Napster back in court: Other Websites step up to fill Internet music vacuum

A federal appeals court ruled this Monday that an injunction issued against Napster, Inc. last July was too broad and ordered it sent back to a district court for modification. The injunction — which was stayed pending Monday's decision — would prevent Napster from allowing users to trade copyrighted material.

It is likely the injunction will be imposed as soon as it is modified. For now, Napster users can still download music, though there is a definite possibility that it might eventually force Napster to shut down.

In a statement issued in response to the ruling, CEO of Napster, Inc. Hank Barry said, "Even if Napster file sharing is shut down while our trial is pending, we will do whatever we can to work within the limits of the injunction to continue to provide more than five-million Napster community members access to music."

Professor Paul Lansky, who currently teaches MUS 104: When Music is Made, said he thinks the ruling is a mistake. "While I agree with the need to protect the principal of copyright, the suppression of Napster will only be counter-productive since this sort of sharing will continue with or without Napster," he said in an e-mail.

"In my experience it expands your interest in music, and for me at least, has meant buying more CDs," he added.

Lansky said Napster has given him a wide range of flexibility in selecting examples for his classes.

"I think that ultimately the losers in this affair will be the record companies," he said. "They should embrace Napster rather than reject it."

Even if the record companies involved in the lawsuit against Napster do succeed in shutting it down, it is unlikely that this will prevent music lovers from sharing files over the Internet.

There are numerous other file-sharing services available, and many of them would be more difficult to shut down because they function by directly connecting users, instead of running through a central server like Napster.

One of the most noteworthy of these is Gnutella.

Jill Silverman – an analyst for the Lime Group, which is building a Gnutella client named Lime Wire — said Gnutella can be a great alternative to Napster.

"Not that we promote the sharing of copyrighted material, for we certainly don't," she said in an e-mail, "but it is important to note that the Gnutella network is far less vulnerable to such attacks because no central source exists for files, and thus no one to target or blame."

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Gnutella allows users to share not only music files but other files as well. Information is available at gnutella.wego.com.

Another well-known source for online music is mp3.com. The site offers artists a market for their music, allowing visitors to download music mp3 files, which are then played from the user's hard drive. It also allows them to stream audio files, which enables the users to listen to the music without having to download it or use up hard drive space on their computers.

Listeners can also order CDs through the mp3.com Website, and the typical price is less than $10 before shipping. Even if the listener does not buy a CD, the artist still earns money through mp3.com's "payback-for-playback" program if his or her music is downloaded.

Mp3.com also offers a service called "My mp3.com," which enables users to store their music on the Website and access the files from any internet connected computer. However, this service does not allow users to share files. Even so, mp3.com has faced lawsuits related to copyright infringement.

Scour.net, which calls itself "your digital entertainment universe," allows users to download music, video and audio files. Scour has also faced copyright litigation and is being relaunched early this year, according to its Website.

A number of other music sharing services can be found simply by using search engines such as Excite or Google and typing in "mp3 download." Some of these include oth.net, songcrawler.com and www.toptempo.com.