Ryan says that fear of a lawsuit will not force the University's hand on Napster.

"The University seldom, if ever, makes decisions on the basis of whether it will or will not be sued," he said.

Any lawsuit against Harvard by recording artists would be grounded in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The law relieves Internet service providers such as Harvard from any obligation to monitor their users for illegal actions. But once Harvard is notified that its users are breaking the law, it must take down any infringing material.

"A university has no obligation to do anything until they become aware of a copyright violation on their system," King said. "Once they become aware, they have some obligation to take reasonable steps to prevent it."

The decision that Harvard's attorneys must make is complicated by the fact that the larger national battle over Napster's legality has not been decided.

Although U.S. District Judge Marylin H. Patel issued a preliminary injunction on July 27 that would have effectively shut the service down, the injunction was swiftly overturned without comment by the ninth circuit court of appeals.

However, Ryan said the lack of a final court decision won't prevent Harvard from making its own decision about the program's legality.

"It is accurate to say there has been no final judgement [from the courts]," he said. "At the same time, we make judgements about things all the time without the benefit of a final court judgement."