White House lawyers on Friday filed for the United States what is known as a “friend of the court” brief. Under US federal law, an individual or an organisation that is not a party to a particular lawsuit can file such a brief to advise the court regarding a point of law or fact directly concerning the lawsuit.
Napster had argued in its case that computers should be considered home recording devices under the 1992 Audio Home Recording Act. The United States argued that computers were deliberately left out of the 1992 law, which was a compromise between the music industry, the consumer electronics industry and the people who use such devices.
The brief states:
"Permitting Napster to shelter itself behind [the 1992 Act] would defeat this basic statutory quid pro quo: Napster's users would be permitted to engage in digital copying and public distribution of copyrighted works on a scale beggaring anything Congress could have imagined when it enacted the Act, yet the music industry would receive nothing in return because the products used by Napster and its users (computers and hard drives) are unquestionably not subject to the Act's royalty and serial copying provisions."
Other groups have filed another friend of the court brief in the case, including the Motion Pictures Association of America and the Software and Information Industry Association. Napster has until tomorrow to file defences to these arguments.
MP3.com, which last week was ordered to pay between $118 and $250 million to Universal Music, has said that it will soon re-launch its MyMP3.com service which was the cause of the original action against the company. It has reached settlements with four major record companies and is now licensed to provide their music.