The dean of the College or dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences could recommend that HASCS restrict access to Napster's service. The General Counsel's office could do the same, or Steen could decide to block Napster due to a strain on network resources.

"It can use up a lot of bandwidth," Steen says. "We don't think at this point it's so serious that we have to take any action."

He adds that it may not be technically possible to completely block access.

Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 writes in an e-mail message that, from an academic standpoint, there is no reason for his office to recommend blocking the service.

"I have not heard anyone suggest that this particular activity is a source of students' academic problems," he writes, though he did discourage students from partaking in copyright violations. "We expect students not to do anything illegal, and theft of copyrighted material is illegal."

Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles also indicated that he would only recommend banning Napster if it caused academic problems among students.

Their Day in Court

Although it is unlikely that universities will be held financially responsible for permitting access to Napster, at the moment it is unclear whether or not Napster itself will prevail in its lawsuits.