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STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - The launch of Napster (news - web sites)'s online music service for Penn State students generated about 100,000 downloads or streaming-audio requests Monday, three days after its debut, school officials said.

A first in higher education, the service is designed to curb students' use of illegal music sharing and piracy. Peer-to-peer file sharing sites have generated lawsuits against users filed on behalf of recording artists.

As spring semester classes got under way Monday at Penn State, more than 2,600 students had registered for the Napster 2.0 service, which comes free with their tuition. All 17,000 on-campus resident students are eligible to use it.

School officials said the new system, which offers about 500,000 songs to choose from, appeared to work flawlessly for the vast majority of users.

By Monday, more than 8,000 visits were logged on the Napster Web site devoted for use by Penn State students. For a fee, students also can burn music onto compact discs.

The school plans to offer the service to all of its 83,000 students this fall. Faculty, staff and alumni will qualify for reduced-price Napster memberships.

www.napster.psu.edu

I'm not sure if I want my tax money and alumni donations to go to music downlaods for every student and teacher.

Thoughts?

Well I think that's pretty friggin' cool. Since I'm not a tax payer in PA I don't really object.

Penn State is a quasi state school. It's not part of the State System of Education, but receives some funding. It's weird and complicated.

Yeah but it still receives funding! I can't believe that State offers this kind of crap for their students, the more I think about it the madder I get. They have been complaining that they don't receive enough state funding and they have to raise tuition by 10% or more and then they get Napster for every student and teacher WTF!?!

Not to mention I get about 10-15 phone calls a year begging for money because I'm an alumni, well they took enough money from me while I was at school and I sure as hell ain't gonna start giving them money now.

You guys are assuming that Penn State payed for Napster for all its students - when it just might be that Napster payed Penn State for the publicity and an instant boost to their membership.