The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, September 08, 2004, Page 6, Image 6
Minnesota university offers
music downloading service
By EMILY KAISER
MINNESOTA DAILY (U. MINNESOTA)
(U-WIRE) MINNEAPOLIS — As the
Recording Industry Association of
America fights back at illegal music
file-sharers, the University of
Minnesota has begun offering
students a discounted online music
service as a legal alternative.
The University is offering
students a free two-week trial of the
service to encourage legal ways to
download music online, but some
students said they are skeptical
about changing their downloading
habits.
The service, RealNetworks’
Rhapsody, will allow University
students on and off campus to
stream music through a
downloaded program for $2 a
month and download individual
songs for 79 cents a song. Normally,
a subscription would cost $9 a
month.
The program offers more than
730.000 songs and more than
58.000 albums, with more being
added each day, said Erika Shaffer, a
spokeswoman for RealNetworks.
But having the service available
does not ensure that students will
download music legally, said Shih
Pau Yen, a University spokesman.
“This is not a technology issue,
it’s a habit change,” Yen said.
“Technology has provided the
infrastructure and power to
download music illegally, but
students need to have the
opportunity to change those
habits.”
Zachary Carlson, a fifth-year
English and French student,
downloads music on free file-sharing
programs which the RLAA has used
to target file-sharers who illegally
copy and share copyrighted music.
Carlson said his concerns with
the paid programs are the variety of
music found on the program and the
price per song.
“The price for each song is not
that much cheaper than buying the
whole CD,” he said. “When you buy
the CD, you get the cover art, which
1 think is an essential part of the
music experience.”
The University joins more than a
dozen schools across the nation to
give students a discounted music
download program.
RealNetworks has started its
discounted college subscriptions at
the University of Minnesota, as well
as the University of California
Berkeley.
“Universities are a new area that
we are focusing on,” Shaffer said.
College students are a good target
for the program, because of their
interest in a wide variety of music
and their access to computers with
high-speed Internet connections,
Shaffer said.
The first school to offer a similar
program, Pennsylvania State
University, saw 85 percent
participation in its program that
began in the spring. The service
averaged 100,000 streams or
downloads a day, said Sam
Haldeman, assistant to the associate
vice provost.
For Penn State, the start of the
program was primarily a legal issue.
“As a higher institution of
education, we thought it was our
responsibility to educate students
about the ramifications of those laws
and the alternatives,” Haldeman
said.
However, the University did not
start the service because of concerns
about the RIAA suing the school.
“Our own legal analysis is that
the University itself is not an
available target for the recording
industry, because we are not
involved in any way with the
copyright violations, and we don’t
encourage students to do that,” said
Mark Rotenberg, general counsel at
the University.
Yen said the University will not
make any money from the deal, but
is offering it as part of a continuing
effort by the University to give
students low-cost technology.
The program is a one-year pilot
program, and the University and
RealNetworks will determine its
success based on how many students
sign up.
“We hope the students in the
residence halls really take advantage
of this,” Yen said. “If we get 30 to
40 percent of on-campus students to
sign up, it will be very successful to
us.”
John Barber, a nutrition science
senior at the University, said he
already downloads music through
iTunes, a top competitor in the
online music industry.
“I don’t think I download enough
for this program to be worth it,” he
said.
But Barber said the program
might become popular, particularly
in the residence halls.
“I think students will try anything
for cheap,” he said. “After the
lawsuits, people realize that the risk
isn’t worth it and will pay a couple
bucks.”
The online music service
Rhapsody will be offered free for
two weeks. After the two-week
trial, students can subscribe to the
service for the following
discounted rates:
Individual songs, 79 cents each
One-month subscription, $2.99
Three-month subscription, $5.99
Twelve-month subscription,
$23.99
To subscribe to the service or for
more information, visit the
University TechMart Web site at
www.techmart.umn.edu
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L A .
HURRICANE FRANCES I
h-■ ■ I .1 < : ■ ■ I I I 1 BB H B m , " ■ I I 1" BHBB B^ i
TRACY GLANTZ/THE STATE
Matthew Etter searches through the rubble of his wife's cousin's mobile home along Ithica Drive in
Sumter. The home was removed from its foundationby a tornado.
