October 13, 2005 3:23 PM PDT
Mystery donor gives Stanford free Yahoo music
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Beginning next week, Stanford will join a growing number of other colleges around the country in promoting or providing free access to online music subscription services, aiming to draw students away from legally risky file-swapping networks.
Unlike some other universities, Stanford has declined to pay for students' subscriptions itself, or use student fees to subsidize the costs. But during the program's first year, which the college regards as a pilot project, the costs will be covered by the outside donor's money.
"We did not want to earmark university funds, because this is not part of our research or teaching mission," said Susan Weinstein, Stanford director of business development.
The Stanford service will be the first school music program for Yahoo, which launched its digital music subscription service in May and has sought to attract subscribers quickly by undercutting rivals' prices.
As with other subscription services, Yahoo allows unlimited streaming or downloads of songs to a computer. Unlike its rivals, it also allows subscribers to transfer songs to portable devices for the same price, $6.99 a month. Other services charge a higher price for subscriptions compatible with portable devices, because record labels charge a higher wholesale rate for those rights.
In Stanford's case, at the end of the trial year, students' monthly subscription rates will go up to $1.75 a month for the basic Yahoo subscription, and $4.75 a month for the version compatible with portable devices, Weinstein said.
The university chose Yahoo after evaluating it along with several other services, and seeing it get the best review from students, Weinstein said.
Although news of the anonymous donor's support quickly sent speculation winging toward Stanford alums and Yahoo co-founders Jerry Yang and David Filo, Weinstein said the money would have applied to any music service, and was not tied to use of the Yahoo program.
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yourselves out.
But after that "free" first year contract expires, guess what?
Those songs that you've been downloading and toting around
campus for the last year aren't yours, and if you intend to keep
them, your going to have to pay for them. Of course you could
renew your "subscription" presumably out of your own pocket,
but the songs still aren't yours. If you want WMP-DRM only
versions (read, not iPod compatible, but you already know that)
you have to pay for each and every song - separately - in
addition to your monthly subscription fees.
It will be a good lesson, albeit hard, for the students.