Oxford University sparked controversy recently when they banned all their campus students from using the popular music-sharing website Spotify, citing the network-slowing bandwidth of the site as the main reason for the decision.
It is believed that during times of high demand, excessive downloading levels are slowing down the general connection, inconveniencing in particular students using the net for academic purposes. A spokesman for the university defended the decision, saying: “If they want to use it recreationally as well that’s no problem unless it uses so much bandwidth that it slows the network down”.
Since its inception in late 2008, Spotify has grown massively as a free and legal music download site, with students making up a large proportion of their business. Many Oxford students have felt that the university’s computing services, which gave no prior warning of the ban, have let them down, with many also arguing that Spotify is beneficial to their studies, and thus contradicts the university’s reasons for the ban.
