Timing is everything...
>>We are always a couple of years ahead of times...
You're preaching to the choir as far as I'm concerned.
I guess I just don't get it. I considered Napster to be a killer app that would drive certainly drive broadband access to the home. But this article speaks to the "risk of unsold inventory, or lost/damaged inventory..."
It's a turf war, somebody is going to lose some ground...The entrenched distribution channels of content will not go down without kicking and screaming.
Just another feeble opinion..
Final Court Papers in Appeal of Preliminary Injunction Buttress Napster's Arguments on AHRA, Sony, and DMCA; Reiterate that District Court Misallocated Burden of Proof
REDWOOD CITY, CA - September 13, 2000 Napster, Inc, the world's largest peer-to-peer file sharing community, made its final written presentation to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals before the oral argument scheduled for October 2, 2000. Replying to the plaintiff's brief filed last week, the Napster brief stated:
"This case is not about any diminution in the value of Plaintiffs' copyrights; none has occurred or is reasonably foreseeable as the result of Napster. This case is about whether Plaintiffs can use their control over music copyrights to achieve control over Napster's decentralized technology and prevent it from transforming the Internet in ways that might undermine their present chokehold on music promotion and distribution."
Napster attorney David Boies commented, "The recording industry is attempting in this case to try to maintain control over music distribution. By repeatedly refusing Napster's offers of a reasonable license and opposing a compulsory license, they have demonstrated that they are not seeking to be appropriately compensated, but rather to kill or control a technology they view as competition."
The brief strongly reinforced Napster's key defenses to the RIAA lawsuit. Regarding the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA), Napster contends that the plaintiffs in their brief disregarded key language in the AHRA and substituted words that better suited their purpose. Napster's brief notes that the plaintiffs ignored the very purpose of the Act's immunity provisions as previously described by, among others, their own General Counsel and that the Ninth Circuit has already resolved this question in Napster's favor.
Specifically, the brief argues, "There is no suggestion in the legislative history [of the AHRA] that the intent was to include only some primarily musical audio recordings within §1008 protection and to exclude other primarily musical audio works," a point reinforced by RIAA General Counsel Cary Sherman's declaration in the Diamond Rio case that the only purpose of the changes in the Act's statutory definitions was to exclude computer programs and talking books.
The Napster brief also exposed the plaintiffs' attempt to radically restrict the Sony Betamax precedent. The plaintiffs would have the Ninth Circuit nullify the Supreme Court's central holding in Sony that "new technologies should not be judicially banned (or re-engineered ) unless the only substantial use of which they are capable is unlawful." The brief goes on to state, "Both Napster's present uses" including sampling, space shifting, and the authorized distribution of the music of emerging and established artists, "and its demonstrated, and dramatic, capability" for such use in the future "satisfy Sony."
The brief takes issue with the plaintiffs' attempts to insert a Napster exception into the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA): "It dismantles the framework created by Congress…, which insures that Internet companies can continue to function in the face of claims about the actions of their users."
The Napster brief is the last filing in a series set in motion by the District Court's preliminary injunction on July 26, 2000. Napster was joined in criticizing the District Court's decision by several amici curiae, including 18 copyright law professors and leading Internet and technology industry groups whose members include Apple Computer, Cisco Systems, Sony Electronics, Yahoo and America Online, among others.
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About Napster
Napster is the world's leading file-sharing community. Napster's software application enables users to locate and share music files from one convenient, easy-to-use interface. It also provides community members with a vehicle to identify new artists and a forum to communicate their interests and tastes with one another via instant messaging, chat rooms, and Hot List user bookmarks. Napster was founded in 1999 by eighteen-year-old Shawn Fanning, then a freshman at Boston's Northeastern University. (I bolded this just cuz I think it so cool.)
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