dictionary

CNN's James Hattori: Napster to screen songs

James Hattori

CNN Correspondent James Hattori is in federal court in San Francisco for the hearing on the terms of the injunction that would block Napster from posting copyrighted material on its song-swapping service.

CNN: What is going on in today's hearing?

Hattori: The big headline, so far, is from Napster attorney David Boies who revealed in court that sometime over the weekend, this weekend, Napster will implement software in its system which will prevent some copyrighted material from being downloaded.

	LEGAL RESOURCES
Latest Legal News
Law Library
FindLaw Consumer Center Select a topic Bankruptcy Discrimination Divorce Estate Planning Landlord-Tenant Personal Injury Taxes

Obviously, one of the issues still is which songs are to be blocked and how they can be identified by file names and a lot of the debate in court this morning has dealt with that. The question is to what extent is it a burden to Napster to screen, for example, album names and various iterations of songs that could possibly be used as file names on the system.

Perhaps it's seeing the writing on the wall that it cannot avoid somehow imposing some sort of screen and is going to go ahead and do it voluntarily.

CNN: Was there any reaction from the recording industry?

Hattori: Well, in court, the recording industry obviously welcomes any kind of action that would reach their goal, which is to stop all copyrighted material from being downloaded. In fact, the industry has, so far, supplied at least 6,500 song names that it says have been improperly and illegally transferred on the Napster system. Whether all those names, all those songs will be blocked this weekend is uncertain.

CNN: What is the status of the injunction against Napster

Hattori: This is the implementation of the injunction. In the words of judge Marilyn Hall Patel, it's not a question of if this injunction is going to be issued, it's a question of when. What they are doing now is trying to iron out the nitty gritty details of who has the burden of identifying which songs are on the system and which songs need to be blocked. Napster says it can't take off a huge, overly huge, number of song titles or information because that would slow the system down, so it would prefer more targeted information that specifically identifies a file name that it could block. It believes it has the technology to do that on an automated computerized basis.

Napster to start screening copyrighted material
March 2, 2001
Free music fight: Napster battles to keep sharing music files
February 17, 2001
Senate to hold hearings over Napster ruling
February 15, 2001
Napster says it will appeal ruling
February 12, 2001
Book industry takes lessons from Napster
February 8, 2001
Napster to charge a fee for MP3s
January 29, 2001
German police suspect child porn on Napster, Gnutella
January 10, 2001
Napster adds some political muscle
December 8, 2000
If you use Napster, you're being watched
November 23, 2000
Macster wins Napster's official endorsement
October 26, 2000
Tech glitch brings Napster down
October 4, 2000

Wired News
 • Good Gnus in Napster Ruling
 • Picking at the Bones of Napster
The Standard
 • Napster's Day of Reckoning
United States Courts for the Ninth Circuit
Business 2.0

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.