The University is close to finalizing a contract with a music downloading service to provide free subscriptions to the entire Princeton student body, Class of 2008 senator Rohan Joshi said in an interview yesterday.
"There's no way the University can sit with giving out free CDs," said Joshi, who has spearheaded the project for the past year. "But what we can do is provide free music for four years of college."
"With all luck, it'll be up and running before people go on break," he said.
USG vice president Rob Biederman '08 said that he expected the deal to "completely alleviate" illegal music downloading on campus.
"I can't imagine anyone using illegal downloading after this," he said.
In 2005, 30 Princeton students were sued for copyright infringement by the Recording Industry Association of America for allegedly engaging in illegal file sharing.
Citing ongoing negotiations, Joshi and Biederman declined to name the company that the University is working with, but said that the specifics of a contract will be announced at the USG meeting in one week.
The free downloads will be "tethered," meaning that they cannot be burned to a CD or downloaded to a portable device. Joshi said that the program, however, is still "great for making mixes and for big parties," and that students will be able to purchase music through the service as well.
The project is "a big Rohan Joshi effort," Biederman said, crediting the senator with the idea and with most of the work. Earlier this year, Biederman accompanied Joshi to meetings with music download providers interested in working with the University.
Biederman has featured the initiative in his ongoing campaign for USG president, trumpeting it on his campaign flyers and website.
The major administrative hurdle, Joshi said, was getting the University to grant permission for the company's equipment to be stored on campus. He added that the University general counsel has been "very cooperative and helpful" in the process.
Listening to her mp3 player in a Cafe Vivian booth Sunday night, Jasjit Bhinder '09 said tethered downloads might not be flexible enough to stop illegal downloading, unless "you can download the songs to an iPod."
In the next booth over, Nour Aoude '10 said he would use the service "every time I wanted to listen to new songs." He worked with headphones plugged into a laptop that holds five gigabytes of music, from Alanis Morissette to Linkin Park to European techno.
Aoude said that tethered songs wouldn't really be a problem for him. "The songs you really wanted you could download on iTunes," he said.
"A lot of people are afraid of downloading on campus, and this will give them an outlet," Joshi said. "It's not something that the student body would die without, but it's another thing that makes Princeton sweet."
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