Napster Servers Too Busy for Judges to Get Songs They Wanted
San Francisco, Cal. (SatireWire.com) – In a 2-to-1 decision, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered song-swapping service Napster to stop trading copyrighted material as soon as the judges finish downloading their favorite Pink Floyd songs, which the judges have been unable to access due to heavy demand on Napster’s servers.
“The 9th Circuit concurs with the district court and finds the defendant, Napster Inc., is responsible for the direct infringement of plaintiffs’ copyrighted materials, and should therefore cease doing so pursuant to the panel’s acquisition of three more cuts from Dark Side of the Moon, which we were unable to obtain over the past 72 hours,” wrote Judge Mary Schroeder, who said she was still missing the hits Money, Breathe in the Air, and Brain Damage.
 |
“We also concur with the lower court that the defendant’s usage harms the plaintiffs’ market for copyrighted works such as Ricky Martin’s She Bangs, which I would have loaded and ripped by now if everybody and their brother weren’t downloading over the weekend and maxing out Napster’s servers,” added Judge Richard A. Paez.
However, in a blistering dissent, Judge Robert R. Beezer, 72, argued that the plaintiffs failed to prove that Napster infringed on copyrighted music because, “most of the stuff they’re talking about, like this Metallica or Ricky Marvin (sic), that’s just not music. Now if we’re talking about Benny Goodman or Glenn Miller, that’s music,” Beezer wrote.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs, which include Sony Music, Universal, and EMI, hailed the ruling, but warned the judges they would be guilty of copyright infringement if they attempted to download free songs instead of paying for them. Judge Schroeder, however, dismissed those concerns, noting that she already owned Dark Side of the Moon, “but on vinyl, and it’s totally scratched.”
Judge Paez, meanwhile, insisted that he planned to buy the Ricky Martin CD containing She Bangs for his niece “in the very near future.” Paez pledged not to use Napster afterward, but would instead turn to other peer-to-peer music networks, such as Gnutella, “which I heard is pretty cool.” Schroeder totally concurred.
In a separate statement, Schroeder issued an obiter dictum stating that prima facie, Martin appears to be “very hot.”
Copyright © 2001-2009, SatireWire.
