Napster, the internet song-swapping service, yesterday put
forward its arguments against legal action taken by the Recording
Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the National Music
Publishers Association. The two trade associations are seeking a
preliminary injunction against Napster to force it to remove all
songs owned by their members from the Napster service.
The music industry has accused Napster of running a music piracy
operation because its web site allows users to trade music for free
by converting the contents of compact discs into MP3 files which
can be easily downloaded by others. Cary Sherman, an attorney for
RIAA, commented that, “whether or not it’s lawful for users to
share music one-on-one, it is entirely different for a commercial
entity to create a business that induces users to do that”.
Napster claims that its activities are legitimate and has
justified them on six grounds. These include the consumer's right
to share music for non-commercial purposes, that Napster is not
responsible for what its users do because it is only acting as an
ISP, and that an injunction would harm Napster to a greater extent
than it would benefit the trade groups.
An attorney acting on Napster’s behalf, David Boies, maintains
that, “in addition to the ISP argument... it is clear that our
users are not violating the copyright law under the American Home
recording Act and we’re not guilty of contributory infringement”.
He believes that “RIAA see Napster as a threat not because it’s
going to reduce record sales but that it will reduce the RIAA’s
control over record sales”.
