The Internet music service Napster has pledged to appeal a federal court ruling that it was probably breaking the law by allowing Internet users to swap copyrighted music files. Napster said that the ruling threatened to shut it down. Recording industry sources, who accuse Napster of copyright infringement, described today's ruling as a major victory.
In a complicated ruling the panel refused to grant the music industry’s demand that Napster be banned from trading copyrighted songs until a trial is held on the issue. However, it ordered a lower court to change its initial injunction against the online company preventing it from performing certain practices.
The court said that Napster could be held liable for infringing contributory copyright, "only to the extent that Napster knows of specific infringing files with copyrighted musical compositions or sound recordings, knows or should have known that the files are available on the Napster system, and fails to act to prevent the distribution of copyrighted materials".
