Napster and Penn State: Invading Students Homes

In the fall of 2003, Penn State University began offering the Napster service to all students living in on campus housing and later in 2004 to any student enrolled at any location of the University. University President Graham Spanier wrote an op-ed piece and noted that he was, “excited by this program that provides a legitimate alternative to piracy and promises to curb the theft of intellectual property on our campuses.” There are several problems with this program, both practical and ethical.

First, let us examine the practical issues.

• Napster is not compatible with the I-Pod. According to recent market data the I-Pod commands between 70 and 80 percent of MP3-player market share. Is it not unreasonable to assume, then, that the same proportion of MP3 players in the Penn State system are also I-Pods. For these students, Napster is a complete waste. The songs cannot be transferred to their I-Pod, even if they are purchased. This creates a situation where all songs purchased by these students will be from I-Tunes, not from Napster. These students pay for Napster anyways.


• A music service is not a necessity. Many students would consider television service a necessity and there is no doubt that in a modern University an internet connection is certainly required. A music service, however, is not necessary for anything besides the occasional arts class. It is much more economical to require the students of these classes to purchase a musical download service or CD on their own. After all, if the music is required for a course, how is it any different from a required textbook?


• Music download services, unlike, for example, Cable television, are not limited to a geographical area. A consumer’s choice in cable providers is, in most instances, limited to one provider because of physical constraints. An online music service has no such limitations. With an internet connection, there are few, if any, factors that limit the consumer’s choice. Why not allow students to decide if they want Napster, or any download service for that matter?


• How much university funds are being used to purchase something that, for all intents and purposes, is useful for nothing more than entertainment? The price charged to the University has never been released, but if the cost is calculated at normal Napster rates Penn State would be incurring a charge of over $800,000 per month. Even at a fifty percent discount rate, the charge is still significant. What is the cost-effectiveness?

As it can be seen, the service is not at all practical, but these are not (in this writers opinion) as disturbing as the ethical issues that this program raises.

While the University being close friends with the RIAA does raise questions, there are few answers from which to base a sound conclusion. Another cause for concern, also not the main cause, is the University’s deliberate attempt to eliminate the use of any P2P network. The school has not blocked P2P communications but has imposed data-transfer volume limits for the specific purpose of eliminating the usefulness of P2P networks. This was proved by the school’s own admission during an Internet2 member meeting. The following is an excerpt from a Question and Answer session with Russell Vaught, a Penn State University employee.

Question: “How do you stop students from going to “the dark side” when the music costs $0.95/song?”

Vaught: “We’d already implemented rate limiting to dorms. You are allowed x access/day; if you violate the ban 4 times, you get cut off the network for good.”

The main issue that is most troubling is one that has been scarcely noticed and completely un-reported. It is that this service is not purchased for resident hall students only. That activity, while still inefficient and impractical, would still be ethical. Concerning the residence halls the University has every right to prevent P2P access and to force residents to accept the Napster program because it owns the buildings and the web connection included in them. The wisdom (or lack-thereof) of limiting or preventing a technology that facilitates the completely free flow of information not-withstanding, it is completely acceptable that the University control what goes into its buildings through its internet connections. The major issue has to do with the remainder of the eighty or-so thousand students that do not live in the Universities buildings and do not access the internet with University bandwidth. The following is an excerpt from Napster.



For these students, the forcing of the Napster service is tantamount to the university choosing which cable company that they will use in their homes! Penn State University, a state institution, is choosing which service that these students will support at their home, through their internet connection, located on their private property. This goes against the very individualist foundations of our society in that it allows a state institution to support one company over others and to force the individual to employ their private capital in the means it sees fit. It is unknown how Penn State’s administration is able to justify this action.

“The statesman who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could safely be trusted to no council and senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it.”
-Adam Smith

What exactly is the University doing? Why are students not allowed to make their own decisions as to what service they will use? Finally, why is Penn State University attempting to control what people do with their internet connections in their own homes? Certainly an institution of higher learning should know better.