Napster, iTunes, and other junk

[Paco103]

Ok, apparently they're going to keep pushing for this Napster et. all crap, so I thought I would try to fill people in on things they may not be thinking of.

First off, I have a subscription to Napster, and I pay $120/yr for it, so do not mis-interpret my problem as being the cost alone. Obviously, this campus discount would be a GREAT deal for ME, but what about the rest of you?

". . . the committee's goal was to keep the price around $5 per semester for each student"

Great price for me, but what if you can't use what they give you? What if you don't have your own PC. Will they let you use it in the labs? Don't count on it. You can't even play Yahoo! games in there. What if they choose Napster? Can't use it if you're on a Mac. What if they choose any of them? You better not be a linux user (granted, that's a small population). Also, you can only listen to this music ON your computer. It's all encrypted, and you cannot make CD's from it, or copy it to your portable (for Napster, I'm not sure of the others). If you have iTunes, it will only work on a portable if you have an iPod, IF you can use it on a portable.

". . . it rids the administration of their liability from illegal downloading."

BULL$#!T. It will HELP - but there will still be music, software, and movie downloading. Also, people will download from P2P just because it's not encrypted. 700,000 songs; 1 million? That's not as much as it sounds like. There's still a LOT of music not available on these services. There will always be P2P downloading, and this will NOT cure it.

"Napster will not charge us. Pepsi doesn't charge us to be on campus!"

This was an argument they made last year during the campaigns. We DO pay Pepsi, every time we put a dollar into that machine. Nobody is going to be putting dollars into the Napster server, so SOMEONE will have to write them a check. It's going to be SGA. Where is that money to back the check going to come from? From YOU! Will you use it? Will you even be ABLE to? They have not answered these questions yet!

This state is having enough funding issues, and although it's only $5/month, I don't think everyone should be paying for what only a select portion can use. Make them clear up THOSE issues before it's even CONSIDERED!

[/list]

[Paco103]

$5/semester

Sorry

[the_red_chimp]

It doesn't matter what service they give us, we'll still have this crappy bandwidth cap. I wish we had one person on that committee who understood how the "internets" worked.

[Paco103]

Supposedly this will get us a mirror server on campus to help with bandwidth issues, and on-campus bandwidth is not measured in our counters. Still, I agree, we need someone out there that has a clue.

[the_red_chimp]

I'm so writing a program to pull everything through the on campus servers first.

[Paco103]

Why re-invent the wheel dude? Just use an proxy!

[the_red_chimp]

I'm not following you. I could just use an SMSU proxy? Gimme.

[Paco103]

Are you wanting to pull things from off of campus and still use up the internet bandwidth? Or pull things from off the internet into campus and then across the network to your computer?

The latter is a little more complicated, and unfortunately any way you could do that is pretty much going to result in some trouble between you and Computer Services, and since I work there I probably shouldn't be involved in the evil diabolical plans

[solid_dave]

a proxy diverts you're download to a different port, usually a HTTP port, because there's usually no bandwidth shaping on a the HTTP port, you get better badwidth. You can use a proxy tunnel on any computer.

[the_red_chimp]

Are you wanting to pull things from off of campus and still use up the internet bandwidth? Or pull things from off the internet into campus and then across the network to your computer?

The latter is a little more complicated, and unfortunately any way you could do that is pretty much going to result in some trouble between you and Computer Services, and since I work there I probably shouldn't be involved in the evil diabolical plans

plz hack intarweb and give me more bandwidth

[Xtoq]

Besides the excellent arguments that Paco consistently brings up, I am concerned about what Napster means to the Growl. The Growl, for those who do not know, is the student-run internet radio station at SMSU. It is only internet at the moment, but it is working toward an FM and besides, it's a college station and non-commercial, which means you can hear good music instead of whatever the big five want you to hear. Napster allows their members to mix their own "radio" channel, and I know this will be only grief for the station. Laws prevent the Growl from allowing programmable listening stations or from providing archives of its shows to listeners, something that Napster can provide since their service is a paid service. The Growl has enough problems being completely volunteer and receiving practically no money from the University, it doesn't need the added problem of losing listeners.

I think this is something that students need to be more informed on.

[Chreteau]

"Pepsi doesn't charge us to be on campus!"

Whoever wrote that should read the contracts SMSU has signed with the vendors. Those machines which are not refilled by SMSU entities cough up a huge percentage of their revenue to SMSU, not to mention the section regarding downtime and maintenance.

Have you noticed the new soda machines popping up lately? There's a reason behind that. Kiss the old vendor goodbye.

Rumor has it the coffee machines are also on their way out, and a new vendor has yet to be chosen.