NAPSTER
Is Not Put To Sleep
by Myrka Theard with Debra Mamorsky
Napster, one of the
hottest on-line services used by teens everywhere, was thought to be "too
hot" for the legal system. On Wednesday, July 26, 2000, the United
States Federal District Court in San Francisco, California, ruled that
Napster would have to shut down its services. Yet, two days later, Napster
was granted a temporary stay of injuction, and their internet service
was allowed to continue until further notice, probably sometime in September.
The reasons for the stay of injunction are somewhat vague at the time
of this article. However, TeenSpeak can only conjecture, with help from
legal counsel, that the current laws on the books pertain to copyright
infringement in the "real world." As yet, they haven't been
fully up-dated to specifically reflect the "new world" of cyberspace.
While it is generally accepted that there are protections to the music
and film industry that should also apply to cyberspace, leading authority
in Intellectual Property Law and Chairman of the Information Technology
and E - Commerce practice for the international law firm of Greenberg
Traurig Alan Sutin says, "The devil is in the details. Things are
possible in cyberspace that are not possible in the real world. These
are novel questions of law that the courts are interpreting for the first
time."
Mr. Sutin told TeenSpeak that "There were many people who were very
surprised that the decision for an injuction against Napster came so quickly.
Many people felt that the injunction was a drastic conclusion to an issue
that required a longer interim period of study."
With 21 million registered users downloading 14,000 songs per minute,
Mr. Sutin and others contend you can't just dismiss Napster or the concept
of sharing music files. In fact, a new crop of Napster-like clones have
cropped up and lots of people are sharing their music person to person
over the internet.
The genie is out of the bottle, and the issue of downloading songs for
free is further complicated by the fact that some artists are in favor
of having a Napster-type of service so they can get discovered, and other
artists, like The Dave Matthews Band and Limp BisKit encourage their fans
to bootleg.
Mr. Sutin contends that in time, this will probably be a win - win situation
for everybody. Equating it with the unfavorable reaction to the introduction
of VCRs that made it possible to tape television shows, the TV industry
ultimately adapted to the new technology and opened a vast market of revenue
sources from which they could profit. "This will ultimately be true
for the music industry," Mr. Sutin added. "Far from being a
threat, inevitably it will be possible for the consumer to get anything
downloaded instantly, and for the music industry to think of creative
ways to augment its ability to make a profit in this new medium."
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