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 A
court in California's finally ruled that Napster must stop allowing
users to swap material that is copyrighted, writes Richard Tate.
In the run-up to the ruling thousands were logging on to the service to
download songs just in case the service was suspended. But the legal
battle isn't over because Napster says it will continue to pursue every
legal avenue to prevent the courts from shutting down the service.
In October last year Napster made a deal with Bertelsmann to pay artists signed to them a royalty fee. It's been negotiating with other music companies who are still pursuing legal action against it for copyright infringement. It's certain that free downloads from Napster will stop, and that users will have to pay to get copyrighted music from the site. The ruling in California means that Napster has to shut down the service while the trial with the music companies goes ahead. In a statement to the media, Napster founder Shawn Fanning said "We've been developing a Napster service that offers additional benefits to members of the community and, importantly, makes payments to artists. I'm focused on building this better service and I still hope to have it in place this year". In response to the ruling, Napster also said "The largest and most successful media companies in the world have taken aim at our more than 50 million users and they have landed a blow". The music giants sued Napster because they didn't want music to which they owned the copyright to being downloaded for free on the Internet. If Napster becomes a service that you have to pay a subscription for, which is almost definite, then some of the other major MP3 sites may become the targets of more legal action. But with hundreds of illegal MP3 sites on the Internet, perhaps record companies are fighting a losing battle. The trial between the record companies and Napster has yet to begin. |
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