An agreement reached earlier this week between university officials and the Napster online music service will soon enable most Penn State students to obtain free, legal music on their personal computers.

Yesterday in Anaheim, Calif., Penn State President Graham Spanier said the agreement makes Penn State the first university in the world to work with the recording industry on this level.

"With the stepped up enforcement efforts of the [Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)], and the concern students have about the legality or illegality of what they're doing, we think they're going to be pretty excited about taking part in this service," he said.

The program will come at no additional cost to students, Spanier said. Expenses will be included in students' $160 information technology fee, but the fee will not increase as a result of the agreement.

The pilot program will be released to 18,000 on-campus students on Jan. 12 and expanded to include off-campus students next fall. Rodney Erickson, executive vice president and provost, said university faculty, staff and paying members of the Penn State Alumni Association will also receive a discount on the program next year.

The recently relaunched Napster 2.0 program is not a peer-to-peer file-sharing program; its goal is to curb usage of such programs, Erickson said. The 500,000 songs can be downloaded from a Napster server, instead of other users' computers.

Napster is not compatible with all operating systems. Students using Windows Millennium Edition and Macintosh computers will not be able to use the program.

Napster President Mike Bebel said testing has been done using a virtual PC program on Macintosh operating systems, but its success is "hit and miss."

"We are interested ... in reaching the Macintosh platform. That would require us to work very closely with Apple and so far we haven't quite made those inroads," he said.

Spanier said the university would continue to work with Napster officials to improve the program.

Users can obtain songs for free by streaming audio, which plays songs in a play list without downloading. Tethered downloading, which saves songs on desktop and laptop computers and portable MP3 players, is also free. Tethered songs cannot be copied onto compact disc.

Permanent downloads can also be made for 99 cents per song.

Spanier said the university reviewed and tested many different music programs before deciding on Napster, which it said offered students the "widest number of features" possible.

Julie Vastyan (senior-marketing), a student who tested the program in October, said she was happy with the service.

Downloads finish at about 20 seconds per song, which is faster than most programs, she said. All musical genres are available, and album information comes with every song.

Vastyan said most current hit songs were available, but she could not find songs by some artists, including Dave Matthews Band, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Metallica. She also said songs could not be played in the Winamp program, but worked in Windows Media Player.

There are currently no plans to allow downloading of movies.

Undergraduate Student Government President Ian Rosenberger said the students who tested the program expressed satisfaction.

"One of the students e-mailed me and said, 'This Napster program rocks the hizzouse.' I don't know what that means, but I think that's important to note," he said.

Cary Sherman, RIAA president, said college students' illegally downloading music is harmful to the music industry.

"People who get used to free music ... during their college years are likely to retain that mentality and become lost customers in the future."

Rosenberger said students would play a vital role in the plan's expansion to other universities, which Spanier said has discussed with other schools' leaders.

"Without students on board with this, and without the general population on board ... you're not going to see a big kickoff with the program," he said.