Napster Inc. has told a federal appeals court in San Francisco that recording companies suing it for copyright violations are seeking ``to kill or control a technology that is not theirs." The San Mateo software company made the statement in a final brief filed yesterday with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The court will hear arguments Oct. 2 on whether to uphold an injunction that would block Napster from enabling millions of users to share computer files of copyrighted music for free.
Napster says injunction would ``shut down Napster entirely." The appeals court has suspended the injunction until it rules on the case.
Napster lawyers say in the brief that the music sharing program has not diminished the value of the copyrights owned by the 18 recording companies that have sued it.
They say the case is really about whether the companies can use their control over music copyrights to prevent Napster from ``transforming the Internet in ways that might undermine their present chokehold on music promotion and distribution."
The recording companies said in their brief last week that Napster promotes ``massive infringement" of copyrights and ``is a business created to facilitate the anonymous theft of music."
Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO
personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who
make comments. Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd,
racist or sexually-oriented language. Don't threaten. Threats of harming another
person will not be tolerated. Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone
or anything. Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on
each comment to let us know of abusive posts. PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK. Anyone violating these rules will be issued a
warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be
revoked.
Please purchase a Premium Subscription to continue reading.
To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account.
We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription.
A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means you’re helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much!
(0) comments
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
Don't threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Anyone violating these rules will be issued a warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be revoked.