Consumers Finally Win a Victory
NAPSTER Allowed to Remain On-Line During Appeal
Meanwhile mp3.com Clears Another Hurdle
July 28, 2000, 11:30 pm
What a difference a day makes! After looking like a whipped puppy just yesterday, Napster lead attorney David Boies was growling like a big dog on CNN's Moneyline this evening. Napster had just obtained the temporary stay it requested, winning a major appeals court victory.
Boies growled with bravado that Napster had won it's first fight and was on the road to a lasting legal victory.
CNN anchor Willow Bay, after acknowledging her company's leading role in the effort to shut Napster down, tried her best to put Boies on the defensive. But Boies countered her every move. He was not to be chained after this important win: Napster can stay online — at least for a while — thanks to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
The court granted a last-minute reprieve to the online music company, staying Judge Marilyn Patel's order which had directed Napster to pull the plug on its online song-swapping service by midnight tonight.
Napster, in asking for the emergency stay, said Patel's order would force it out of business. See the complete story of the legal ruling below in our article The Empire Strikes Back.
Netizens seemed to be mobilized like never before. Music lovers worldwide held Napster download marathons. the WIZARD interviewed users at one large corporation where computers were cued up for 24 solid hours of sharing music files.
The RIAA may have done a lot more damage than they realized - to themselves. Grass root's boycott movements have sprung up like weeds all over the Internet. Reports of tens of thousands signing petitions and proclaiming boycotts appeared on every wire service and television report. New web sites like Boycott the RIAA have been overrun with web surfers.
Meanwhile developers worldwide launched there own 24/7 marathons to develop alternative software and to get new packages on line. AudioGnome programmers accelerated their work, promising to release a "bulletproof" Napster clone by Friday.
"We're trying to give the people what they've been looking for," said a developer of AudioGnome. The clone was originally scheduled to be released in a few weeks.
Instead of relying on a centrally located batch of computer servers as Napster does, AudioGnome will rely on some 70 independent servers located mostly in the U.S, Britain, Canada and Italy that will in turn run a free program called OpenNap. OpenNap will locate independent servers, which can move at a moment's notice!
"The reason Napster is being attacked is because it has servers," AudioGnome representatives said. "We don't have any, so we're not worried about legal complications."
And AudioGnome is not alone. There are a dozen or more similar programs up and running today. What the RIAA lawsuit and Judge Patel's ruling accomplished is that every Napster user has gone out and acquired one or more of these alternatives.
Meanwhile mp3.com has Reached Another Agreement
In a second, and no less important victory for Netizens, mp3.com today announced it had reached a settlement with EMI.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but sources said MP3.com was expected to pay EMI roughly $20 million to settle the suit. In addition mp3.com would also pay a fee each time an EMI copyrighted CD was registered or accessed by members of its my.mp3.com program.
Settlement had already been reached with Time Warner's Warner Music Group and Bertelsmann AG's BMG. See our earlier article for complete details. Only Sony Music Entertainment and Seagram Co.'s Universal Music Group have not yet settled.
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