Students of Palo Alto College continue to have the capability to download and play MP3 music files from the Internet on campus computers despite the ongoing controversy on college campuses across the country.

MP3 is a technology that allows you to shrink an audio file to one-tenth its usual size. With the MP3 formats, large audio files become much smaller, making them easier to download, copy and store. Once music is downloaded in the MP3 format, it can be played using MP3 player software such as WinAmp or Windows Media Player.

The downloading of MP3 files has become a popular activity for college students who are able to utilize the high-speed Internet access available on their campuses.

There are a large number of Internet sites that allow the downloading of MP3 file types. Some of those sites allow the downloading of music at no cost, but a growing number of sites charge a fee.

Napster is software that allows users to share music by downloading songs in MP3 format directly from the computers of other users. Napster is found on many of the computers at Academic Computing Center of the George Ozuna Jr. Center.

By typing in a band name or song title, a person is provided with a list of downloadable tracks that match the given criteria.

Napster, whose online distribution of MP3s has been a center of controversy in the music industry for the past year, announced an agreement Oct. 31 with Bertelsmann AG, the parent company of BMG Music.

With the partnership, Napster will no longer offer a free service to its users. Instead, a subscription-based service will be established to include artist and record company compensation. The price and frequency of the fee has not yet been determined.

Some students, who make up most of the 38 million Napster users, said they felt betrayed by Napster founder Shawn Fanning, who was 19 years old when he came up with the idea for the company. He wrote most of the program’s code and started putting it online in early 1999.

A number of students said Fanning has sold out to the very group that filed suit against him.

"I'm really mad that are going to charge for the service," freshman Vincent Gomez said. "It was great for broke college students who couldn't afford new CDs.

"Many Palo Alto students said they plan on looking for other sources for free music.

Napster has been the source of controversy since its inception more than a year ago. Some music industry officials claim the program violates copyright laws.

The Recording Industry Association of America alleges that the program is used to transfer copyrighted music files and currently is suing Napster, Inc. over the alleged violations.

Napster is appealing a U.S. District Court ruling made in August that ordered its servers down. Until a decision is made, the service is still up and running.

"Napster being gone won’t stop me from downloading MP3s one bit," Psychology sophomore Anna DeLeon said. "I’ll just find substitute somewhere else online."

Many institutions have banned Napster to prevent being named in lawsuits, while others did so to ease the congestion on their network traffic.

The use of music-downloading services is currently not discouraged on campus computers, said Gary Shelman, Director of Information and Communications Technology. “Depending on the decision of the courts, Napster could be banned from operating on our computers," said Shelman. Many college campuses have experienced strains on the amount of bandwidth Napster occupies on their computer networks. If too many files are being downloaded at one time, the servers slow down and can stop working.

Shelman said the downloading of MP3 files has yet to have an impact on Palo Alto’s bandwidth. It may become more of a factor as enrollment grows, he said.

"As long as it doesn’t interfere with the academic use of students, I don’t see us taking steps to block it. But if the time comes when a student is unable to perform research due to network traffic, that’s when something will have to be done," said Shelman.

Palo Alto is expected to take action if ongoing court cases rule Napster infringes on copyright laws, Shelman said.

The Alamo Community College District’s computer use policy states that students must abide by copyright laws and license restrictions while using its computers.

"The legal questions involving Napster are unclear to us. Until we have a better understanding of the legal situation, an effort to prevent MP3 downloading has not occurred," Shelman said.

Napster can be found at http://napster.com