LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Aimster yes. Napster (dossier) no.
As the music industry tries to stop song-swap service Napster, at least one major record label and a music retailer are forging ties with Aimster, a new player in the controversial Internet file-sharing sector.
EMI Group (EMI) Plc's (EMI.L) Capitol Records, home to the Beatles, teamed up with Aimster this week to promote a new album by the band Radiohead, said Johnny Deep, a spokesman for Aimster.
Industry sources also said a major music retailer, Trans World Entertainment (TWMC) Corp. (TWMC), is soon expected to announce an alliance with Aimster, which attaches a Napster-like browser to AOL's Instant Messaging service (AIM).
Trans World and Aimster declined comment, although Deep has said Aimster is talking with many companies, including Intel (INTC) Corp. (INTC).
"Obviously, the major retailers and record companies are looking for compelling technologies to connect with the consumers," said Jonathan Potter, executive director for Digital Media Association.
"Aimster appears to be more a manageable and limited form of file-sharing in terms of distribution. It doesn't surprise me that copyright owners are more comfortable with this sort of application," Potter said.
Capitol's Radiohead promotion ran for only two days, ending on midnight Tuesday, but it represented a big turning point for the evolution of file-sharing applications like Napster, Scour and Gnutella, which have for the most part been reviled and sued by the entertainment industry for allegedly facilitating copyright infringement.
Deep said he believes Aimster is well-insulated from lawsuits because it is used for many non-infringing purposes and because users have more control over files since they share only with people on AIM "buddy lists".
In contrast, Napster lets users download from anybody else on the service, which has drawn over 25 million users.
"We firmly believe that instant sharing is the killer app (application) on the Internet," said Deep, noting that Capitol wanted to exploit Aimster's program to notify users about the Radiohead album and direct them to a promotional Web site.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which represents big record companies like Seagram (VO) Co. Ltd.'s (VO.TO) Universal Music, Bertelsmann AG (dossier)'s (BTGGga.D) BMG, Sony (SNE) Corp.'s (6758.T) Sony Music and Time (TWX) Warner's (TWX.N) Warner Music Group and EMI, has filed suit against Napster for copyright infringement.
Both sides will be at a court hearing on Monday in San Francisco where the record industry will try to convince an appeals court to reinstate an injunction that would prevent Napster from operating.
Some experts, however, claim that Aimster could actually represent the biggest nightmare to date for studios trying to stop film and music swapping online because of its ability to piggyback on AOL's popular instant messaging system.
Aimster is drawing attention from companies like Intel looking to invest in peer-to-peer (P2P) computing for use in businesses.
America Online (dossier), which has over 60 million AIM users, has said it was aware of the service and is monitoring it. Aimster has signed nearly 1.5 million users since its launch on August 9 and now offers file-sharing capabilities to a potential pool of 140 million instant messenger users.
Copyright 2000, Reuters News Service
