In an interesting story with regards to RIAA's fight against illegal downloading, a small indpedent record label is fighting against the RIAA. Greg Ross, founder of Brooklyn based Go-Kart Records, is fed up with the RIAA's tactics of filing lawsuits to fight illegal downloading. First, Ross wrote a letter to the association criticizing it's methods. Later, he posted 6 full albums from bands on his label on the label website.

Speaking on the matter, Ross posted on his website, "We at Go-Kart Records want to make it perfectly clear that the RIAA does not represent the views of all record labels. We feel that only by embracing technology can we gain from it, and that a battle like the one that the RIAA is fighting can simply not be won.
So, we are putting our music where our mouth is to prove a point. We believe that if you like the music you hear you will support it by going to shows, telling your friends, and buying the bands CD's. With this in mind, we are allowing people to download some of our current releases AT NO CHARGE. In other words, we are essentially GIVING these albums away!"

After posting the albums on the site, Ross reported that the site received 80,000 hits in one second, and close to 40,000 songs were downloaded. Soon, Ross plans on releasing the first all-MP3 CD, Go-Kart MP300 Raceway, on November 4.

As reported earlier Napster has resurfaced, and now Penn State will offer the downloading service to students. Starting in January, when Penn State's second semester begins, over 18,000 students will be offered Napster 2.0 at no additional cost. The cost will be covered by the school's technology fee. This groundbreaking new partnership was announced on Thursday, November 11th, 2003, in hopes to curb the rampant downloading of illegal music files by students in college campuses across the country.

"This will be the first step in a new, legal approach designed to meet student interest in getting extensive digital access to music," Penn State president Graham Spanier said. "We have already set up student focus groups at Penn State who have been testing the Napster service. We will essentially deploy thousands of testers in the spring semester to use this program and give us feedback before we roll it out for even wider student use in the fall of 2004."