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Follow UsSue Zeidler
LOS ANGELES: With a possible court-ordered shutdown of Napster's popular
music swapping service looming on Monday, fans of the online song-swapping
service said they planned to spend the weekend downloading music.
"I've already been investigating new alternatives to Napster such as
Aimster and Gnutella," said Cary Miller, a new media executive and Napster
enthusiast.
"Right now, I have over 110 songs sitting on my hard drive that I've
downloaded on Napster and this weekend, I will probably download another 50 or
so depending on how much time I have over the weekend," he said.
Earlier on Friday, a federal court said it would issue its opinion on Monday
as to whether it should re-issue an injunction against Napster that would
effectively shut down the wildly popular song-swap service.
A three-judge panel for the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on
Oct. 2 heard arguments from both Napster and the Recording Industry Association
of America (RIAA), which requested the court lift a stay on an injunction
against the service, which has attracted over 50 million users.
Users flocked to the site following the court's announcement on Friday.
"You can assume the Napster servers are maxed out ...," said Bruce
Forest, vice president for Sapient Corp., referring to the server computers that
manage the flow of data in a network.
One Long Island, NY 14-year-old said he would like to spend all weekend
downloading songs, but would have to squeeze in his song-swapping activities
between working on school assignments.
"I'd hate it if it was shut down. But even if they shut it down, there
are hundreds of ways to get songs on the Internet," he said. "But
Napster is still the easiest."
Napster's service, which lets fans swap songs for free, is considered a haven
for piracy by the big music companies which are seeking the injunction to stop
it from operating pending a final decision in the landmark copyright lawsuit.
Since the lawsuit was first filed in December 1999, Napster's service has
continued to gain popularity.
To date, the service has amassed over 50 million users who log on to the
service to swap individual songs for free by trading MP3 files, a compression
format that turns music on compact discs into small computer files.
Napster has said it will abide by court ruling
In the past, Napster officials have always said they would comply with any
ruling that the court issues.
The company got a shot in the arm in late October, when BMG parent company
Bertelsmann AG, one of the record labels suing Napster, broke ranks, saying it
would drop its suit once Napster transformed itself into a paid service that
pays royalties.
As part of the deal, Bertelsmann provided an estimated $30 million to $50
million in funds to Napster and obtained a warrant to buy a stake in the
company.
Bertelsmann invited the other music companies to participate, which would
make such a music subscription service most appealing to users.
To date, Napster and Bertelsmann have scored support from Germany-based Edel
Music AG, one of the world's leading independent labels, and TVT Records, a
large US independent label.
It has continued to lobby other labels to join in the initiative but so far
no other big labels, like Vivendi Universal's Universal Music, Sony Music,
Warner Music, and EMI Group Plc. joined forces with Napster.
(C) Reuters Limited 2001.