UPDATE 1-Napster hires congressional aide
for copyright fight
Reuters
Dec 7 2000
5:53PM
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Gearing up for a hot
debate over copyrights in cyberspace, Napster Inc. Thursday said it
hired a top aide to the congressional committee that held hearings
this year on the popular song-swap service.
Manus Cooney, the chief counsel and staff director of the Senate
Judiciary Committee, will join Napster in January as vice president
for corporate and policy development, setting Napster's legislative
strategy.
Cooney's boss, committee Chairman Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Utah
Republican, has been supportive of Napster in its battle with big
music companies, which sued Napster a year ago for copyright
infringement. While the court case has proceeded, Napster, which
enables users to swap music for free on the Internet, has attracted
over 40 million users.
Hatch wrote to a federal appeals court in September saying that a
brief filed by the Department of Justice and the Copyright Office
siding with the recording industry did not represent the opinion of
the full U.S. government.
Over a month ago, Bertelsmann AG, the parent of BMG -- one of the
companies suing Napster -- broke ranks with its rivals and announced
it formed a partnership with Napster. It said it would drop its
lawsuit once Napster was transformed into a secure, paid service and
invited other labels to join.
No other labels have yet committed, but they all are looking at
subscription models as a way of wringing revenues from the Internet.
"Entertainment remains one of the most vexing issues for the
Internet, yet the idea of providing content on the Web remains
tantalizing," said Adam Schoenfeld, vice president of Jupiter
Research at Jupiter's Entertainment Forum in Los Angeles on
Thursday.
Larry Kenswil, president of Universal Music's Universal eLabs
Internet division, said at the conference he expects the $40 billion
global music industry to expand via the Internet.
"Subscription is a great model. The question is what people want
and are willing to pay for," he said.
Universal Music, a unit of Seagram Co., in October became the
first major record label to distribute songs online via subscription
in a closed trial run of its Internet music service.
On Wednesday, Seagram President and Chief Executive Officer Edgar
Bronfman Jr. said Universal would ramp up the test of the service to
20,000 users next week.
Currently, the service only offers music from Universal.
LANDMARK CASE
The Napster legal battle has come to be viewed as a landmark case
for copyrights on the Internet, which will affect how music as well
as films, books and all forms of entertainment can be distributed
and protected in cyberspace. Meanwhile, several proponents of
Napster and members of the digital media industry are urging federal
officials to revisit copyright law to address some of the issues
that have arisen as a result of this case and this new medium.
"Manus Cooney joining our team ensures that Napster's more than
44 million users will be well represented in the coming critical
policy debates over how to best grow and share the benefits of new
technologies," said Napster Chief Executive Officer Hank Barry.
During his tenure with the Judiciary Committee, Cooney has worked
on several issues dealing with intellectual property law such as the
American Inventors Protection Act and the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act. He was also involved in Hatch's committee hearings
exploring "The Noise Over Napster" and "Competition and Innovation
in the Digital Age."
"Napster's at the epicenter of the digital media revolution, and
I'm eager to represent the interests of the entire Napster
community, including its more than 44 million users, before the
Congress and others," Cooney said.
Cooney joined the Judiciary Committee in 1988.
Reuters/Variety
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