NEWS: Napster Heads to School

The Napster online music service might be playing second fiddle to the dominant Apple iTunes Music Store but the PC rival has settled on an interesting strategy that's making inroads into a classic Apple Computer market--schools. This week, Napster revealed that six US universities have signed deals to provide the Napster service to their students in a bid to halt the epidemic of students illegally downloading music from Kazaa and similar services. Cornell University, The George Washington University, Middlebury College, the University of Miami, the University of Southern California, and Wright State University will create their own on-campus versions of the Napster service, joining Penn State and the University of Rochester, which have already rolled out similar services. Although students will have to pay the typical Napster fees for purchased music (99 cents a song and $9.99 for most albums), they'll receive a big discount on the $9.99 per month Napster Plus subscription fee. Will this plan stop the hemorrhage of stolen music at the schools? Probably not.