With pending lawsuits by the Recording Industry Association of America against six Penn students for downloading music illegally, the Undergraduate Assembly is supporting the exploration of legal alternatives for student access to a music file database.
The plan of action, passed nearly unanimously at last night's meeting, indicates that the UA will work with experts both inside and outside the University to possibly implement a subscription service to a music file database for the University by the 2005-06 academic year.
A subscription service -- such as Napster, Rhapsody, Ruckus or Cdigix -- allows users to stream unlimited music for a monthly fee. Users must pay separately for a song if they wish to download it onto their computer.
"It's still in its early phases," UA Chairman and College senior Jason Levine said.
"There's two main things that need to be done: figure out a way to implement it into our system and figure out how we can pay for it," he added.
The plan of action -- authored by UA members and College freshmen Jason Karsh and Sunny Patel -- notes that several other colleges and universities have purchased subscription services recently.
While the plan of action states that the UA hopes that purchasing access to a school-wide subscription service will "result in a more complete undergraduate experience," Levine recognizes that access to a large database of music files "is not part of the academic mission of the University."
Thus, the plan of action ensures that any future financing of a subscription service will not use funds that would otherwise pay for scholarships, financial aid or academic programs.
However, through its Campus Action Network, Sony Music has agreed to fund a yearlong trial period for the University to one subscription service, making the service free to students for that year.
After a trial period, the service may be funded via a blanket fee charged to all students or an opt-in service. Corporate sponsors are also an option that could help decrease costs.
Because subscription services are not accessible to students who use Macintosh computers, Karsh noted the option of giving these students approximately 15 free songs per month from a pay-as-you-go service such as iTunes -- which allows users to keep every song they pay to download -- if a blanket fee is eventually enacted.
Patel noted that any service would most likely be PennKey-authenticated so that students would be able to access the service from any computer with an Internet connection.
However, before any decision to implement such a service is made, the UA plans to conduct an extensive survey of the undergraduate student body to discover student preferences.
