The music downloading service Napster, which offers one million downloadable music files and radio service was launched on campus last Thursday and is available to all students living in the residence halls.
Approximately 875 of the 3500 students living on campus have downloaded the program so far, said Carl Whitman, the executive director of the Office of Information Technology.
Patrick Abrams, a freshman in the School of International Service, is one of the students who has already downloaded Napster, and said he was excited to use the new program.
"I never was able to download music before," Abrams said. "But since it was free, I'm using it."
Kristen Orthman, a sophomore in SIS, chose not to download Napster.
"I just bought an iPod, so I don't see the point in downloading Napster," Orthman said.
Napster is not compatible with the popular mp3 player. Orthman said she would be more interested in the university investing in a program that was compatible with iPods and did not time-stamp songs like Napster does so they cannot be listened to after the user's subscription expires.
Other students have expressed differing opinions.
Tim Krell, a senior in SIS, owns a Mac that is also not compatible with the program but admits that he wouldn't use Napster.
Students like Krell who do not have computers that use a Windows operating system, and are unable to download Napster can e-mail Housing and Dining and ask to be refunded the $12.50.
Napster was picked by the AU administration instead of Ruckus, the pilot program offered to AU students last spring. Kyle Taylor, the Student Government president, said that after personally testing several music downloading services he suggested Napster because of the number and variety of songs available. He asked his friends to name random artists, and then checked to see if Napster had their music, and everything was there, Taylor said.
"You couldn't stump it, so to speak," said Taylor. Another important factor in the decision was the fact that Napster is half the price of Ruckus.
Universities around the country, such as Pennsylvania State University, George Washington University and University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, have also signed up for Napster. Like AU, George Washington had it for two years and is also launching Napster this year as a pilot program.
Pennsylvania State University has been using Napster for more than two years and 85 percent of their on-campus students registered for the program the first semester it was offered, according to Sam Haldeman, who works with the program at Penn State.
"We're doing some pretty cool things [with Napster]," Haldeman said. "We're now using Napster in the classrooms." Student bands are also able to post their music on Napster for their friends and classmates to download.
Julie Weber, director of Housing and Dining Programs at AU, said the school plans to run a survey in the spring to get feedback about the program and to decide whether to renew the one-year contract with Napster.
