napster

[Edward Glowacki]

On Wed, 13 Sep 2000, Marcel Kunath wrote:
> Now I don't use Napster and I don't care if they block it but I wondered if MSU
> could ever do such thing. If MSU bl[D[Dgrrrrrr keymap.... blocks Napster
> doesn't as well block Napster access for TCI customers? Is there some way to
> work around this?

I doubt MSU is going to block Napster.  The university's policy is
far to open for anything like that to stand up.  Given that there
*are* legitimate uses for Napster, any attempt to shut down access
is doomed to failure.  The basic stance of the university is, "We
don't endorse copyright violations, but our users are free to do
whatever they wish with the network."  If you want to host 30Gb of
pr0n on your dorm machine, that's fine, as long as you own the
copyright to the material or have permission from the copyright
holder.   Now, if some lawyer comes to us claiming, "A user at ip
address x.x.x.x is hosting 300 songs on their machine. These are
copyrighted works and permission has NOT been given for their use,"
then MSU can deal with that user.

Note: I work for the university, and I'm involved with some of this
stuff, but I speak here for myself and from my experiences, and
what I say does not officially represent the university in any way.

-- 
Edward Glowacki			glowack2@msu.edu
Network Services		
Michigan State University