January 4 -- Northwestern University, in Evanston, Ill.,
blocked access to servers used by the Napster program. In an
e-mail sent to the school's 17,500 students, director of technology
support services Thomas Board wrote, "Traffic to this one
site represented between 20 and 30 percent of total university
traffic to the Internet."
January 21 -- It seems like fall term at Oregon State University
always brings with it a student Net usage trend that soon becomes
systems administrator Chris White's new headache. Upstaging porn
and interactive gaming, this school year it was Napster...
January 30 -- Those who use Napster's popular software
for trading digital music files may not be as anonymous as they
think they are. Napster's program exposes their Internet Protocol
(IP) addresses, according to Internet security consultant Richard
Smith.
February 3 -- A sort of "free Napster" movement
is surfacing to counter efforts by record companies and universities
to quash access to the software, which lets online users swap
digital music tracks. Although the young Napster still has to
square off with the RIAA in court, students at Oregon State University,
Northwestern, Oxford, the University of California at San Diego,
and other campuses that have banned Napster may have found a
way to beat the system.
Stanford University senior
David Weekly, who irked the software maker when he published
online instructions on how the company's system works, has now
posted a tutorial for students that teaches them how to get around
their colleges' roadblocks to Napster.
"There is a pipe going
from the student's computer out to the other computers on the
Net, and the university can put a filter on this pipe,"
Weekly said, describing how colleges are blocking Napster. "The
way that you get around that is to get out of the local network."
February 5 -- If the RIAA goes after the entire Napster
user base, the music industry will find itself in the awkward
position of suing a whole lot of its best customers. Doesn't
sound like smart business.
February 12 -- The University of Southern California has
called for a "town meeting" with students to help figure
out how to deal with Napster overload
February 22 -- To members of the 5-day-old Students Against
University Censorship, the sudden number of colleges barring
Napster smacks of censorship. To information technology departments
in universities, the issue is network space
April 19 -- Metallica, who has sued Napster and 3 universities
for copyright infringement, announced that they have dropped
Yale from the list of defendants after the school shutdown access
to Napster.
April 20 -- The University of Indiana, after being served
with legal papers for allowing students to use Napster, which
encouraged copyright infrigement on the part of music by Metallica,
has given in to the pressure and blocked access to the highly
popular application. Metallica said in a statement, "the
band appreciates that Indiana University like Yale are supporting
the right of copywritten material and protecting intellectual
property."
April 24 -- Limp Bizkit is close to inking a deal with
controversial software maker Napster Inc. The deal, worth an
estimated $2-million, is for the sponsoring of the band's next
concert tour. This is completely in the face of Metallica, and
other artists contemplating similiar legal maneuvers, in that
not only is the band embracing the software but they are promoting
a deal with them
April 24 -- The University of Southern California, after
being sued by Metallica, released a statement giving insight
into their decision NOT to block Napster. USC has decided to
permit the access to Napster on the University's network through
designated computers "only for demonstrable legal purposes."
While this policy is not a final one, it will remain in effect
until there is legal clarity surrounding the usage of Napster,
and similiar applications.
May 10 -- The story so far: Metallica didn't like Napster,
Metallica sued Napster, Metallica gave Napster a list of terribly
evil pirates distributing Metallica songs, Metallica forced Napster
to delete the accounts of 317,377 users.
"In order to submit a
counter-notification, you must certify, under penalty of perjury
that you have a good faith belief that you were disabled as a
result of Metallica's mistake or misidentification of files you
shared as infringing. Your account will remain blocked unless
and until you submit a sworn statement of all the information
contained in the "counter notification" form found
below. That form must include your full real name, address, Napster
username, and your consent to being sued by Metallica in the
federal court where you reside."
May 19 -- Dr. Dre e-mailed Napster with names of over
239,612 users charged with infringing on Dre's copyrights by
downloading his songs for free. Unlike Metallica, Dre's attorney
Howard King, has requested that Napster delete his client's work
from their directory rather than blocking users from using the
service as a whole. In response to the attorney's request, Napster
has said that they cannot block files, only users. But that doesn't
matter too much, because it is speculated that Metallica too,
will ask Napster to have their music files be deleted from the
service.
