STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) -- Penn State's groundbreaking arrangement with Napster is over. The university will turn to Ruckus Network Inc. this fall to allow music-loving students at its 24 campuses to download songs on to their computers or MP3 players. Penn State's ties to Napster will be severed in May. That partnership was the first of its kind in higher education when announced in Nov. 2003. Students got legal access to streaming music and limited downloads through Napster 2.0 service, and could permanently download music to a compact disc or portable device for 99 cents a song. The goal in large part was to curb students' use of illegal music sharing and piracy, especially since recording artists have filed lawsuits over peer-to-peer file-sharing sites. Ruckus is offering more features, such as movies and video content, sought by college students, said Kevin Morooney, Penn State vice provost for information technology. Money also appears to be a driving force. The university's Napster service was paid for by applying a portion of the information technology fees paid by students. That did not include the 99-cent per-song permanent download fee. Students will have to pay a similar fee for permanent downloads with Ruckus, but there are no other costs, Sam Haldeman, a Penn State information technology project manager, said Monday. That means money in the IT budget that originally paid for Napster can go now to efforts like student multimedia services and emergency reporting services, Penn State said. "Penn State will acquire considerable savings in the switch," the university had said in a statement announcing the deal with arrangement with Ruckus. The school has not disclosed how much it paid for Napster service at the request of the music company, school spokesman Bill Mahon said Monday. Software maker Roxio Inc., of Santa Clara, Calif., launched Napster 2.0 in 2003 after having acquired the Napster brand from the ashes of the pioneer free file-swapping service forced to shut down in 2001 after a protracted legal battle with recording companies. Other schools followed Penn State's lead in 2004 in signing up for Napster. Ruckus chief executive officer Mike Bebel was president of Napster in fall 2003. Ruckus, based in Herndon, Va., describes itself as "the premier digital entertainment service for colleges and universities." Napster spokeswoman Becky Farina declined comment Monday when asked if Penn State's departure was a sign that the music service was bowing out of the colleges and universities market. "Napster's pioneering efforts to build a legal market for music at colleges have encouraged other digital services to join in, which is a great dynamic for growing this market," Farina wrote in an e-mail, "so these partnerships between music providers and colleges should be on the scene for a long time to come." All enrolled students would be eligible to use Ruckus to legally download and share music from the nearly 3 million songs available through the service and create playlists. Ruckus' social networking component was also an attraction, Haldeman said.

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