Friday, April 21, 2000

Metallica Drops Yale U. From Napster Lawsuit; Indiana U. Also Blocks Site By SCOTT CARLSON The rock band Metallica announced on Wednesday that it had dropped Yale University from a copyright-infringement lawsuit after university officials said they would block the use of Napster, whose popular MP3-sharing software lets users exchange music files over the Internet. Indiana University, which was also named in the suit, announced Thursday that it, too, would block access to Napster on its network. Howard E. King, Metallica's lawyer, said later that Indiana would most likely be dropped from the suit as well. The band is continuing to press its claims against Napster Inc. and one remaining academic institution, the University of Southern California. The suit, filed last week in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, charged the company and the universities with copyright infringement and with violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Lawrence Pulgram, Napster's lawyer, charged that the lawsuit was an effort to "inflame the press and intimidate universities rather than to present legal issues to the court." The day after the suit was filed, Yale officials said they would block access to Napster until the matter was resolved. Mr. King, the band's lawyer, said that Yale "recognized the precise issue that we laid out in the lawsuit, which was that this was an egregious copyright violation." After Indiana made its announcement, Mr. King added: "It appears to me that the responsible universities are doing the responsible thing. I'm optimistic that the actions of Indiana and Yale will persuade other universities across the country to do the same without litigation." Thomas Conroy, a spokesman for Yale, said the university's ban on Napster would remain in place for the foreseeable future. However, he added that the ban was only instituted to give the university an opportunity to sort out the legal issues surrounding Napster, and was not part of a deal to avoid the lawsuit. "We continue to believe that we don't have any liability to Metallica," he said. The statement Indiana issued Thursday echoed Yale's position. "We believe Indiana University has no liability by allowing access to sites such as Napster," the statement said. "We now believe, however, that our faculty, staff and students could incur legal exposure if they use this technology. Until those unresolved legal issues are clarified, it seems prudent to block the site." Last month, Indiana University worked with consultants from Napster to develop strategies for reducing Internet congestion caused by widespread use of the multimedia software. Students' access to Napster, which had been blocked earlier because of the congestion, was subsequently restored to test a new routing process intended to give other kinds of data priority over MP3 files. University officials have argued that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act relieves "online service providers" -- such as universities that offer Internet connections to students -- of some responsibility for copyright infringement by their users. But Mr. King said the copyright act does not shield the universities. "The universities do more than just serve as an I.S.P. for anyone that wants Internet service," he said. "They're providing it as part of the educational process for their students, and they're getting involved in determining what goes in those pipelines and what doesn't -- evidenced by their banning Napster while they had network problems. "We don't think the act was intended to cover that, and if we have to make law that further defines the limits of that exemption, then that's what we'll do." Background articles from The Chronicle: Heavy-Metal Band Sues Napster and 3 Universities, Alleging Music 'Piracy' (4/17/2000) Student Calls on Peers to be Responsible in Use of Digital Music (4/4/2000) Indiana U. Will Test Priority-Setting Tactics to Handle Network Loads (3/24/2000) Students Trading MP3's With Napster Are Clogging Networks, Officials Say (2/11/2000) Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

U. of New Mexico weighs a Title IX alternative: meeting women's interest in sports Black student at U. of Iowa is charged with making racist threats 11 new chief executives announced Spring commencement speakers are announced by 15 colleges Metallica drops Yale U. from Napster lawsuit; Indiana U. also blocks site Online university teams up with Hopkins library to offer digital resources