That is the question. With the Napster controversy still being hammered out in court, a question that looms in the realm of higher education is whether or not to ban it altogether.

College students are one of the largest groups of Napster users, and most universities — including the University of Virginia in Charlottesville — have refused to deny student access to the site. To justify its policy, U.Va. determined that there are other "legitimate uses" for Napster, says Louise Dudley, a university spokeswoman.

"Chat rooms on the site serve as public forums" for the exchange of ideas, she says. This is quite a liberal attitude for a school that requires students to take a quiz on university computing policies before even receiving an e-mail password.

There are some schools, however, who stand apart from the crowd, such as the University of Richmond. U. of R. does not provide access to Napster, but Brian Eckert, a spokesman for the school, is quick to point out that the university is not riding a moral high horse: "Our reasons for banning the site were to protect campus network bandwidth access." Classes, students and faculty depend heavily on the school’s network, and when it goes down it causes major problems. Without Napster, there is plenty of capacity to accommodate the university’s needs. Besides, "The primary purpose of being here is to study," Eckert says.