May 21 -- Metallica lawyers sent Napster Inc. another
batch of names that illegally are infringing on the groups copyrights.
Metallica sent the 332,293 names, monitored over a one-week period,
to Napster with no hyped media conference or press release.
May 21 -- According to Media Matrix, the week after
Lars Ulrich (Metallica band member) held a press conference,
Napster.com's visitors rose by an amazing 65.5 percent. For the
week of May 7th - 14th Napster had 141,000 unique daily visitors,
56,000 more than the previous week.
May 27 -- Dr. Dre e-mailed Napster Inc. with names
of over 239,612 users charged with infringing on Dre's copyrights
by downloading his songs for free. He also demanded that these
Napster offenders be banned from the popular service.
This morning, users of Napster
who have downloaded any Dre's songs found themselves unable to
log on: they had been banned. "The artist Dr. Dre has requested
that your access to Napster be terminated for alleged copyright
infringement," read a Napster statement to all users with
blocked access.
June 1 -- Madonna threatens to take action against
Napster after the title track of her new album is reportedly
stolen from the studio where it was being produced and has ended
up on Napster and the Net.
June 2 -- Rock band The Offspring have put Napster
merchandise on their website for sale, even though the band doesn't
sell its own merchandise there. Offspring.com's main page shows
Napster t-shirts and hats for sale at a smooth $10, and Napster
stickers for $1. The Offspring keep all the profits and they
don't have Napster's permission to do it. Unfortunately, Napster
is going to be forced to sue to protect their copyright, not
because they want to but by law they must defend their rights
or risk losing the Napster trademark.
Having been very supportive
of Napster previously, when asked band members were asked about
their recent actions they stated that they just "think it's
funny to fuck with people."
June 4 -- Napster Inc. sends a cease-and-desist letter
to The Offspring, asking for the removal of the Napster related
merchandise.
June 5 -- The Offspring and Napster come to an agreement
that will allow The Offspring to continue selling the Napster
gear. Additionally, The Offspring and Napster will be working
together to offer a more complete line of Napster products. The
Offspring will not be taking in the fruits of the sales but will
instead be giving the money to a charity that is to be chosen
by The Offspring frontman Dexter Holland and Napster creator
Shawn Fanning.
June 13 -- As a part of their lawsuit against Napster
Inc., The RIAA has filed with U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall
Patel asking the federal court judge for a preliminary injunction
to shut down Napster. The RIAA say they want to keep Napster
from "facilitating or assisting others in, the copying,
downloading, uploading, transmission or distribution of copyrighted
musical works."
June 23 -- mp3.com joins forces with the RIAA and the
MPAA in asking U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel for a preliminary
injunction to stop Napster's file sharing services.
MP3.com's recent settlements
with Warner Music Group and BMG Entertainment are steps in showing
the music world that MP3 technology is a tool that can greatly
help artist promotion. Now that MP3.com is "legalizing"
itself and playing by the rules, it looks like they are making
sure that everyone else has to do the same. "In the operation
of our Website, we do not authorize unlawful or pirated MP3 files,"
states Robertson.
June 24 -- Napster has hired high profile lawyer Dave
Boies, who is apparently advising to settle with the RIAA and
record companies. Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, who has given
Napster Inc. $15 million in venture capital, is also urging the
company to settle.
July 3, 2000 -- The long-awaited first round of the Napster
Inc. -vs- RIAA legal battle was started today. In opening statements,
the Napster defense has said that downloading copyrighted songs
is legal and protected by the law. Napsters legal triage cited
a federal case in which a decision was made that noncommercial
copying of music is protected by law. They went so far as to
say that the law is even extended to making songs available on
Napster, for thousands of people to download, and because of
this Napster is not doing anything wrong and therefore not liable.
The more intriguing aspect
of the Napster defense that David Boies, the lawyer that successfully
defeated Microsoft in the antitrust battle of the century, has
set forth is one that may prove to be the most harsh against
the record labels. Citing internal industry documents, the Napster
legal team plans to show that the labels have abused their market
power to block alternative methods of music distribution, and
along with an obscure antitrust law, says that the labels have
lost their power to enforce their copyrights.
