Nastic Gryzunova. Seine: issue 91

No matter what we think about the confrontation between recording studios, on the one hand, and Napster and MP3.com, on the other, in a situation where there is a distinct smell of frying, there is no longer any talk of new trends in the sphere of solving the problem of copyright on the Internet. This is purely about the survival of companies - there is no time for ideology.

On June 12, the Recording Industry Association of America submitted to the court a request for the preliminary closure of Napster until a final court decision is made (as we remember, the appeal court saved Napster from closure at the last minute). The RIAA's request, the lead plaintiff, was accompanied by statements from several other companies, all of which alleged that Napster was a chronic copyright infringer and harmful to the recording industry. Support for the RIAA's requirements was thus expressed by Jack Valenti, head of the Motion Picture Association of America and chairman of the Copyright Assembly, musician Mike Stoller, Robert Cohn, head of EMusic.com, Deborah Jay, head of Field Research Corporation and - attention - Michael Robertson, head of MP3.com .

On September 7, the day after District Judge Jed Rakoff announced his verdict in the case of Universal Music Group v. MP3.com (payments to the defendant will range from $118 million to $250 million), Napster lawyer Jonathan Schiller rushed to issue a statement. "We believe that Judge Rakoff's decision in the MP3.com case was factually and legally different from the Napster case. Rakoff found MP3.com guilty of direct infringement because MP3.com copied tens of thousands of CDs for commercial purposes. No one at Napster can be blamed "in direct violation of the law because we did not copy anything. Our technology is fundamentally different, and Napster is accused of facilitating violations." Schiller believes that Napster's nonprofit orientation should vindicate it in the eyes of a judge at a hearing scheduled for early October (without mentioning, however, that Napster was actually intended to be a for-profit company).

It is clear that everyone saves themselves. It is clear that it is unprofitable to unite with the loser. We are talking about the survival of companies - lofty matters and theoretical calculations are equally meaningless, let's move on to legal terminology, the topic is closed. All clear. However, it is quite obvious that both MP3.com and Napster turned out to be the first victims (they are also swallows) of a harsh collision of the concept of property copyrights, guaranteed by the slowness of the offline, and freedom of information on the Internet. You can disassociate yourself from each other as much as you want - through the mouths of lawyers - and fill the surrounding area with cries of “I have nothing to do with it, he started it first”; from the outside, however, it is clear that the games of both companies (with the same opponent) take place on the same field and according to the same rules. The provider nature of Napster and the commercial interests of MP3.com are ultimately not the main aspects.