents, however, claim that universities are aware of copyright infringement problems.