Napster Focuses on Music Industry's Control

L O S   A N G E L E S, Sept. 14 -- Napster, Inc., the online music swapping service embroiled in a legal battle against the Recording Industry Association of America, says it’s all about control.

In a brief filed in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals this week, the song-swap company charged major record labels with keeping a “chokehold” on music promotion and distribution. Napster argued that the traditional methods of developing and marketing musical acts are firmly under the control of a select few companies, and Napster is not one of them.

Napster’s lead attorney, David Boies, stated that the RIAA made “serious errors” in its court filings and ignored or minimized legal precedentsfavorable to the controversial Web company.

Copyright Infringement at Issue

Redwood City, Calif.,-based Napster is a wildly popular service thatlets fans swap songs in MP3 format — a compressiontechnology that packs compact disc-quality sound into small computerfiles.

The RIAA contends that Napster’s file-exchanging service “enables,encourages and directly benefits from” copyright infringement onmillions of protected works.

The U.S. Copyright Office and the U.S. Justice Departmentsided with the recording industry in Amici Curiae (Friends of the Court) briefsfiled Friday, along with 20 groups from the entertainment,publishing and sports industries.

“This case is not about any diminution in the value ofplaintiff’s copyrights; none has occurred or is reasonablyforeseeable as the result of Napster,” Napster’s legal papers state.

“This case is about whether plaintiffs can use their controlover music copyrights to achieve control over Napster’sdecentralized technology and prevent it from transforming theInternet in ways that might undermine their present chokehold onmusic promotion and distribution.”

Case History

On July 26, U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn Patel granted a preliminaryinjunction against Napster, ordering it to prevent all big labels’copyrighted songs from being traded using its service.