Napster, a music-sharing website that allows users to download song files from one another's computers, has been ordered to close temporarily by a judge in San Francisco, California.
Judge Marilyn Hall Patel has given the controversial site until midnight tonight (8 a.m. Saturday, Irish time) to cease "serving as a conduit for copying songs belonging to members of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), music labels, song-writers and publishers".
"When the infringing is of such a wholesale magnitude, the plaintiffs are entitled to enforce their copyrights," Judge Patel said, when granting the preliminary injunction. The RIAA maintains that Napster is a haven of copyright infringement and piracy.
The overall case is thought likely to take six months to conclude. According to RIAA attorney, Mr Russell Frackman, 12 to 30 million songs on MP3 files are downloaded daily by Napster users. In the period the case is expected to last, therefore, billions of files would have been downloaded without the injunction. "This is the most egregious case of copywriting infringement that ever existed," he said.
Napster works by allowing users to access Napster Music folders on millions of other users' hard-drives. These are then downloaded to the requester's own computer as MP3 files. From there, the files can be played through the computer's sound card, or "burned" onto recordable CDs or the solid-state Rio player.
Judge Patel also issued an order that the parties who filed the lawsuit, all of whom are music company members of the RIAA, post a $5 million (€5.3 million) bond to compensate Napster for potential losses from the injunction in the event that Napster wins the court case.
Despite this, the judge said that her decision was based on the likelihood of record companies and musicians represented in the suit ultimately succeeding in disallowing Napster from enabling trading of copyrighted material.
In support of her decision, the judge quoted estimates that as much as 80 per cent of the material on Napster's website may be copyright material owned by members of the RIAA.
Judge Patel ruled that Napster should be held liable for piracy of copyrighted music by users. Defending, lawyers for Napster argued that the technology companies that created MP3 should really be taken to task. Napster merely took advantage of the available technology, they said.
In reply to this, the judge said that Napster was "responsible for supervising and policing its site".
Napster's legal team argued that people used their site to sample music that they later purchased and to promote new artists. It also said that the case would put their company out of business.
Judge Patel said evidence in the case showed it was obvious that Napster operators not only knew about copyrighted music being wrongfully duplicated, but the site had been designed intentionally for that purpose.
On Napster's website yesterday, users faced up to the prospect of having little time left to download from the site. "It's a sad day for our community," wrote "Esteeaz" on the site's chatroom. "Tomorrow it is all to be shut down." In the Unsigned Artists forum, people were urging others to shun the major record labels who have taken this action.
Not surprisingly, though, music industry officials see the decision as a victory for them and the musicians and songwriters they work with. "This is an important win for artists . . . because whether they distribute their music through big labels, small independent labels, or on their own, the court has made clear that they have the right to protect their works," the RIAA said. "Whether they choose to do so is up to them."
Napster has registered 13 million users worldwide in the 18 months since it was established by former North-eastern University student Mr Shawn Fanning. It had predicted it would have up to 70 million users by the end of this year.
Ironically, RIAA president Ms Hilary Rosen said in a recent interview that: "Clearly, people who are using Napster love music. They're probably our best customers."
