Never Enough Recording Industry Heat Department

Plaintiffs Sought Timeout After Turn in Napster Case

According to transcripts made public today, the judge in the case said on Jan. 16 that she intended to grant a request by Napster to explore whether the record companies might have colluded to prevent Napster and other online music competitors from licensing music to sell on the Internet. The judge, Marilyn Patel of the Federal District Court in Northern California, also said she would allow Napster to explore whether the record companies might not control all the copyrights they claimed to own.

...In other words, there's a big question about whether the record companies can even CLAIM exclusive copyright protection for Internet-distributed music, and their attempts to create alternate venues for online music may prove anti-competitive, thus turning the attention from Napster's "piracy" towards the record company's attempts to stifle competition and innovation. To try to avoid this, the big record companies put their lawsuit against Napster on hold. The joke is on them. HA.