USC Says No Way To Napster Blocking

The University of Southern California (USC) has reportedly refused to join some other universities in blocking MP3 music downloads via the controversial Napster program.

An Associated Press report today said the university made the announcement on Friday in response to a lawsuit filed by the heavy metal godfathers of Metallica, which named USC, Yale University and Indiana University as defendants in charges alleging the schools allowed students to pirate copyrighted music.

Last week, both Yale and Indiana declared their computers would no longer support the Napster program and they have been dropped from the lawsuit.

According to the AP, USC issued a statement Friday that maintained that the school will permit student access to Napster "only for demonstrably legal purposes from designated university personal computers and under university supervision."

The report said that USC attorney Carol Mauch stated the Napster site contains certain applications "which are clearly legal, such as the chat rooms focused on various styles of music."

Napster has been under fire from musicians and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for allowing users to swap music and download onto CD, thus infringing on copyright and denying royalties. The program has been so popular among university students that some schools have reported overloading due to heavy download traffic.

Metallica, RIAA and rapster Dr. Dre have all filed infringement suits against Napster Inc.

Reported by Newsbytes.com, http://www.newsbytes.com.