Feds Dis Napster
The announcement on Friday that the federal government was joining the defenders of copyright rather than the "information wants to be free" crowd in the Napster case was treated as just barely news by the media. All the major outlets and Net trades reported it, but in such similar ways that they all could have run AP copy and given their Net music reporters Friday afternoon off.
The Department of Justice, the Copyright Office and the Patent and Trademark Office jointly filed a "friend of the court" brief that all but laughs at Napster's legal argument that it's protected by the 1992 Audio Home Recording Act. This line was a favorite in several reports: "Napster's users would be permitted to engage in digital copying and public distribution of copyrighted works on a scale beggaring anything Congress could have imagined when it enacted the (Digital Millennium Copyright) Act. Yet the music industry would receive nothing in return." In other words, this isn't like taping a CD so you can listen to it in the car.
The brief was written for the three-judge panel that will hear the case in October. Napster users who have spent the summer downloading their favorite songs gratis have these judges to thank for the tunes. They are the ones who issued the stay order that kept Napster alive after U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel told the file-swapping service in July that it must either find a way to disable swapping of copyrighted tunes or shut down altogether. Shutting down appears to be the only technologically possible option.
Napster's attorneys put on a brave face (they get paid to do that). One, Robert Silver, told the Associated Press that the federal agencies' focus on the recording act left other defenses available. But the brief was one more piece of tough news, capping a week in which MP3.com lost a judgment to Universal that some observers guessed could cost it as much as $250 million. Free music isn't coming cheap anymore.
If you're keeping a tip sheet, the lineup looks something like this: In the Recording Industry Association of America's corner are the White House, the copyright and patent offices, the NBA and Jack Valenti. Standing up with (if not exactly for) Napster are the Computer and Communications Industry Association, the Digital Media Association, the ACLU and, on retainer, David Boies. Napster gets a chance to rebut the briefs in the coming weeks; don't expect the Home Recording Act to figure too prominently. - David Sims
Universities Gets Schooled on Napster http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,18402,00.html?nl=mg
U.S. Copyright Office Files Brief on Napster http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42627-2000Sep9.html
U.S. Opposes Napster Argument http://cbs.marketwatch.com/archive/20000909/news/current/napster_brief.htx
Gov't Says Napster Violates Law http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,38692,00.html
White House Enters the Napster Fray http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2626299,00.html
U.S. Sides With RIAA Against Napster http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-2731198.html