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| Napster Court Rulings | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Order! Order in the Court! The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Fransisco has made its ruling on the Napster case...It is as follows: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| July 26, 2000 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel sent a preliminary injunction to Napster, ordering them to, basically, shut down their website. But an appeals court which granted Napster a stay and allowed them to continue as a file-swapping service 3 days later. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The appeals court called Patel's decision "overbroad" and asked her to redo it. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| February 15, 2001 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Today the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Napster, saying they must be held accountable for computer owners using the Napster software to trade music. This is copyright infringement. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The appeals court sent an earlier ruling back down to the district courts and asked Patel to modify her original ruling. They wanted her to narrow her ruling but still require Napter to block the trading of copyrighted music. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Napster could also be held accountable for huge financial damages. Since Napster doesn't really make any money, this could end the service for good. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| March 2, 2001 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Judge Patel called a hearing to in order to determine what the new injunction should contain. "The reason for this hearing today is to discuss not what if, but what an injunction should look like," Patel said (Yahoo!News). | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Also at the hearing, Napster announced they were very close to completing software that would allow them to filter out copyrighted songs and block them. This announcement may have delayed a final injunction, telling Napster exactly what to do. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| (For the full text of the Napster preliminary injuction from March 5, 2001, click here.) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| March 6, 2001 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Patel made her final decision on an injunction. It requires Napster to prevent users from trading unauthorized files within 3 business days of receiving a notice from the copyright owner. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Although Napster has complied with their half of the injunction, they are finding it very difficult--as stated on a prior page--some of the songs they are supposed to block aren't all named correctly. For example, Metallica's "Fade to Black" may have been posted as "Fade 2 Black" making the filtering process very difficult. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Also included in the injunction was a section requiring Napster to block "transmission of [titles that will be released soon] in advance of their release." | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| But the injunction put the burden of providing the names of the copyrighted songs plus evidence the song was being traded on the internet. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Althought the record companies have complied with their part of the injunction, they have found it extremely difficult because of their archaic filing system. But they have been able to hand Napster a list of 660, 715 copyrighted works by artist name, album name, and song name. They have also given 8,001,913 file names corresponding to 328, 074 works available on Napster. This is along with an additional 75 pre-release recordings. |
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| April 7, 2001 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| RIAA attorneys have asked the court to tell Napster which filtering system to use to speed up the process. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| April 27, 2001 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The record companies were dealt a major blow today. Judge Patel clarified the injuction for them, explaining they must provide the file names of the songs they want banned from Napster. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| The record companies felt they were exempt from giving every file name. They are having the exact same problems as Napster's filters. Napster users have been trying to deliberately bypass the filters by naming files something completely off the mark. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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