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Kazaa folds, iTunes thrives
By Elisheva Weiss
Columbia Daily Spectator (Columbia
U.)
(U-WIRE) NEW
YORK - Now that Columbia University officials have shown they
will comply with music industry subpoenas demanding information
about those who share mp3s online, Columbia students are under
increased pressure to find creative--and legal--alternatives
for acquiring music.
Apple has offered a viable solution
to this quandary with the release of iTunes 4.1, an online music
program that's on the up-and-up. The new version, which Apple's
Web site calls the "world's best digital music jukebox,"
provides accessibility to more users and is gaining popularity
across college campuses everywhere.
Many Columbia students seem to
think the new program is up to the task, though many Windows
users on campus are unaware of the program's availability--when
iTunes debuted six months ago, it worked only on Macintosh computers.
"The new iTunes Music Store
offers Windows users the same online music store with the same
music catalog, the same personal use rights and the same 99
cents per song pricing," read an Apple statement upon the
launch of what it called the "second generation of the
iTunes Music Store."
Apple has increased its marketing
of the Windows option, which works in sync with the PC version
of its popular portable mp3 player, the iPod, and several students
said they would remain open to using the program in the future--especially
its free components.
Adam Stern, CC '06, who has used
the program for a few months, said that he does not use iTunes
for its special features.
"Essentially [iTunes] is
just something to play music," he said.
The program, which "features
hundreds of thousands of songs from major music companies including
BMG, EMI, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal and Warner Bros.
plus over 100,000 new tracks from independent artists and record
labels," according to Apple, allows users to listen to
a song's first 30 seconds and then, if desired, purchase it
for 99 cents. (An additional feature automatically reveals the
music libraries of other iTunes users on the same network--although
those songs can only be listened to, not downloaded permanently.)
This purchasing feature is the
difference between using iTunes and using programs like Kazaa
and the old Napster that keeps the Apple program legal.
The Copyright Act of 1976 states
that U.S. law "protects copyright owners from the unauthorized
reproduction, adaptation, performance, display or distribution
of copyright protected works."
But downloading music files via
iTunes is not unauthorized because "they have licensing
agreements with the companies whose music they sell," Amanda
Collins, a Recording Industry Association of America spokeswoman,
said.
The RIAA, which has launched vigorous
legal strategies against other file sharing programs and the
people who use them, has indicated that it has no objections
to the new program, nor two other fee-based downloading services
that have debuted recently.
"[iTunes] is another great
addition to a vibrant and growing legal online music marketplace
that continues to offer music fans exciting ways to access the
music they want," Collins said.
This accounts for both the legality
of iTunes and the incurred fee to actually buy the song. But
"once you buy [the songs], you own them," says Apple's
Web site, meaning that the buyer has broad rights to listen
to the song from different computers and burn it to CD for personal
use.
But many Columbia students who
use iTunes do not buy music from its online store--they simply
use iTunes to organize and play the songs they download via
other, less controlled programs. Jeff Engler, CC '05, said he
is a Macintosh user who runs iTunes but does not buy music from
the online store.
Engler said that his attraction
to iTunes was not an issue of avoiding copyright infringement,
but rather that the program was convenient and a "really
good way to play mp3s."
"I love iTunes," he
said.
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