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Universities asked to restrict access to Napster

Industry Standard

(IDG) -- The lawyer for the rock band Metallica and the rap artist Dr. Dre has sent letters to Harvard, Columbia and other prominent universities asking the institutions to restrict students' access to the online music-sharing service Napster.

Howard King, who in April filed a lawsuit against Napster alleging copyright infringement, wrote to each of the universities that they have "a moral, ethical and legal obligation to take appropriate steps to assure [they are] not a willing participant in and an enabler of the theft of intellectual property through Napster."

In addition to Harvard and Columbia, the letter was sent to the presidents of Stanford, the University of Virginia, Boston University, the Georgia Institute of Technology, MIT, Princeton, the University of Michigan, the University of California at Berkeley and UCLA.

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Columbia and Harvard acknowledged receiving the letter, but representatives at both universities said the schools had not yet decided how to respond. "University attorneys and others are reviewing it," said Suzanne Trimel of Columbia.

At Stanford, acting General Counsel Debra Zumwalt said Stanford would be examining the issues raised in the letter. The school does not have a blanket policy toward Napster, she said, but it has in the past responded to individual complaints of copyright violations by students. "We review them on a case by case basis," she said.

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King said the letter is not meant to be a threat that the universities would be sued if they failed to block Napster.

"We don't want them to ban Napster because they're afraid of being sued," he said. "We believe any responsible university that has a discussion of the issue will restrict Napster because it's the right thing to do."

But King did not rule out the possibility that more defendants could be named in the legal action against Napster. A provision in the lawsuit enables him to add other universities as defendants.

Colleges and universities have been concerned about students using Napster on campus, not only because of fears of copyright infringement but also because heavy use of the service can clog campus networks.

A study by the Gartner Group released last month said 34 percent of U.S. colleges and universities have banned surfers from using Napster on campus servers. Rob Labatt, the research director at Gartner who co-authored the study, said those bans were prompted by the fact that Napster use had been taking up as much as 75 percent of network bandwidth at some schools.

Some schools, however, have banned Napster from their servers because of concerns about copyright infringement. Yale, for example, has made Napster inaccessible from its server since April, said Thomas Violante, a university spokesman. "The university announced at that time it is firmly committed to respecting intellectual property rights and alerted students to copyright laws," he said.

The Napster lawsuit originally named Yale, the University of Southern California and Indiana University as co-defendants, saying they should be held liable for knowingly facilitating the copyright infringements occurring via Napster. But because all three schools decided to restrict access to Napster shortly after the suit was filed, they were dropped as defendants, King said.

Violante said it was not the lawsuit that prompted Yale to ban Napster. In fact, the school was never served with a complaint and only learned from press reports that it was to have been a defendant, he said.

The University of Virginia, which like other recipients of the King letter said it is studying the issue, has an explicit copyright violation policy in place, according to Chip German, the university's policy director for information technology. And this year, incoming students applying for a university Internet account were instructed that using Napster could be considered a violation of both copyright law and the university's honor code. Nevertheless, students can still access Napster through the school's server, he said.

In addition to the initial 11 universities, King said he intends to send the letter to more schools, including: Colgate, Cornell, Duke, Florida State, Michigan State, Penn State, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Texas A&M, the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Florida, the University of Idaho, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Oregon, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Wisconsin at Madison and Washington State University. All were listed in the Gartner study as institutions that allow access to Napster.

King's letter asks that each of the schools respond by Sept. 22, detailing their respective positions on Napster access. Meanwhile, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is expected to schedule a hearing later this month that could determine whether Napster would be shut down for good.




RELATED STORIES:
Justice sides with recording industry on key issue in Napster court fight
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Federal judge says MP3.com willfully violated music copyrights
September 6, 2000
Report: Napster banned at 34 percent of U.S. colleges
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Industry groups object to Napster ruling
August 29, 2000
Napster stirs apprehension in movie industry
August 28, 2000

RELATED IDG.net STORIES:
RIAA urges a stop to Napster
(IDG.net)
Uncle Sam deals Napster a blow
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MPAA, creative groups weigh in on Napster case
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Napster banned at 34 percent of colleges
(IDG.net)
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Indiana University bans Napster after Metallica suit
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Napster faces the big sleep on campus
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RELATED SITES:
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Stanford
Napster

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