Napster Back on Campus With Expanded University and Curriculum Programs

Napster Back on Campus With Expanded University and Curriculum Programs

University of California, Cal State University and University of North Carolina Systems, Brown University, American University, Bentley College, Grove City College Join Renewing Educational Institutions

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Napster (NASDAQ:NAPS), the biggest brand in digital music, announced today significant new adoption of its compelling university-based subscription service initiative. Originally launched in late 2004 at Penn State and the University of Rochester, Napster's program was the first specifically designed to address the needs of higher education institutions and their students. By enabling schools to offer students easy access to an immersive, legal digital music experience, the program facilitates campus reduction of high bandwidth costs and network security threats that are often caused by rampant use of illegal peer-to-peer services.

The University of California (UC), Cal State University (CSU), and the University of North Carolina (UNC) have each agreed to allow Napster to offer its award-winning subscription service across their state-wide systems. UC has 10 campuses throughout California, including UC Berkeley, UCLA and UC San Diego, while CSU is comprised of 23 campuses including Cal State University Northridge and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. There are 16 schools in the UNC system, including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Greensboro, Charlotte and Pembroke. Brown University, American University, Bentley College, and Grove City College have also struck agreements with Napster, as have First Worthing Housing, which provides residential housing to students nationwide, and Spartan.net Housing at Michigan State.

"Napster offers the digital music environment that most closely resembles that of P2P sites, but also allows collegiate music fans to enjoy on-demand access to over 1.5 million songs, exclusive video interviews with their favorite artists and icons and exclusive features like hand-picked play lists, music blogs and access to albums before they're released," said Aileen Atkins, Napster's senior vice president of business affairs and general counsel. "Some campus' student bodies have actually approached us and requested that we offer the Napster service at their schools, which we find especially gratifying and consider a true validation of our subscription service model."

Napster's place on campus is not confined to dorm room PCs and MP3 players. This fall Penn State is offering a course called "The Popular Arts in American: Popular Music," which examines the roots, development and significance of American Popular music (blues, jazz, gospel, country, pop, rock 'n roll) in our culture and will utilize Napster's subscription offering to streamline the class' music syllabus and facilitate students learning. Course professor William Kelly tested and developed the unique concept last year and now has over 1,000 students engaged in the online course which is only made possible by the diverse, engrossing music experience Napster's subscription service provides.

"Utilizing Napster to teach Penn State's Popular Music class provides a library of musical information and a mechanism for discovery that students can access anytime and revisit at will," said Penn State professor William J. Kelly. "I can't think of any environment that is less hospitable to experiencing music than a big, cavernous classroom, but the Napster service allows my students to dig into gospel or Gershwin, Elvis, or the blues in exactly the same way they would listen to songs in their everyday lives."

Several schools conducted their own student surveys and tests before choosing to implement Napster. Students at two schools reviewed competing digital music services and ultimately chose Napster's subscription service model to be offered campus-wide instead of Ruckus, which was previously offered to students. Napster has worked with each institution partner to create a program that fits its needs as well as the needs of its student body, and its recent partnership with Dell affords administrators the option to easily incorporate Dell PowerEdge servers into their digital music programs to maximize bandwidth efficiency. Each school will offer Napster's subscription service, featuring unlimited streaming and hard drive downloading from the world's largest digital music library, as well as access to interactive, commercial-free radio stations and five decades of Billboard's historic chart information. Napster gives university students the opportunity to be part of an online community of music lovers who can send tracks to friends, share play lists and look at each other's Napster music collections in a safe, legal environment. Students can purchase music to burn to CD or transfer to over 75 compatible portable devices for 99 cents per song or as little as $6.95 per album and can upgrade to Napster To Go, Napster's portable subscription service, to enjoy unlimited transfer of music to a compatible MP3 player for one monthly fee.

About Napster

Napster, the biggest brand in digital music, is a subscription service that enables fans to freely sample the world's largest and most diverse online collection of music and move an unlimited amount of songs to compatible MP3 players. Napster (www.napster.com) members have access to songs from all major labels and hundreds of independents and have more ways to discover, share and acquire new music and old favorites with community features like the ability to email tracks to friends and browse other members' collections. Napster also offers Napster Light, a "lighter" version of the service for those who just want to purchase songs and albums a la carte. Napster is currently available in the United States, Canada and the U.K. and is headquartered in Los Angeles with sales offices in New York, London and Frankfurt.

Copyright (C) 2005 Napster, LLC. All rights reserved. Napster and Napster Light are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Napster, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and/or other countries.

Napster contact: Dana M. Harris Napster 310-281-5073 dana.harris@napster.com

Nancy Sullivan, John Conroy Rogers & Cowan 310-854-8199, 310-854-8178 nsullivan@rogersandcowan.comjconroy@rogersandcowan.com

Source: Napster

CONTACT: Dana M. Harris of Napster, +1-310-281-5073, dana.harris@napster.com; or Nancy Sullivan, +1-310-854-8199, nsullivan@rogersandcowan.com, or John Conroy, +1-310-854-8178, jconroy@rogersandcowan.com, both of Rogers & Cowan, for Napster

Web site: http://www.www.napster.com/

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