Court Orders Modified Napster Injunction: “By swapping music files
online, the 61 million
clients of Napster Inc. are
making unfair use of
copyrighted material, a
federal appeals court ruled
today, in a decision that
could allow a judge to shut
down the service.

The court did not order
Napster to shut down
immediately, but the
company warned that the
decision could ultimately
lead to its closure.” The judge, recognizing that this findings might lead to a last-minute user rush on the Napster site, advised that there be rapid action on a preliminary injunction, though. New York Times. Napster is still alive — but
just barely. “A three-judge panel from the 9th Circuit Court
of Appeals ruled for the recording industry on virtually
every point of law at issue. Napster users, said the court, are
infringing on recording industry copyrights, Napster has a
responsiblity to halt that infringement and a preliminary
injunction shutting down Napster is not just “warranted but
required.”

However, the court also ruled that the injunction must be
modified before it is fully upheld by the appellate court.
Specifically, the court is requiring that Napster be notified in
advance that it is in violation of copyright in particular
cases, and if Napster refuses to bar transmission of the songs
across the Napster network, it will then be in violation —
and will be shut down.” Salon Here are reactions from industry pundits. Several mention that this will invigorate the file-sharing endeavor by bringing the issue back into public awareness and spurring developers correcting Napster’s shortcomings. Salon A page here puts you one click away from an opensource Napster server, various Napster clients and — most important in the soon-dawning post-Napster era — other sharing protocols that are alternatives to Napster. There are twenty-five of them listed here from Gnutella and the now-defunct Scour Exchange to some no one’s ever heard of.