wildly popular free downloads. Napster already has said it will launch its own subscription service in July.
Given its plans to evolve into a paid service, it is in Napster's interest to hold on to as many users of its free service until the summer, observers note. Despite its filtering software, Napster enjoyed a rebound in usage in March, according to Webnoize. The online music research firm found that Napster users downloaded 593 million songs during the last week of March, or 25 percent more than the 473 million downloaded the previous week. "Millions of consumers continue to use Napster to access huge amounts of free music," said Webnoize analyst Matt Bailey.
In addition to Patel's hearing on Napster's compliance, she also considered two separate requests from artists and music publishers to give class-action status to their suits against Napster, which would increase the company's exposure to damages. Patel declined to rule on the certification but indicated more willingness to give class-action status to the publishers' suit than the music artists' suit. In addition to the record companies, publishers hold a copyright on music that has been freely traded on Napster. Artists, however, are a more difficult group to join together in a class, Patel noted, because they cross international borders and therefore bring in issues of not only U.S., but also international copyright law. "I'm not going to supervise the world," she said.
In a related matter, Patel considered requests to dismiss suits by Matthew Katz, who owns a record label called San Francisco Sound, against everyone from individuals such as Napster CEO Hank Barry to universities that he claims are allowing young people to share copyrighted music. Patel expressed skepticism about the cases and said she will issue an order on them.
