Six Universities Offer Napster Discounts

Hoping to curb music piracy on campus, USC and five other universities have signed deals to offer discounted versions this fall of the Napster online music service from Roxio Inc. of Santa Clara, Calif.

USC students are expected to be charged about $2 per month for Napster, while the other schools -- Cornell University, George Washington University, Middlebury College, the University of Miami and Wright State University -- are expected to provide it at no additional charge.

The service enables students to play an unlimited number of songs on their computers, but if they want to transfer the songs to a portable music player or a CD, they’ll have to pay 99 cents per song.

-- Jon Healey

* Microsoft Corp. is forming a new management group to work more closely with the media and entertainment industry, and said it had hired industry veteran Blair Westlake to head the group. Westlake, the former chairman of Universal Television, will become corporate vice president of Microsoft’s Media/Entertainment & Technology Convergence group.