iTunes Sharing at Colleges

[MacRumors]

Yale's Daily News reports on the increasing use of iTunes software at the Yale college campus. It appears to reflect a growing trend amongst colleges where iTunes' ability to share music playlists is turning out to be a very popular feature.

When iTunes 4.0 was originally introduced in April, it incorporated a much anticipated feature that allowed users to share music with other iTunes installations across the internet. The feature was quickly exploited drawing concerns of piracy. As a result iTunes 4.0.1 limited shares to Local Networks, which tend to be utilized in single households. College dorms, however, also bring together numerous users on a single local network allowing these students to share songs via iTunes.

[theipodgod16]

Good. This means that they probably are being slowly driven away from kazaa and the like.

[maelstromr]

This makes me happy...another example of an evolving technological world and a kick in the teeth for record labels. Way to go Apple for pressing the envelope and changing the way computers (and music) work!
It's getting better all the time...

[Gren]

This is a feature that will soon be (quietly) dropped in a update. Mark my words.

[trebblekicked]

the sharing feature does rock. At a café last week, i had seven libraries available. Very cool stuff.

i just hope the RIAA doesn't go after that feature. i can almost hear the execs complaining about disposable income, top demos and castrating sales.

[kansast]

I wonder how long before Apple has to put a stop to this as well.. which I think would suck!!! I just don't see.. although obviously more convenient.. it's like blasting your stereo (to share) or making cassette copies for your friends (to share) which has all been going on for many years !!

[P Rush]

This is a good thing, a very good thing. More people with itunes, the better. This is giving apple a good reputation as a quality software developer, as well as a foot in the door in the windows world. They may not be seeing the financial benifits of it now from colleges and universities all over North America using itunes over LANs, but these students will be the ones buying the ipods and hopefully Macs in the near future.

Apple's underlying goal was to sell their products by getting to their consumers with itunes. Its working.

P RUSH

[jxyama]

i really hope RIAA will stay out of this and not squash it. they really need to get on with reality - digital music is here to stay. i don't condone piracy, but they need to do their part to adopt and change their business model. selling music CDs at $15+ is not a viable model any more and they need to come to terms with it. i see DVD movies routinely being sold for lower prices than CDs... how can that be? i see CD-R's for sale at 10 cents a disc. how can that be?

[stoid]

This type of sharing is illegal though just as Kazaa is. I guess that you could rationalize that it is not as bad as Kazaa because they are not actually copying the music just listening to it. Regardless I am working on a little pamphlet sheet thing to slip under dorm room doors advertising free music to get through the thick skulls of the other students here on my Windowss only campus. I don't think that the IT will mind the added internal bandwidth (shouldn't even be that high?) because finally this past week bandwidth used by students finally exceeded that of the Blaster Virus.

[Vector]

i doubt the college trend will result in a large increase in song sales, but it should get more people interested in apple and ipods. i know of many people at my university that have downloaded itunes, but none of them buy songs. everyone other than myself just downloads from kazaa or whatever service they use and then use itunnes to play and share the songs.

[pgwalsh]

Originally posted by trebblekicked
the sharing feature does rock. At a café last week, i had seven libraries available. Very cool stuff.

i just hope the RIAA doesn't go after that feature. i can almost hear the execs complaining about disposable income, top demos and castrating sales.

It's my understanding that you can't download the music, so I don't see the problem? Even if someone develops a hack, Apple isn't offering the product as a download tool like Kazaa.

This is great for Apple. Maybe people will see how easy it is to use and look at other products by Apple.

[maelstromr]

It's NOT the same thing as KaZaa...I won't bore you with the legal reasons, BUT Kazaa GIVES the files to others, this just allows people to listen in, like someone listening to one of my CDs. They aren't burning, copying or taking anything.

[Wash!!]

I went to FYE music store and so their prices they were out of this world $15-$20.00 for a CD is just crazy. Just to see the difference I looked up an album I bought with itms for $9.99 and in the store was for $17.95 that is just nuts...

[Phil Of Mac]

Perfectly legal, and less antisocial than blasting your speakers in the dorm. Good stuff.

[d00d]

As much as I'd like to share my playlists with everyone else, the fact is that no one else shares, not even with a password protected share. Instead, if I turn mine on, I get a couple leachers that give nothing back. I put a password on mine and restricted its use to my computers alone as a result.

This is at U-Mass by the way.

[JohnGillilan]

Here is a screenshot of my iTunes this morning . . . its the shortest I've seen it in a while; usually the list is twice that at "peak" times.

[Phil Of Mac]

Where are you? I'm at WSU and the most we ever get is 4...

[phlops]

I can attest to the popularity of sharing. Here in one of UMich's bigger dorms (1100 students), there's 36 shares up right now, while at peak times it's gone up to 57. Before iTunes for Windows hit the streets there would be 2 or 3 at low times, and up to 8 or so at the peaks. Within a day of iTunes for Windows being released at least 20 extra people were always available.

To this day, I still get messaged by people around the dorm asking how to install iTunes or how to share their music. People are definitely very excited about this feature.

[rodnarms]

If I was a record executive I would not have a problem with this. Essentially the streamer is only accessing the file. They do not own it, they cannot transfer it to their iPod, they cannot burn a CD, they cannot use it in iLife. If you really like a song then you are going to spend the $.99 for the freedom to do what you want with it.

Actually this is a safe way to discover new music. Most people are not in college forever. When they leave they no longer have access to those massive playlists. They will still have to spend money.

[Big Lar]

Until iTunes for windows came out, there were 1 or 2 shared playlists at this campus of 2600 students. Now there are around 14. The disappointing thing is that there is very little variety. Most of the playlist read pretty much the same.

[OSXpert]

I'd know that list of shared playlists anywhere. definitely USC...ive counted times when weve had 80 playlists on at once...its fun!

[Einherjar]

Hearing about all of these other guys getting dozens of shares is making me sad.


Each floor of the dorms at the University of Rochester has it's own subnet, so we only get the people that live in our particular wing of the building..

There's usually about 7AW shares in my wing (AW, After Windows), up from an initial 3.

[baby duck monge]

this has, of course, been one of my favorite features since it came out in itunes 4. i can remember many a party saved from crappy music by the ability to access extra playlists. at our school of 1800 there were always about 10 or 15 shared playlists with just macs. now that we have windows sharing, too, that number has easily doubled, and at peak times there may be up to 40 shared libraries at a time. yay for spreading the wealth.

::edit::
our entire campus is on the same subnet, BTW. that is quite helpful. also for rendezvous chatting.
::edit::

[michaelrjohnson]

All I have to say is that this is WONDERFUL. There is nothing wrong with this type of sharing. It's the ultimate try-before-you-buy scenario. To all of the pessimists or non-sharers out there, look at it this way. With iTunes, you CAN NOT copy the shared songs (without a hack), and if the person on the other end puts their comp. to sleep, turns it off, or closes iTunes, the streaming automatically ends. Therefore, I have NO posession over their songs, the sharer HAS control. This is awesome, I get such a variety of music to listen to, and it's different all the time.

How should I promote the downloading of iTunes for Windows here at my university?

[gfunk]

as a student at Yale, I think the YDN is missing the most crucial parts of the iTunes use here. Seems like most people around here have iPods (i can count 10-15 people in my dorm that have iPods). Walking around campus, at least 1 out of every 2 people who have headphones on have the distinct iPod earbuds, and who knows how many use their own headphones (I do).

People dont say "im going to buy an mp3 player", they say "Im going to buy an iPod". That, as has been said many times before, is where apple makes its money.