To the Hill: Napster Plans D.C. Rally
March 29, 2001 — -- Napster is asking fans to show their numbers in Washington next week as senators mull issues related to the company's ongoing court battle with the recording industry.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing at 10 a.m. Tuesday to brief its members on new technologies and how they affect existing copyright law.
"Attending the hearing and contacting your Senators and members of Congress conveys that you care about the future of file sharing and digital music," reads a statement on Napster's Web site.
In lawsuits filed since Dec. 1999, prominent members of the recording industry said Napster, an Internet site that allows music fans to swap digitized files of recordings, is infringing upon their copyrights.
The ongoing court battle threatens the existence of Napster. The company, which already has suffered setbacks in court, evidently intends to rally support before Congress.
"If the Napster community shows up in force for this hearing, it will help educate Congress on why it is important not to let the recording industry shut down music file sharing," reads another page on Napster's Web site. "You can give voice to millions of other Napster supporters by attending this hearing."
Napster founder Shawn Fanning plans to speak to assembled fans about Internet file sharing at a forum in Washington on Monday evening, and Napster is organizing a post-hearing concert for up to 1,000 fans on Tuesday night.
Napster did not respond to requests for further details on the Washington rally.
Court Battle
Meanwhile, Napster and members of the recording industry continue a court battle that could determine whether Napster can survive.
On March 5, a judge issued an injunction ordering Napster to block access to songs and artists identified by the industry.
Napster responded with software to block the identified songs from being traded on its site, but critics said the blocking software could be bypassed by changing the spellings of artists names and song titles.
On Tuesday, the band Metallica and the Recording Industry Association of America complained to the U.S. District Court in San Francisco that Napster has failed to comply with the order, and still allows the songs to be traded.
On Wednesday, Napster President and CEO Hank Barry responded that the RIAA was to blame for lack of cooperation on the court order. He added that Napster has "blocked access to over 275,000 unique songs and over 1.6 million unique file names" since the judge's order, and has added tens of thousands of variations on artists' names and song titles to its blocking software.
Tuesday's Senate Judiciary hearing, entitled "Online Entertainment and Copyright Law: Coming Soon to a Digital Device Near You," is not expected to have an immediate impact on the court case, and is not specifically tied to any concrete congressional legislation.