Well, the recording industry and the five major players - Sony, Warner, BMG, EMI and Universal -
may have won the battle, but they'll NEVER win the war. If Napster goes away, dozens of other music
swapping sites will surely take its place.
Though the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday struck a serious blow against Napster, saying
that its users are violating copyright laws and that the service could be held liable if its
users continue to trade illegally copied songs, Napster won't be shut down immediately.
To prevent that from occurring, Napster must prevent its users from swapping illegally copied
files of songs. Napster must now police its system and block any transmission of material which
the recording industry has listed as copyright-protected.
The federal court of appeals also instructed Napster to remove links to users trading copyrighted
songs stored as MP3 files.
Napster can still appeal the decision. But if that request is denied,
their last resort will be to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. And who knows what the chances are
that they'll hear the case.
Napster has continually argued that it's not to blame for its subscribers' use of copyrighted
material by citing the Sony Betamax decision. In that 1984 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled
that VCR manufacturers and videotape retailers cannot be held liable for the copying of copyrighted
materials by consumers. And the same should apply to Napster.
In today's decision, the court essentially found that the recording industry would suffer greater
ills if Napster were to stay operational, citing that the record companies have already lost
billions of dollars in lost profits.
What they failed to mention was all the money that the record labels made
as a result of people downloading and listening to the songs, then going out to buy the stuff.
The reality is that CD sales are up exponentially, higher than they've ever been, and a great deal
of it has to do with Napster.
Since Napster won't be shut down for the time being, I'm sure everyone will be scrambling to
downloading as much as they possibly can. But beware, the court's ruling also suggested that
individuals who download and share copyright material could face potential criminal copyright
liability as well!
Happy downloading...