The student media organization of California State University Northridge

Daily Sundial

The student media organization of California State University Northridge

Daily Sundial

The student media organization of California State University Northridge

Daily Sundial

Got a tip? Have something you need to tell us? Contact us

Loading Recent Classifieds...

CSU system selects Cdigix digital media service provider

After a seven-month search, digital media service provider Cdigix was chosen by the University of California system to offer its services to campuses and extend its offer to include the California State Universities.

It is up to each campus to decide whether to extend the services to their students.

The announcement was made July 18, but no CSU has subscribed for the services offered yet, said CSU spokesperson Clara Potes-Fellow.

“We have made our offer,” Potes-Fellow said. “Now each campus needs to decide whether they want to be a part of it.”

The Cdigix company is headquartered in Englewood, Colorado.

The company exclusively works with colleges and currently working with more than 30 schools across the nation including Purdue, Duke, and the University of Maryland, reaching a total of about 310,000 students.

Once a school subscribes, the company offers four services, said Laurie Rubenstein, Cdigix spokesperson.

CTRAX features a large library of legally downloadable digital music with more than 1.5 million selections for 89 cents per track to $3 when a student subscribes to a monthly service.

CFLIX is an entertainment service that costs $5.99 and features news, sports, and documentaries.

It is also available in pay-per-view, where a student pays for each film from $3.99 to $4.99.

CLABS, an education program, works directly with the school to provide multimedia services for different courses.

CVILLAGE provides a social networking platform for the schools that have subscribed.

“The four distinct services are all customizable. A school can decide to only subscribe to the educational service or combine it with others,” Rubenstein said. “What’s great is that as the company evolves their services, the school will also have access to them.”

The Cdigix website at www.cdigix.com features case studies of universities that use Cdigix services.

One of the case studies concerns Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.

A campus committee made up of students, faculty, and staff chose to allow CTRAX at its school. They decided that students would pay the 89 cents per track, while the student housing residents were able to subscribe for free.

In Sept. 2004, CTRAX officially launched at Purdue.

Within four days of the program being available, over 1,000 subscribers downloaded over 150,000 songs.

“Paying for these services varies from campus to campus,” Rubenstein said. “Some campuses choose to subsidize the charges through student fees.”

Students have had trouble discerning what was legal and illegal file sharing. That issue was solved through education.

Currently, Cdigix services are not available to CSUN students.

“Since the recent announcement of these services, there has been no real plans for it on campus yet,” Fitzgerald said.

With more information coming in within the past two weeks, it is necessary for groups to get together on campus and discuss the possibilities of these services at CSUN, Fitzgerald said.

Ariana Rodriguez can be reached at ariana.rodriguez@csun.edu.

More to Discover