Senate to Hold Hearings on Napster Ruling

Senate Judiciary Committee chief Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) said he would hold hearings to examine the effect of a court decision that said the Napster online music-swapping service violates copyright law. Hatch said Monday’s decision, which directed the popular service to stop its millions of users from trading copyrighted material, could have troubling implications. “I guess my feeling about this 9th Circuit decision is a gnawing concern that this legal victory for the record labels may prove pyrrhic and shortsighted from a policy perspective,” Hatch said in a speech on the Senate floor. Hatch agreed with the court’s finding that Napster violated copyright law, but said that, if it is shut down, users might migrate to decentralized systems such as Gnutella that are more difficult to control. He said music companies should speed up efforts to roll out their own online music-distribution systems and should move quickly to establish licenses for the legitimate distribution of online music. In the wake of hearings last July, Hatch said he would rather not introduce legislation addressing the issue, but he did not rule it out entirely. Hatch said he would look into holding another hearing in the next few weeks.