Go ahead, download that MP3 of "Walk Like an Egyptian." The Commonwealth will not order the University to block student access to Napster, Virginia Attorney General Mark L. Earley says.
In an letter sent last week to Howard E. King, lawyer for recording artists Metallica and Dr. Dre, Earley said the Commonwealth will not limit access to the free Internet music-sharing service because "it would not be productive ... especially since the law on this issue has not been clearly and definitively addressed by the courts."
King had sent a letter to University President John T. Casteen III on Sept. 6, asking the University to ban the program and "assure that it is not a willing participant in and an enabler of the theft of intellectual property through Napster."
King represented Metallica in a copyright suit against Yale University, the University of Southern California and Indiana University. The lawsuit compelled two universities to restrict Napster access on their campuses. Yale and Indiana agreed to ban Napster and were dropped as defendants from the lawsuit, but the suit is still pending against USC, as the school has opted to permit student access to Napster.
After receiving King's letter, Casteen asked the Attorney General's office - acting as legal counsel to the University - to investigate the issue and advise him on a course of action.
"After careful consideration of your request, it is the opinion of the Commonwealth that we are not nixing Napster," Earley wrote to King.
The slew of pending court cases involving Napster has yet to directly include either the University or the Commonwealth.
"The Commonwealth and its public colleges and universities are not parties to this legal dispute, and have no interest in getting embroiled in it," Earley said.
On July 26, U.S. District Judge Marilyn Patel sided with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in a separate lawsuit and ordered Napster to stop allowing copyrighted material to pass over its network.
Napster executives appealed the decision and have vowed to take their case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The RIAA suit against Napster has grown in significance from a David and Goliath story - an Internet start-up versus the established recording industry - into a potentially landmark decision that could set precedents on American copyright laws and intellectual property rights far into the unfolding digital age.
University spokeswoman Louise Dudley said the University is not now considering restricting Napster use, but "it's hard to make guarantees about anything, especially when legal interpretations of rapidly changing technology are involved."
According to Earley's letter, Virginia universities still could follow in the path of many other colleges and restrict students' use of Napster, not necessarily because of the copyright dispute, but because of concerns about network capacity.
As a neutral Internet service provider, the University is allowed to limit student access to Napster if its heavy use interferes with the network's bandwidth or ability to provide service. "We have not had bandwidth or other service problems so far, but our network administrators will continue to monitor the situation," Dudley said.
"At U.Va., student accounts are on a separate server, which reduces the concern about capacity to some extent," she said.
Whatever the final outcome of Napster's legal battles, students are enjoying use of the service while it lasts.
"I think the decision is cool," said Brian Yoon, a third-year Commerce student whose latest download from Napster was Eminem's "The Way I Am."
"More free music for us," Yoon said.
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