"If you use a copyright
to achieve an anti-competitive purpose, you lose the rights to
them," Boies said.
This obscure law that Boies
plans to use against the labels has been dubbed "copyright
misuse," which states that copyright holders can lose the
power to enforce their copyrights if they've used them to achieve
an anti-competetive purpose. In this case, Napster plans to argue
that the recording industry has acted in an anti-competetive
manner by not allowing alternative distribution methods to be
opened up, undermining their right to sue Napster on copyright
grounds.
July 8, 2000 -- "I don't think anybody's goal is or
should be to eliminate the technological capability of Napster.
The goal is to find a way to have the technology work with creative
interests, not against them. I think that's possible," said
Hilary Rosen. "I think
we'll see some sort of dramatic business models emerge in the
next three to four months."
July 11 -- Napster Hearings ...
Senator Orrin Hatch, "Is it fair use to give the copy to
my wife for her car? ''Is it fair use for me to rip a CD? Is
it fair use if (a computer network) decides for efficiency reasons
that one copy is sufficient to serve for storage, instead of
keeping 200 separate copies, is that fair use?" Hatch asked.
He even went on to ask if she thinks that making an audiocassette
of a CD to give to a spouse constitutes fair use.
"None of these is fair
use," Hilary Rosen argued, continuing on to say that artists
tolerating people making copies of their works is merely a reflection
of the rule that "no good deed goes unpunished."
July 13 -- Napster Inc. hired Keith Bernstein, a former
employee of Universal Music Group as Napster's new vice president
of operations. With his old job at Universal, Bernstein made
sure that artists' rights and royalties would be maintained throughout
the music download process.
July 27 -- Napster, in an effort to keep from having
to shut down by tomorrow (Friday) at midnight, has officially
requested U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for an
emergency stay against the injunction to shut them down.
Napster stated several reasons
why they feel a stay of the decision should be made, such as
that the decision:
* Wrongly stated that Napster
users were engaged in direct infringement by denying other relevant
case precedents and by developing a distinction between "personal"
and "non commercial" use.
* Extended copyright law to
cover new technologies, ignoring the counsel of the Supreme Court
that such extensions should be left to the Congress.
* Was based on limited and
insufficient argument. There was only one 90-minute argument,
and the Judge denied Napster's request for an evidentiary hearing.
* Ignored substantial evidence
that Napster is helping not hurting the record industry.
July 27 -- Part of the reason the Napster injuction
was granted was because the judge found "computers and hard
drives are not home recording devices."
July 28 -- I keep hearing people ask, why can't Napster
just move to another country and continue operations? - The answer
is, it can. So the question
is, why don't they?
July 31 -- According to Nielsen Media Research, daily
use of Napster has increased 92 percent, to a amazing 849,000
unique home visitors last Friday, covering more then three percent
of all active users on the Internet. Not only is usage skyrocketing,
but downloads of the software have also doubled, reaching a estimated
22 percent of its audience online.
August 30 -- Napster has been banned at 34% of the nation's
colleges and universities, including Arizona State University,
Fresno State, Georgia State University, Hawaii Pacific, Kent
State, New York University, University of Northwestern, Notre
Dame, Oregon State University, Rice University, Santa Clara University,
Seton Hall University, University of California, San Diego, University
of Mississippi, University of Texas, University of Southern California,
and Yale University.
September 11 -- Twenty organizations signed a "Napster
should be banned" declaration, submitted as a "Friend
of the Court" brief -- MPAA, the Software and Information
Industry Association, the American Film Marketing Association,
the Association of American Publishers, the American Society
of Media Photographers, the Professional Photographers Association,
the Graphic Artists Guild, the Interactive Digital Software Association,
ASCAP, BMI, the Producers Guild of America, the Directors Guild
of America, the Writers Guild of America, the American Federation
of Musicians of the United States and Canada, Reed Elsevier,
the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, the
Office of the Commissioner of Baseball, the National Basketball
Association, the Songwriters Guild of America, and Amsong.
