WASHINGTON -- It sounded like the perfect way to transform Napster aficionados into political activists: A "teach-in" at Catholic University next week, followed by mass attendance at a Senate hearing the next day.
But Catholic University officials decided they didn't want to have anything to do with it.
"There will be no Napster-related event on our campus," Victor Nakas, the school's director of public affairs, said Thursday afternoon.
The official reason? When two student groups from the university's law school asked about organizing a Napster discussion next Monday with company founder Shawn Fanning, the administration responded by saying rules required that both sides of the ban-Napster-or-not issue be included.
"Napster indicated its unwillingness to participate in a balanced presentation," Nakas said. "Thus, no event was ever scheduled or agreed to by the university. Any representation to the contrary is false."
The unofficial reason, according to a source close to the controversy, is that the Recording Industry Association of America leaned on Catholic University and prompted controversy-shy administrators to back away. Nakas denies this happened.
Napster has moved the "teach-in" to the Ronald Reagan International Trade Center on Pennsylvania Avenue, a more central location in downtown Washington.
Because it's a private school, Catholic University has a great deal of latitude in setting its own rules, and administrators have come up with two seemingly contradictory ones.
The school's "Freedom of Expression" guidelines, included in the Student Handbook, say "freedom of expression and dissent is protected by university policy for all members of the university community."
That would appear to include students from the Catholic University chapter of the American Bar Association and the Entertainment Law Society who wanted to hear a tech-culture celebrity say what he thinks about the music establishment and the law.
But the "Policy for Presentations and Balanced Programs" veers in the opposite direction, saying the university does not allow "advocacy programs judged by the administration to be inconsistent with the university's underlying value base."
Catholic University adheres to the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, and its rules were designed to limit the presence of pro-choice speakers on campus.
When asked whether Napster's point of view was "inconsistent with the university's underlying value base," Nakas said that wasn't the point. He replied: "For something like Napster, we don't see that as necessarily controversial. But we do have a policy that when we have requests for presentations on issues that are controversial, we do have a long-standing policy that our students know about."
Earlier this week, Napster launched a Web campaign to encourage its users to show up in Washington for a two-day affair that included the Catholic University event, a concert featuring Dispatch at the 9:30 Club and a Senate Judiciary hearing.
"We moved it to the Reagan Center -- a location that could accommodate a larger crowd and had better audiovisual services," said Napster vice president Manus Cooney.
Rapper Chuck D, who operates rapstation.com is scheduled to be in town for the festivities, though he's not expected to testify before Congress.
