Word: napsterized
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Circuit Court of Appeals left little doubt Wednesday that Napster as we know it is dead, ruling that U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel's injunction against the service would stand, with a little retooling. In a 58-page ruling, the three-judge panel said that Napster must stop trading in copyrighted material and may be held liable for "vicarious copyright infringement." Napster must also prevent users from gaining access to copyrighted content through its lists of songs archived by the service's users...
...Napster's legal leg - explicated in court by none other than David Boies, who is now officially on a losing streak - was that it was only giving away software; what mischievous users did with the software was not Napster's problem. It's Napster's problem now, thanks to the appeals court, and as soon as the retooled injunction comes through - and the case finishes its inevitable further travels through the courts - Napster will likely have to shut its doors. (Fearing just such a development, Napster users downloaded some 250 million songs over the weekend...
...that the free-music revolution is over just yet. Gnutella, iMesh, Aimster and FreeNet are all Napster-style music-trading facilitators, and unaffected by the ruling. Some believe that subtle differences in method will help them beat litigation, although the term "vicarious copyright infringement" tends to sum up the reason for, say, Gnutella's existence just as well as Napster's. But until those services get fat enough on Napster's users to catch the eye of the Big Five music labels (Sony, Warner, BMG, EMI and Universal) and their lawyers, there is such a thing as a free lunch...
...Napsters of the world weren't designed to make the Shawn Fannings of the world rich - more to Stick It To The Man, and change the music business from without. And it's already working. Back in October, while the appeals process was still underway, Napster and Big Fiver Bertelsmann cut a deal to turn the renegade into a profit-making (and officially sanctioned) music-selling arm of said Man, with funding by Bertelsmann and mechanics by Napster...
...Good-bye Napster, hello Son of Napster...