September 11 -- Media Metrix has announced that Napster has
quadrupled to five million unique users from February to July.
Plus, it's the fastest growing application on the Net. Ever.
In February 2000, Napster had
1.1 million unique users in homes, businesses, and schools around
the world. But with all of the Napster hoopla and constant mention
in the press, that number jumped to 4.9 million unique users
in July 2000, giving the company started by 19 year old Shawn
Fanning a 345 percent increase.
Napster is now the 43rd most
popular home application, meaning that it is on more than six
percent of all U.S. home computers. In work places Napster more
than doubled from 417,000 unique users in May 2000, to nearly
887,000 U.S. users in July.
September 11 -- Lar$ Ulrich and Dr. Dre appealing to colleges
and universities to block student access to Napster. Last week Metallica attorneys sent
letters to eleven schools asking them to restrict students' access
to Napster. Howard E. King, who represents both Metallica and
Dr. Dre, asked the schools to respond with their decision on
the matter by September 22.
In the letter King asks school
administrators, "to promptly ban access by your community
to Napster. Even without the threat of litigation from artists
and other copyright owners, I believe that you can easily recognize
the irony of encouraging your students to matriculate in the
creative arts, while engaging in behavior which, if unchecked,
will make it impossible for those students to earn an income
from their future creative efforts."
September 12 -- The Justice Department, the U.S. Copyright
Office, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office filed "Friend
of the Court" briefs against Napster
September 18 -- When the Justice Department and US Copyright
Office submitted their legal briefs with the 9th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals last week, in support of the RIAA against Napster,
they angered at least one powerful congressman. Senator Orrin
Hatch, who is the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee,
sent a short letter to the court stating that the positions of
the DOJ and Copyright Office do not represent the opinion of
the full U.S. government. The Senator, along with the Judiciary
Committee, help write copyright laws and thus his involvement
here signals that Congress would rather be answering these tough
questions instead of allowing the courts to decide the course
of that is to be taken.
"Given the importance
of the issues to be decided, I thought it important that the
court be under no misapprehension that the (DOJ) brief necessarily
expresses the view of Congress in this matter," Hatch wrote.
"Indeed, Congress has recently held hearings into the matter
and is engaged in ongoing deliberations about its merits as the
events unfold in the emerging online music and entertainment
market."
October 2 -- In May of 2000, Hummer Winblad gave Napster
Inc. $15 million in venture capital. The only catch was that
Hank Barry, CEO of Napster, had to find a way to make the growing
Internet company legitimate. Well, Mr. Barry is trying to do
just that and here are two of the proposal ideas he's come up
with.
First there is the idea of
charging $4.95 for a monthly membership fee. This would generate
$500 million a year in revenues for record companies and musicians.
Not to mention, that idea would probably also keep Napster Inc.
afloat which has some hefty legal bills to pay.
The second proposal is promoting
the sale of CDs and downloadable songs. With Napster having over
20 million registered users, there is no doubt that some of them
still buy CDs. That idea also includes giving Napster users Internet
links and coupons that take them directly to the record companies
and the musicians.
On the downside, Mr. Barry
is concerned and frustrated with the fact that all of Napster's
proposals have so far been shot-down. "We've made serious
presentations, none of which have been accepted, which makes
me think that it's not about money, it's about control,"
said Barry.
October 4 -- In a statement released earlier this week,
Hank Barry said that he was concerned and frustrated over the
fact that all of Napster's business proposals to record companies
have so far been rejected.
"We've made serious presentations,
none of which have been accepted, which makes me think that it's
not about money, it's about control," said Barry, who is
the CEO of Napster.
On the other hand, Kevin Conroy
of BMG Entertainment is saying that Barry's comments are totally
false. "Napster's statement is completely inaccurate. BMG
has in fact discussed various business proposals with Napster.
But Napster has never addressed the important issue of licensing
nor proposed anything approaching a sound, legitimate business
model."