■ FRANCES
■ Continued from page 1
Aiken. The vehicle then struck
some trees, according to the
Highway Patrol.
The winds and rain caused no
deaths and at least six injuries,
none of them major, officials said.
The worst weather has moved
steadily north and west through a
state dealing with its fourth
tropical system in the past five
weeks. Up to 5 inches of rain fell
in several bands east of Columbia
by early Tuesday evening.
No widespread flooding had
been reported, but an additional 2
to 4 inches of rain was expected
across most of the state, the
National Weather Service said.
Isolated places could see up to
a foot of rain before the storms
end, weather service
meteorologist Joe Pelissier said.
“With tropical systems like
this, there’s no telling how much
rain can fall,” he said.
The event could cause the
worst widespread flooding in the
Upstate since Tropical Storm Jerry
dumped more than a foot of rain
in some areas in August 1995,
forecasters said.
The center of what remained of
Frances was slowly moving
through western. Georgia. Until it
moves north of the area late
Wednesday, the storm, which was
once the size of Texas, will
continue to spin heavy rains and
the possibility of tornadoes, the
weather service warned.
Hardest hit Tuesday was
central South Carolina, where
weak twisters sporadically
knocked around a few homes and
trees before disappearing back
into the clouds.
National Weather Service
teams are trying to confirm all 33
of the tornadoes reported through
7:30 p.m. Tuesday, but it could be
several days before they get a final
count, officials said. The total
could top the 22 tornadoes that
struck the state in August 1994
when the remnants of Tropical
Storm Beryl passed through.
The heaviest damage may have
been in a small area in southern
Sumter County. About 30 homes
were damaged, including a brick
home turned off its foundation,
and three people injured around
8:30 a.m. by an apparent tornado,
Public Safety director Vic Jones
said.
Several other homes and an
office building also were damaged
in Sumter County, causing an
estimated $1.7 million in damage,
Jones said.
Like most or 1 uesday s storms,
the damage was minimal. George
Bartlette, who lives in the area,
said he saw a group of trees
flattened, then no damage, then a
couple of mobile homes blown
around.
“It was just hitting in spots, you
know,” Bartlette said.
Three people also were hurt
around 5 a-.m. when high winds
damaged two mobile homes near
Gadsden in southeastern Richland
County near Columbia, said
George Rice, spokesman for
Richland County EMS.
High winds damaged 22 homes
at Fort Jackson in Columbia, but
most of the damage was confined
to roofs. Just six home were left
uninhabitable, said James
Hinnant, spokesman for the Army
training base.
Other possible tornado damage
was reported in Kershaw,
Darlington, Lee and Marlboro
counties.
The storms were so scattered
-1
that none of the state’s major
utilities reported any widespread
outages.
Frances is the fifth storm South
Carolinians have had to deal with
this season.
Hurricane Alex made a feint at
the coast before hitting North
Carolina’s Outer Banks early last
month. Then Tropical Storm
Bonnie, which made landfall in
the Florida Panhandle, soaked the
state.
Hurricane Charley, after
devastating southwest Florida,
made a second landfall in
Charleston County last month.
Tropical Storm Gaston came
ashore a few miles from where
Charley made landfall, causing
flooding and knocking out power
to tens of thousands.
And emergency officials are
watching Hurricane Ivan in the far
eastern Caribbean that is forecast
to be near Cuba by the weekend.
“It’s been an eventful season so
far,” state Emergency
Management Division spokesman
John Legare said.
The stormy summer season is
expected to affect the bottom line
for tourism along South
Carolina’s Grand Strand.
Businesses are still expecting an
increase from last season, but as
much as they hoped.
“This was really looking to be a
great year. Things were really
setting up to be good for us,” said
Stephen Greene, the vice
president for communications for
the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber
of Commerce. “It’s not just a
single hit, it’s been multiple
blows. How much that lags down
the entire summer season remains
to be seen.”
Staff writer LaDonna Beeker
contributed to this story.
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