Court rules Napster infringes copyright, will play on
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THE NINTH CIRCUIT of the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled Monday that Napster infringes on record company copyrights through the operation of its music file-trading service. The ruling, however, also directed that the Napster service be allowed to continue operations until the original injunction is modified to comply with the appeals court’s decision. The court upheld the findings of a lower court almost universally, holding that Napster’s service is not protected by fair use, is guilty of two kinds of copyright infringement, has failed to police its system in an attempt to stop the spread of copyrighted works, and does cause substantial harm to record companies. “Napster, by its conduct, knowingly encourages and assists the infringement of [record company] copyrights,” the court wrote in its decision, which one analyst said was no surprise. Napster is guilty, the court said, of two types of copyright infringement: contributory and vicarious. Contributory infringement is the act of aiding knowingly in the infringement of copyright. Vicarious infringement is the result of having the power to stop the infringement and failing to do so as well as benefitting financially from the infringement. The court found that Napster is aware that infringing material is being traded on its service; that it could, if it chose, block those users supplying the material; and that it has failed to do either, thus making the company a contributory infringer. A failure to adequately monitor the system for such abuses combined with a financial stake in the trading in copyrighted works makes the company responsible for vicarious infringement, the court said. “Napster got nailed, plain and simple,” said P.J. McNealy, an analyst at Gartner. “I’m not surprised that they got what they got.” Despite setting aside the vast majority of Napster’s argument, the court stayed the injunction, thereby keeping the service running — for now — because it deemed the injunction “overbroad.” The original injunction must be modified, the court said, so that Napster be only guilty of contributory infringement if it is given notice of specific copyrighted files, does or should know that they are on the system, and then fails to act to stop their spread. With these provisions, the company will also be guilty of vicarious infringement only if it fails to act. More : infoworld.com |