October 26 -- With their new album not due out for two
weeks, how did tracks from the upcoming Spice Girls album end
up on Napster? Spice Girls fans are saying that Virgin Records
and their online music partner, RealNetworks are to blame.
News source The Register is
reporting that the RealPlayer Network apparently showcased four
tracks as part of a RealAudio 8 promo. But it appears that someone
at Virgin may have uploaded all the album's tracks, and users
figured out their URLs from the tracks locations and the album's
already published tracklist.
October 31 -- Bertelsmann AG and Napster, Inc. announced
plans for a strategic alliance to establish an industry-accepted
community person-to-person file sharing service. It seems that
Napster and Bertelsmann AG's newly formed eCommerce Group, BeCG,
have developed a new business model for Napster with a secure
membership-based service that will provide payments to rightsholders
while preserving the quality of the file sharing service.
Napster and Bertelsmann will
be actively seeking support from others in the music industry
for this new alliance to bring membership-based digital music
distribution to the masses, something which the community has
shown it is willing to accept as a viable means of digital distribution
of music.
Under the new agreement with
Bertelsmann, once Napster has successfully implemented a subscription
model to its popular file sharing services, all pending litigation
from BMG against the company will be dropped. BMG will then legally
allow Napster the use of its music catalogue through the service.
Bertelsmann AG's eCommerce Group is reported to be financially
backing this transition to a subscription model for Napster,
in exchange for the ability to acquire a portion of Napster's
equity in the future.
November 27 -- According to producer Mathew Katz, former
producer for 60's rock band Jefferson Airplane, Bertlesmann is
helping Napster infringe on copyrighted recordings and thus has
sued their e-commerce group.
Along with suing Bertlesmann's
e-commerce unit he is also suing Napster's 38 million users claiming,
among other things, that record sales of acts that his label
produces are remaining steadily low thanks to the wonderful free
world of Napster. How does this Katz guy go ahead and do something
like this considering that the details of the partnership formed
between Bertlesmann and Napster remain disclosed. Katz, who is
making accusations based on media reports (yes, ironic isn't
it?), believes that the third largest record label has made an
investment of upwards of $50 million in Napster with an apparent
40% share in the company. Where did Katz hear this as I have
not heard anything of the sort...maybe I need to crawl out of
my hole?
"Until something is done,
they are party to an illegal activity," Katz said of Bertlesmann.
"For years, the big labels have virtually opened the door
to this thing and did nothing about it. They knew the technology
was in place to do this sort of thing and knew there was a way
to do something to prevent this."
Both Napster and Bertlesmann
have yet to comment on this action, though I am sure that in
the coming days they will have something to say regarding this
matter. Why do I get the feeling that this Katz character is
merely trying to ride the coattails of the Napster phenomenon,
as many others are doing, so that attention can be placed on
his label? Too bad it, more than likely, will merely remind people
to download more music from bands produced by Katz's label.
December 7 -- Napster has announced that it is hiring on
Manus Cooney as Vice President for Corporate and Policy Development.
Cooney, formerly Chief Counsel and Staff Director of the Senate
Judiciary Committee brings Napster some powerful legislative
policy guidance with his vast experience dealing with the Congressional
legal system.
The hiring on of Manus Cooney
may represent a sign from Napster that they recognize and anticipate
significant legal/policy battles in the future, and realize how
important it is to fill the need to be well represented in such
matters. Cooney begins his work with Napster, Inc. officially
in January 2001.
Mr. Cooney has dealt with such
issues as the American Inventors Protection Act and the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act in the past in his position as Staff
Director to the Senate Judiciary Committee, along with overseeing
Chairman Hatch's committee hearings exploring "The Noise
Over Napster" & "Competition and Innovation in
the Digital Age".
December 29, 2000
Napster is suing online retailer Sport Service over a copyright
dispute. Napster alleges that Sport Service is selling t-shirts
and caps with Napster's cat-like logo. Sport Service is doing
their selling through napsterstore.com, which was purchase on
May 24th 2000.
"Sport Service has demonstrated
a bad faith attempt to profit," Napster said in the suit,
which seeks an injunction and unspecified damages.
