Yale drops Napster after legal pressure

The weight of lawsuits pending against MP3-swapping company Napster is taking its toll on universities that had turned a blind eye to students' use of its software.

Yale University, one of three schools named along with Napster in a lawsuit filed by rock group Metallica earlier this week, has told students it will ban use of the company's software on its college networks.

In response, Metallica's agents said today that the band is dropping Yale from the lawsuit--a move that could put pressure on other universities to follow Yale's lead.

"We appreciate the prompt and responsible reaction by Yale University in dealing with the gross violations of copyright laws and the protections of intellectual property," the band said in a statement.

Napster, created early last year by 19-year-old Shawn Fanning, allows Web surfers to open their hard drives to other people in the Napster community and swap whatever MP3 digital music files they have stored. At any time, thousands of people are logged into the system, making hundreds of thousands of songs--many of them copyrighted--available for an easy download.

In just a few months, Fanning's software has thrown a virtual stick of dynamite into the music business. MP3 music files already made piracy fairly easy, but the point-and-click access to enormous libraries of songs has threatened to bring massive copyright infringement into the mainstream.

The Recording Industry Association of America was the first to sue Napster, charging that the company was contributing to massive copyright violation. An early ruling in that case is expected any day.

Metallica joined the fray last week, and rap artist Dr. Dre is threatening to file a lawsuit of his own if Napster doesn't block transmission of his work.

Universities around the country have been skeptical of the software's use since they learned of its existence. But their objections have often simply focused on the fact that it clogs school networks, rather than on the dangers of copyright infringement. Several universities closed their systems to the software.

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Yale University was one of the schools monitoring the use of the software, but it had previously limited its actions to warning students about the potential copyright infringement taking place with Napster's aid.

Last Friday, though, the university said it would shut off use of the software altogether until the legal issues surrounding online copyright infringement had been settled.

Some attorneys say the suit against the universities could be more of a bargaining tool than a real threat, however.

Federal law shields Internet service providers from liability for illegal material sent over their systems, attorneys note. Universities that provide Net access for their students would likely be viewed as ISPs by courts, these lawyers say.

Moreover, it likely will be difficult to prove that the universities have been actively contributing to copyright infringement simply by allowing Napster to be used on their networks, some attorneys say.

"It seems like a stretch to me," said David Given, an attorney with Phillips & Erlewine in San Francisco. "How do they show that the universities actually contributed to infringement? They would have had to take some affirmative action."

Yale isn't the only member of academia to withdraw support for Napster in the past week. The Save Napster Web site, which had played some role in mobilizing students around the country to push their own universities to retain Napster access, also had a change of heart in the wake of Metallica's lawsuit.

Chad Paulson, head of Students Against University Censorship, says SAUC is for Napster technology but against piracy.

After months of high-profile support of the software's use at schools, the group Students Against University Censorship (SAUC) publicly turned against the company last week, castigating it for "knowingly facilitating the transmission of copyrighted material."

Napster responded quickly, saying that it, too, opposed piracy.

"We are heartened to know that some of our avid core users take the issue of copyright infringement seriously," the company's interim CEO, Eileen Richardson, said in a statement. "We do, too. While we have no affiliation with SAUC, we hope that the group's lobbying on this issue and their willingness to speak out will help reinforce to our users their obligation to use the Internet responsibly."