Ruling jeopardizes Napster's survival
By Deirdre Erin Murphy | February 13, 2001Once again, Napster users have been handed a blow by the courts. Yesterday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the file-transfer program will not be shut down immediately, but it has a clear chance of closing in the future. A three-judge panel agreed with a lower court's ruling that Napster must stop users who trade songs without copyright permission, and it sent the injunction back to the lower courts to be reanalyzed and rewritten. "This is definitely going to change the way we view rights to music and art," first-year Law student Jeff Lynn said. Napster is an online file-sharing service for downloading MP3 music files. Napster officials are dissatisfied but not totally discouraged by the ruling.


