Word: patel
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...Shan P. Patel...
Well, the brave new world has arrived, and it looks decidedly like the past. Judge Marilyn Hall Patel has ruled that Napster must prevent its users from trading in copyrighted material. Last week, the record labels delivered to Napster a list of hundreds of thousands of copyrighted songs, files which Napster now filters to prevent users from trading. Intrepid users are now resorting to misspellings and Pig Latin to avoid the filters, but it's doubtful that the majority of users will ever find Napster as convenient as it once...
...culpability by not hosing music files on its own servers. Its legal argument was based on the 1984 Betamax case, in which movie studios sued Sony because they feared VCR's would lead to piracy. The judge in that case, evincing an understanding of technology more sophisticated than Judge Patel's, ruled in favor of Sony because Sony's customers, not the company itself, were the ones violating copyright. Judge Patel, in contrast, feels that Napster actively encourages its users to pirate music, and thus closed the loophole around the company. Unfortunately, there's no software patch for a quick...
Turning to Napster, 50 million registered users proved that online music distribution was a feasible opportunity. Still, the chaotic interim period simply did not last long enough. The recording industry sued Napster within a year of its founding, and with the Patel ruling now on the books, the door has officially been closed on the lawless period of Internet music distribution. No one knows if Napster's model could even produce a viable business, as Napster has been a free service since Day 1, and now with the law firmly against Napster, we may never know...
...Displaying the judicial impatience usually provoked by recalcitrant technology companies, Judge Marilyn H. Patel on Tuesday gave Napster 72 hours to put up - with a filter that actually works - or be shut down...