Library looks to offer music online

The University Library is considering making music available through its website in an effort to legally distribute recordings to community members.

In what would be an extension of the e-reserve system, the University Library may subscribe to a service which would provide streaming audio to users, said Assistant Music Librarian Daniel Boomhower. Streaming is a process which sends music to a user across a network without giving the user a permanent copy.

"There is definite interest on the part of the music library and the University Library to subscribe to online audio services," Boomhower said. Though there are currently no services available that meet the University's needs, some are in production, he said.

HNH International Limited, Classical International, Inc. and Smithsonian Global Sound are the three online music subscription services under consideration, he said.

Princeton is not the only institution aiming to solve the problem of legal music distribution. Students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Penn State University's administration have also both moved toward solutions of their own.

At MIT, two students created the Library Access to Music Project. The service was supposed to work by allowing students to act as DJ's for a campus-wide music service which would be broadcast across existing cable TV lines.

However, after only a week of activity, the service was shut down when the Universal Music Group claimed LAMP operators had not obtained the necessary licenses to distribute music on the campus.

Penn State recently reached a deal with Napster which would give students free access to a new version of the once-popular program which now charges a fee for downloads. Students would be able to freely download any song from the Napster library and burn CD's for 99 cents each. This spring, 18,000 students will have access to the service on their campus.

Some students feel that spending educational funds to finance recreational music is not the University's job.

"Pop music isn't necessarily part of a college experience," said Nathan Domingue '06, who has composed several original rap songs with Brian Root-Bernstein '06. Domingue said he wouldn't expect the University to provide music any more than he would "expect the school to buy me a TV or refrigerator."

While these systems are running their courses at other institutions, the newest version of Apple's iTunes is already having an effect on Princeton's campus.

In addition to letting students pay for music as they download it, the new version also enables both Macintosh and Microsoft Windows users to share songs across the University network. The program lets users listen to files off each other's computers without copying the files.

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This sharing feature has Domingue and Root-Bernstein excited. The duo has recorded three original rap songs and is encouraging the community to listen to them through iTunes.

"I think sharing is really good for someone like me who is trying to get heard and not necessarily make money," Domingue said.

But this easy distribution is a double-edged sword:

"I think programs like iTunes and even Kazaa are wonderful for up-and-coming musicians who have no chance of being signed to a major record label," said Root-Bernstein. "But for those artists that depend on record sales for a living, they are certainly the opposite."