Colleges try to stop music swapping, offering fee-based service

"We're feeling a great deal of pressure as a result of what the
entertainment industry is doing, and we're stepping up a lot of activities
to address it," said Jim Davis, associate vice chancellor for information
technology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

At least 10 universities have been served with
subpoenas demanding they help the recording industry identify possible
targets of such lawsuits, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation,
an online civil liberties group.

The industry has begun to embrace for-pay download
services, particularly the successful Apple iTunes for Macintosh users
that requires no subscription fee. But a successful Windows-based service
for the vast majority of home computer users has not yet emerged.

Meanwhile, though, several universities are exploring
ways to make music-downloading services available to students at a cost
that could be incorporated into roam and board bills, much like cable TV
and newspaper delivery fees.

"If music is that important to our students, some of
the things we might do is simply provide the music to them, by contracting
with an online service for either streaming, so students can listen to it
whenever they want, or perhaps to download, maybe even to make a copy,"
said Graham Spanier, president of Penn State University and co-chair of a
committee of college and entertainment officials working together to stop
song-swapping on campus.