February 14, 2000

12:21 PM

Indiana University Bans use of NapsterIt appears that Indiana University has banned the use of Napster recently. Apparently it was accounting for 50% of IU's Internet traffic. Officials are sighting bandwidth as the reason for the ban. I wonder how many schools will follow suit this semester.
posted by fil! (7 comments total)

Brown University also banned Napster, only announcing the ban
5 days after Napster clients wouldn't connect. They cited the
same 50% bandwidth issue, finding it after wondering why the
whole dern campus was so slow ... We weren't happy, but the
bandwidth issue, also used to support not carrying binary
newsgroups, is pretty hard to argue against. If an ISP were to
pull the same trick, I'd be outraged, but universities with tons
of academic requirements for their pipes, well, I give them more
slack.

posted by billpena at 3:39 PM on February 14, 2000

I'm really surprised IU took so long to ban Napster (I'm an IU student). IU's IT department is very proactive and we have very strong policies on copyright (especially electronic copyright) at IU. After the first school started banning Napster, I expected IU to follow suit, but it took about 2 or 3 weeks.
posted by hit-or-miss at 6:05 PM on February 14, 2000

yale recently banned napster too, but only temporarily. they said they were experimenting to see how much bandwidth it took up, but then restored napster. [sorry, pointless comment.] more of same, anyway.
posted by palegirl at 9:42 PM on February 14, 2000

UCLA is luckily too decentralized and unorganized to block the Napster port. Lucky for me, I can keep growing my collection...
posted by mathowie at 10:07 PM on February 14, 2000

Down here in the Netherlands at Interaction Design Napster is rooted down and not going anywhere.
posted by frog at 1:39 AM on February 15, 2000

Oxford University blocks access to napster.com: pings and traceroutes fail at the local routers. They've yet to say publically whether the ban was imposed for cost/bandwidth reasons (the university pays per byte for use of the transatlantic pipe) or the dubious legality of what Napster offers.
posted by holgate at 10:20 PM on February 17, 2000

i absolutely love napster and i'm perturbed by their pending lawsuit and the possibilty that the service could end...

in some ways, it is copyright violation...my boyfriend has a live version of the cure's new album and the "real" album hasn't even been released yet...on the other hand, i've been using it to download single songs i wouldn't buy the entire album for and cheesey stuff i liked as a kid...i mean, come on...is it hurting anybody that i'm getting "seasons in the sun" by terry jacks?

also, lets look at cassettes...is someone going to tell me that 99% of cassettes are NOT being used for copying music? or writable cds for that matter...cassette manufacturers pay a kick-back to the recording companies...why can't napster pay a similar fee and then charge people to use its service? i would certainly pay a nominal monthly fee to use napster...


posted by centrs at 9:46 AM on February 20, 2000