The New Napster essays

The New Napster essays So its a Friday night and you, being a stereotypical Penn State student, are ready to go out. Whether it be the latest fraternity party, or just a get together in an apartment, everyone is well aware of the evenings plans. Go to a party, drink some beer, take a few shots, and make your way home at some point in the evening. But you show up at this party and you hear the news, there will be no alcohol at this party. There will be no alcohol at any party that Penn State students attend. Instead, Gram Spanier has kindly purchased a vending machine full of non-alcoholic beverages that you can sample for free, but if you want to drink the whole thing, you must pay ninety-nine cents. He doesnt want any Penn State students getting in trouble with the police and that underage drinking law. So hes provided an alternative. Isnt he a wonderful president? I think not. This is Dr. Spaniers way of helping out the students of Penn State. This is his way of making sure we stay out of trouble. Except its not underage drinking that hes attempting to ban, its illegal file sharing. Penn State has recently adopted a new file-sharing program called Napster. Napster was previously shut down by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) but recently has been allowed because of the new pay-to-play ideals. This means that for a fee of ten dollars a month, anyone can download music to their computer (Sagoff, 2003). Penn State students do not have to directly pay this fee because it is included in the pre-existing information technology fees, currently $160 per semester (Borland, 2003). The new program gives on campus students free access to more than 500,000 songs, as well as forty radio stations, along with access to six decades of Billboard chart data, an online magazine and community features. Downloading songs is free, but to burn these songs onto a compact disc, the cost is ninety-nine cents per...