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Oxford University surprises students with Spotify ban
Like all other music-loving residents of North America, I spend half of every day foaming at the mouth with jealousy over Europe's access to the streaming music service Spotify. Well, now I have at least one university full of Europeans to be a little less jealous of: Oxford University has banned Spotify on campus. Was free, legal music undermining the historic school's educational mission? Nope, but it was apparently killing the school's bandwidth. The ban was put into place with no advance warning, which further upset Oxford's population of music fans. It would be one thing to ban an illegal file-sharing service on campus - that happens all the time, in plenty of universities - but Spotify is an attractive legal alternative to pirating music. Will this result in an upswing of music torrenting on campus? (If any Oxford students are reading, can you tell us if torrents are blocked, too?)
[via TechCrunch Europe]
Comments
14
Subscribe to commentsMatt NewbouldJan 18th 2010 8:54PM
I'm not at Oxford University but i am at another English university and while in halls of residence in my first year the internet access to torrent sites was blocked and any attempt to access would lead to a ban of internet for upto a year.
SamVJan 18th 2010 9:42PM
I don't like when the word bandwidth is used in a method that makes no sense.
Bandwidth is a unit of measurement, so you could liken the usage above to the following sentence:
"Nope, but it was apparently killing the school's inch."
Bandwidth usage would be correct.
ButtersJan 19th 2010 12:40AM
I am guessing you don't go to Oxford SamV. Bandwidth is the rate of data transmission, so using the term "killing the school's bandwidth" is perfectly acceptable grammar. If you are "killing the school's bandwidth" you would be slowing the rate of data transmission, which is exactly what was happening at Oxford.
MrTJan 18th 2010 10:18PM
A unit of measurement? Is that like, something you can count? I'll have one bandwidth instead of two please!! Take it you're not at Oxford then.
TBJan 18th 2010 11:19PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_i1xk07o4g
Cristi C.Jan 19th 2010 2:42AM
Don't be foaming at the mouth too badly - I am in Europe (Romania) and Spotify is not available here either.
Mr. PJan 19th 2010 3:57AM
In Europe we're proud of having access to Spotify. It might be one of the first things to be Europe-only. Everything from Europe is normally "open" to overseas destinations.
why don't your countries do the same and enable Pandora or Hulu (for example) in order to use it back in Europe?
don't be that jealous.
Jay HathawayJan 19th 2010 4:04AM
I don't take Hulu or Pandora for granted, by any means, and I'd gladly hook you up if I could. On the other hand, I still can't wait to give Spotify my money.
Mr. PJan 19th 2010 4:31AM
I see your point.
Besides, the ad supported version of spotify is great.
It's only worth paying if you want to use it on your mobile device (on the iphone and android works great)
Bob RoelsJan 19th 2010 5:20AM
I thought Belgium was the capital of Europe. Yet I got restricted here as well.. What's that all about?
jamesJan 19th 2010 5:30AM
I'm sitting in my room in Oxford and Spotify works fine! People are telling me that it's a rolling ban, they're implementing it in stages.
They're really strict about piracy, so torrents are a no-no. Plenty of my friends have been banned from the network for video downloads.
r3loadedJan 19th 2010 5:32AM
I'm happy to be at LSE - absolutely no restrictions at all on what you can do or download. They technically do throttle certain activities during the day on weekdays though...to about 15Mbit :P
GavJan 19th 2010 12:23PM
I don't know what Oxford uses for its halls, but if it's the educational network, then I can understand: JANET doesn't like P2P.
laeroJan 20th 2010 12:40PM
Makes no sense, Spotify creates a cache and stores the music you listen to the most on your local hdd. Shouldn't be too much data having to be downloaded, unless people have been stupid enough to disable it.