Napster has been given 3 days to filter out copyrighted music once
the record companies suing it provide it with a list of tracks that
they do not want exchanged on the service. If Napster fails to
comply, it could be shut down.
In anticipation of the ruling by District Court Judge Marilyn
Hall Patel, Napster began filtering its service on Sunday
night.
Hank Barry, CEO of Napster, said of the amended injunction:
“The 9th Circuit and the District Court
rejected the recording industry's argument that Napster is
inherently illegal. The District Court's order holds that the
recording industry and Napster share the burden of complying.
Plaintiffs are required to certify that they hold the rights to the
material and that it is available on Napster. As we receive notice
from copyright holders as required by the Court, we will take every
step within the limits of our system to exclude their copyrighted
material from being shared.
“We will continue to press our case in court
and seek a mediated resolution even as we work to implement the
court's order. We will continue to seek a settlement with the
record companies and to prepare our new membership-based service
that will make payments to artists, songwriters and other rights
holders.”
The terms of the injunction require the record companies to
provide Napster with the title and artist of each track together
with the name of one or more files available on Napster’s system
containing that work, and also certification of copyright
ownership. Both Napster and the record companies must “use
reasonable measures in identifying variations of the filename(s),
or of the spelling of the titles or artists’ names” on the
companies’ lists.
Within three days of receiving “reasonable notice of
infringing files, Napster shall affirmatively search the names of
all files being made available by all users at the time those users
log on (i.e. prior to the names of files being included in the
Napster index) and prevent the downloading, uploading, transmitting
or distributing” of these files. The record companies can also send
Napster lists of tracks in advance of new song releases.
The ruling is more favourable to Napster than Judge Patel’s
original order which required Napster to remove all labels’
copyrighted works from its service. The new order takes into
account the way its file sharing system currently operates and
divides the policing responsibilities between Napster and its
opponents. The record companies and the RIAA, their industry body,
welcomed the ruling.
This ruling is only a preliminary injunction; a full trial in
the case is scheduled for later in the year. Accordingly, Napster
can still try to settle the dispute, although its recent $1 billion
offer to the record companies met with an unfavourable
response.
