Legal tunes for Calif. students

Some 600,000 university students in California will soon be able to exercise the legal option for their on-campus movie and music consumption. The 13-campus University of California system and the 23-campus California State system announced an agreement with Englewood, Colo.-based Cdigix Inc. that gives administrators on all the campuses the opportunity to provide legal music and film downloading, the Los Angeles Times reports. It's "the largest [such agreement] since campuses across the country began searching two years ago for alternatives to the illegal peer-to-peer downloading that clogged their computer networks and put students in legal jeopardy." Cdigix charges $3/mo. for music and $5.99 for video programming. "Individual campuses will decide whether to subsidize the services through student fees, as is done at some schools," according to the Times. Across the Pacific, 60 Korean record labels are preparing to sue "4,000 Internet users who illegally distributed or used music files," the Korea Times reports. (Thanks to BNA Internet Law for pointing this news out.) For more on legal vs. illegal digital music, see "File-sharing realities for families."