ATLANTA, Oct. 1 (AP) - As Napster's battle for survival resumes in a federal court, colleges and universities nationwide are issuing verdicts of their own on whether students will have access to the Internet music-swapping service. On many campuses, Napster has already won. ``We are an educational institution and we will err on the side of unfettered access to information,'' said Bob Harty, a spokesman for the Georgia Institute of Technology, which last week denied a lawyer's request on behalf of two music acts to block access to Napster. ``Once you start down that road ... well, we could tie up an awful lot of staff people and resources trying to evaluate Web sites' content, and we don't want to get into that,'' he said. Other schools - among them Michigan, Stanford, Princeton and Duke - responded in like manner to the request from Howard King, a Los Angeles lawyer who represents Metallica and Dr. Dre. ``I think the overwhelming majority of universities are reacting the same way we have. Most are not blocking Napster,'' said Mike Smith, assistant chancellor for legal affairs at the University of California in Berkeley. Metallica, Dr. Dre and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) have sued Napster, claiming its file-sharing software allows people to steal music. Three universities - Yale, Indiana and Southern California - also were sued but later dropped after they agreed to block access to Napster. U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel in San Francisco granted a preliminary injunction against Napster in July, ruling that Napster encouraged widespread copyright infringement. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stayed her order hours before it was to take effect. On Monday, that court is to hear arguments on whether to continue the stay pending a trial - thus allowing Napster to live on. Napster contends that the millions of Americans who use its service - the San Mateo, Calif., company says 28 million people have downloaded the software - are violating no law. It bases its defense on the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992, which it says grants immunity when music is shared for noncommercial use. Higher education is involved because students have been among Napster's most ardent patrons and defenders. Georgia Tech students say they're pleased with their school's decision. ``Why should Georgia Tech be a filter?'' asked Darren, an aerospace engineering major from New York City, who wouldn't give his surname for fear he would be named in a copyright infringement complaint. Two of the nation's largest universities - Texas and Ohio State - block Napster access but only because they are concerned about their campus-wide networks getting clogged with swapped music. ``Twenty percent of the total university bandwidth was going toward something that we were pretty sure was Napster use,'' said Tom Edgar, associate vice president for academic computing. But he acknowledges that numerous Napster-like services can supply the same files, so blocking Napster won't stop online music-swapping. At some universities, officials are taking enforcement one step further. Oklahoma State campus police confiscated a student's computer last month over allegations by the RIAA that it was used to distribute copyright material. Penn State officials are questioning students and faculty whose computers show heavy file-transfer traffic. Other schools have blocked Napster on the grounds that it is a tool for breaking the law. Among them is Northeastern University in Boston, where former student Shawn Fanning wrote Napster's technical underpinnings in his dorm room two years ago. Canisius College, a private liberal arts college in Buffalo, N.Y., has blocked Napster on ethical grounds. ``It's not free for you to steal books from the public library, and it's not free to download music you haven't paid for,'' said Jerry Neuner, Canisius' associate vice president for academic affairs and president of the American Association of University Administrators. Copyright 2000 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.