Napster, the popular free online music service, lost a huge court battle yesterday as a federal panel ruled that the company's software is a conduit for copyright infringement.
Napster, which Tufts once blocked from its network because the exchange of MP3s was slowing the University Ethernet, will not immediately cease activity. In its ruling, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the lower court judge that previously decided against Napster to modify its injunction. But there was plenty of suggestive legal argumentation to aid the lower court in its reconsideration.
In a 58-page decision, the three-judge panel asked US District Court Judge Marilyn Patel to reconstruct her ruling to focus more specifically on the copyrighted material that passes through Napster. Patel's earlier decision, the circuit court decided, was too broad.
Patel handed down her original decision last fall. Yesterday's ruling was a result of an appeal on that case brought by the Recording Artists Industry Association of America.
"Napster facilitates the transmission of MP3 files between and among its users. Through a process commonly called 'peer-to-peer' file sharing... Napster has knowledge, both actual and constructive, of direct infringement," the 9th Circuit Court opinion said.
The issue could be far from finished, though, according to Professor Martin Saradjian, who teaches an Experimental College class on cyberlaw.
"The court came down with a decision that means basically that they want and think that Napster should monitor the use of their facilities to the point that they will be held accountable," he said. "I don't think the battle is over. This is the 9th circuit court. If this case goes up on appeal you never know how the Supreme Court will see it."
Surges of unusually high-volume downloading on Napster set in as anxiety over the court decision increased this weekend. Bruce Forest, an intellectual property protection specialist for the consulting company Sapient Corp. said that an estimated 200 million songs were exchanged on Napster on Sunday, according to Reuters. "Almost 10,000 users were logging on to each of Napster's 100 servers on Sunday at any one time," Forest said.
Exorbitant usage is likely to continue over the next few weeks, as people scramble to download songs before the District Court comes out with its newest ruling.
"I was hoping that they might understand that there's over 50 million users. They know this and the exact things that they want to incorporate will give people a chance to download things while they finish the details," Saradjian said.
The revamped injunction could be filed sometime in the next two weeks, according to MSNBC.
At that time, its repercussions will likely impact all Tufts students, even those who do not use Napster. If Napster is shut down, or transformed into a subscriber-based site, an immense amount of network space at Tufts - as well as around the country - will be freed.
"We know that there's a lot of Napster traffic on the dorm network. If that traffic were to stop, there would be a noticeable difference on network performance in the dorms," said Leslie Tolman, Tufts' director of Networks and Telecommunications. "If you were to load a webpage, it would be perceived as loading faster than it did before."
Tolman said that while the University blocked Napster at points last year, there are currently no restrictions on the service.
"We're not going to be changing anything as a result of the decision against Napster.... We haven't been blocking Napster for quite a while," she said. "Whatever changes will be brought will be made by Napster itself."
Tolman said that even the complete elimination of Napster would not completely solve the problem of peer-to-peer computing, since other services, such as Gnutella, still operate.
But Napster itself does account for a significant portion of traffic on the University network. If Napster is shut down user activity will be significantly quieted, as occurred when Scour Exchange was taken offline.
Tolman estimates that at times Napster traffic may account for as much as 50 percent of Tufts' network traffic.
Shawn Fanning, the founder of Napster, is a former Northeastern University student. He created peer-to-peer capabilities using special software that allows users to search for and copy MP3 files stored on one another's computers.
Yesterday, with Napster's future still uncertain, some Tufts students had trouble contemplating life without MP3 downloads.
"I don't know what I would do," said Paige Davis, a freshman in Houston Hall. "It's a staple to college life. Anytime I'm on the computer, there's a strong chance I'm downloading music. I haven't bought cds in a year and a half."
