Having beaten Napster to the brink of death, RIAA is ready to settle its copyright infringement lawsuit against the once-file-sharing service.
RIAA sees that since the court has already ordered Napster to filter out and block all copyrighted music from its service, there is no longer need to pursue their own lawsuit.
The recording industry filed its lawsuit against Napster in December 1999 and the case has been on and off the courts since. In July 2000 Napster was issued an injunction ordering them to block all copyrighted songs, but the order was immediately stayed by a higher court deeming the injuction unreasonable. Six months later, though, the same higher court allowed the injuction requiring only a few clarifications by the lower-court judge.
Napster welcomes the good news as it's preparing to launch it's new, legitimate subscription service. The old Napster service has been down since the beginning of July, 2001.
Written by: Petteri Pyyny @ 29 Jul 2001 13:19