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Napster may block hundreds of thousands of fans
Lars fans will appreciate this audio confession:
http://tm.intervu.net/s3/cnetreal/05/0503metallica1.ram
Other audio goodies from Lars are included as links on the original
news.com story at http://home.cnet.com/category/0-1005-200-1810391.html
text below:
Napster may block hundreds of thousands of fans
May 3, 2000, 4:25 p.m. PT
http://home.cnet.com/category/0-1005-200-1810391.html
SAN MATEO, Calif.--With showmanship worthy of a stadium concert,
hard-rock band Metallica dumped a truckload of legal documents on software
company Napster's doorstep today, identifying more than 335,000 screen
names for people the band says may have been illegally pirating its songs.
The band's attorneys say they fingered the individuals sharing
Metallica songs online while doing a scan of the software service last
weekend, and they want those people stopped. The band isn't threatening to
sue the software users, but today it demanded that Napster block them from
its MP3-swapping service.
It's the first time that alleged copyright pirates on Napster or a
similar service have been identified in bulk. The move puts the small
software company in the uncomfortable position of choosing between
defending its members and defending its own legal right to exist.
The company said it would block people from its service only if
Metallica's documents--submitted in paper rather than computerized
form--had all their legal i's dotted.
"Napster will review the over 300,000 fan names that Metallica turned
in as soon as possible," Fenwick & West attorney Lawrence Pulgrum, who is
representing the company, said in a statement. "If the claims are
submitted properly, the company will take the appropriate actions to
disable the users Metallica has identified."
Today's event dipped heavily into the surreal, providing plenty of
rock-and-roll spectacle for the assembled TV cameras. Napster and
Metallica fans brandished T-shirts and stickers and shouted at one another
as the documents were delivered. As drummer Lars Ulrich gave his statement
defending the band's position, a self-declared "ex-fan" shouted protests
in the background and broke CDs with his bare hands.
Metallica says it has no plans to sue Napster users. But
notwithstanding the circus atmosphere, the identification of individuals
does mark new ground in the record industry's attempt to keep its wares
from being freely distributed online. It also could help test the
boundaries of online copyright law.
Napster is being sued by the Recording Industry Association of
America, as well as by Metallica and rapper Dr. Dre, for contributing to
vast amounts of music piracy allegedly taking place with the aid of its
software.
"The ideal situation is clear and simple--to put Napster out of
business," Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich said in a chat with the public
on Yahoo last night.
The Napster software allows hundreds of thousands of people to link
their computer hard drives and easily swap copies of high-quality MP3
files, legal or not.
The software company has claimed in court that it simply provides a
directory of songs located on its subscribers' computers and doesn't host
any content itself. It says it's entitled to the same protections against
legal liability that Internet service providers have.
But that's where Metallica's 60,000 pages of legal documents come in.
Under current law, copyright holders such as Metallica can demand that
an ISP remove pirated content from its service, or even demand that links
to such illegal content be removed.
If an ISP wants to avoid legal liability, it has to remove the content
or the links and notify its customer why that action is being taken. In
the context of Napster, this would mean blocking a member's username or
Internet Protocol address--the numbers that identify a computer on the
Internet--from accessing the service.
Lawyers say that copyright law does allow a response, however. Blocked
members have three days to tell the ISP, under threat of perjury, that the
content wasn't illegal, or that they were misidentified. If the ISP gets
this notification, it has to forward it to the copyright holder. If the
copyright holder (in this case Metallica) doesn't file an actual lawsuit
against the user of the service, then the content can be put back in 10
days.
Courts are still trying to determine whether Napster fits under this
copyright law. A preliminary decision is expected from a federal judge any
day.
The company has said it intends to comply with copyright law,
however. A message on its Web site warns its members about copyright
violations and says that the company "reserves the right to terminate the
account of a user upon any single infringement of the rights of others in
conjunction with use of the Napster service."
"They're really getting whipsawed by the various plaintiffs," said Bill
Coats, a copyright attorney with Howrey Simon Arnold & White. "This puts
Napster in a challenging position."
Even if the service does decide to block some of its members, it has a
difficult road ahead.
Metallica's attorneys provided only information about individuals'
usernames, the names of the Metallica songs being shared, dates and times
the songs were available, and the Internet addresses of Napster's servers.
That could allow Napster to block individual usernames. But these
usernames can easily be changed by Napster subscribers.
Network administrators say it's possible to determine the IP addresses
of individual Napster users, which would be a more effective tool in
blocking access to the service. A Napster spokesman said that Metallica
did not include this information, however.
Napster executives are hoping for a way to settle with the band
instead of blocking its members, they said today.
"I'm a huge Metallica fan and therefore really sorry that they're going
in this direction," Shawn Fanning, the 19-year-old founder of the company,
said in a statement. "If we got the opportunity to explain to the band why
Napster exists and why fans enjoy Napster, perhaps we could bring all of
this to a peaceful conclusion."