“As a student at Cornell University, Angelo Petrigh had access to free online music via a legal music-downloading service his school provided. Yet the 21-year-old still turned to illegal file-sharing programs,” Nick Timiraos reports for The Wall Street Journal.

“The reason: While Cornell’s online music program, through Napster, gave him and other students free, legal downloads, the email introducing the service explained that students could keep their songs only until they graduated. ‘After I read that, I decided I didn’t want to even try it,’ says Mr. Petrigh, who will be a senior in the fall at the Ithaca, N.Y., school,” Timiraos reports.

“College students don’t turn down much that’s free. But when it comes to online music, even free hasn’t been enough to persuade many students to use such digital download services as Napster, Rhapsody, Ruckus and Cdigix. As a result, some schools have dropped their services, and others are considering doing so or have switched to other providers,” Timiraos reports.

Timiraos reports, “There’s also the problem of compatibility: The services won’t run on Apple Computer Inc. computers, which are owned by 19% of college students, according to a 2006 survey of 1,200 students by the research group Student Monitor. In addition, the files won’t play on Apple iPods, which are owned by 42% of college students, according to the survey.”

“USC decided last year that it was finished with Napster after fewer than 500 students signed up, and it moved to Ruckus, hoping students would find that service more appealing,” Timiraos reports. “Meanwhile, both Cornell and Purdue will no longer offer their students free music next year. An anonymous donor had paid for Cornell to offer Napster for two years, but the student government passed on a chance to keep the service by charging students a fee. ‘There hasn’t been an overwhelming response to keep it,’ says Kwame Thomison, Cornell’s student assembly president. ‘Students that enjoyed the service enough can pay for it themselves.’”

“The number of students using Napster at George Washington University dropped by more than half between the first and second year, from one-third to one-seventh of eligible users. Alexa Kim, who oversees the Washington school’s program, attributes the higher use at the start to the service’s novelty and to press attention during the inaugural year. She adds that the university hasn’t decided if it will renew its contract,” Timiraos reports. “Colleges started offering the services in part because they were concerned that the recording industry might try to hold them liable for their students’ copyright violations. So far no schools have been sued by the recording industry.”

Full article here.
The end is near. Finally. Last year, to the day, on July 6th, 2005, we wrote in response to the news that The University of Washington was the first school to sign up to market some cobbled-together mess involving Napster and Dell’s now-discontinued Dell DJ portable players to students, “Any school that takes Dell and Napster up on this ‘offer’ should also post signs around campus that read, ‘Mac-using and/or iPod-using students not welcome here.’” Can you imagine that places of “higher learning” would sign with exclusionary services that are incompatible with so many students’ hardware choices (Mac and iPod)?

Schools: Apple’s iTunes U is the smart choice that doesn’t exclude broad swaths of your student body.

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NCCU becomes first Apple ‘iTunes U’ school in North Carolina state system – June 06, 2006
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University of Pennsylvania excludes Mac users with Windows-only music service – March 21, 2006
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College students refuse to buy a single song from Napster – July 10, 2005
Colleges should not exclude Mac and iPod users with Dell, Napster music hardware, software offering – July 06, 2005
Colleges offering students music services that aren’t cross-platform, don’t work with iPod – March 22, 2005
Cornell University’s Mac users ‘uniformly unhappy’ with Napster – January 19, 2005
Cornell University wrestles with Napster’s exclusion of Mac and iPod-using students – September 08, 2004
Why are Cornell’s Mac students being forced to pay for useless Napster? – September 07, 2004
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Florida State University to sign deal with Apple for iTunes software – August 27, 2004