Digital music to come to UNC

Starting in January, students living on campus will be able to legally download and share as much music as they want through a free network pilot program sponsored by a major music label.

Throughout the spring semester, students at UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State University will have unlimited access to music downloading programs, and will decide if they want continued access to the programs in the fall.

The N.C. School of the Arts, N.C. Agricultural & Technical State University, UNC-Wilmington and Western Carolina University have arranged contracts with four providers: Apple's iTunes and iPod, Ruckus Network, Cdigix and Rhapsody

Jeanne Smythe, director of computing policy at UNC-CH, said she anticipates the service to cost individual students about $2 per month starting in the fall, plus a small fee for each song.

Tom Warner, director of coordinated technology management for the UNC system, said the project is a "response to a change in culture that technology has brought on."

"Higher education is always evolving to respond to the latest trends in student life as well as higher education," he said.

Warner said UNC-CH's pilot program will blaze the trail for other system schools, which have looked to UNC-CH to get things rolling.

He emphasized the University is pursuing this initiative for academic purposes and not solely because of student demand. He said some students would find the program useful for classes that deal with the history and music.

"It's up to us to provide you the tools you need to learn, so that's what we're trying to do with this."

He said the University will assess the success of the pilot program at the end of the spring semester.

Smythe said the pilot initiative should give Information Technology Services an idea of what to expect from the program. "We hope to learn enough from that project to be able to offer production services next fall, similar to the way there's a (Carolina Wireless Initiative) pilot project," she said.

Megan Bell, interim assistant vice chancellor for communications, said she does not anticipate that the program will cause network problems.

"There will be no meaningful difference that anyone would notice," she said. "The network would be monitored throughout the entire pilot."

Smythe said the project is exciting. "It will give people a legal way to be able to get the music they're interested in," she said. "Hopefully, it will be a win-win for everybody."

Warner also expressed optimism about the project and said there will be efforts to educate students on copyright infringement as well.

"It just seems to me like a really good way to not only protect our population, but also get back to our academic mission of educating students," he said. "You can't work with (the project) this much and not get excited about it."

Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.