Judge Rules On 2 Issues in Music Case

May 8, 2000

Judge Rules On 2 Issues in Music Case

By MATT RICHTEL
AN FRANCISCO, May 8 -- In a double blow to Napster, a federal judge has decided not to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the recording industry against the company, and suggested in her ruling that it might face an uphill battle as the case proceeded to trial.

Digital Music
Related Articles
Ongoing Coverage of Music on the Internet
Forum
Join a Discussion on Internet Music

Late Friday, Chief Judge Marilyn Patel of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, denied a request by Napster, which offers a service that allows consumers to share and trade music over the Internet, to dismiss the lawsuit on summary judgment. Napster is arguing its activities are protected under several provisions of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
But perhaps more damaging for Napster was Judge Patel's suggestion that it might have failed to satisfy a technicality that made it eligible for protection under the act.
Judge Patel wrote that Napster might have failed to post in a timely fashion a written policy about how it would deal with people who used its service in a way that infringed copyright.
Legal experts said the implications were very serious for Napster, possibly making it ineligible to obtain protection under the act.
"It may have blown all of its safe- harbor requirements," under the act, said Mark Radcliffe, a copyright lawyer with Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich in Palo Alto, Calif.
To use the Napster service, which is free, users download software over the Internet that allows them to store and catalog their music on their own computers. Napster posts those catalogs -- hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of them -- then enables users of the service to visit one another's computers over the Internet and share and download one another's music.
Napster argues that it should not be held accountable if its users trade copyrighted music over the Internet because it does not itself store the music on its computers or engage itself in trading copyrighted music.
Judge Patel, however, ruled against Napster's claim that it was ineligible for one of the four key safe- harbor provisions of the act because it did not "transmit, route, or provide connections" for users of the service.
The judge left open the possibility that Napster was eligible under other provisions of the law. However, she wrote that to be eligible, Napster was obliged to have posted in a timely fashion a policy warning how it would deal with infringers found to use the service. There are "geniune issues of material fact about Napster's compliance with the requirement," she wrote.
Laurence Pulgram, Napster's lawyer, acknowledged that Napster did not necessarily have a written policy until after the lawsuit was filed. However, he said that Napster did actively purge known infringers, thus satisfying the conditions of the requirement.

Ask questions and give answers about Personal Finance, Entrepreneurs, and more. Join Abuzz, new from The New York Times.

Help/Feedback | Classifieds | Services | New York Today