Monday June 25 1:54 PM ET
Napster Request for Rehearing Denied
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Recording Industry Association of America (news - web sites) (RIAA) said on Monday that online song-swap service Napster (news - web sites) has been denied its request for a rehearing of the music industry's landmark copyright lawsuit that resulted in an injunction that forced Napster to block its members from trading copyrighted songs.
``The request has been denied,'' said Cary Sherman, an attorney for the RIAA. Napster had no immediate comment.
Napster first requested the rehearing after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled in February that the company was infringing on copyrights and directed U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel to issue an injunction against Napster.
Patel issued the injunction on March 5, barring Napster from allowing the trade of copyrighted songs on its service. The injunction has severely curtailed activity on the once phenomenally-popular service.
The world's biggest record labels -- including Vivendi Universal's (EAUG.PA) Universal Music, Sony Music (6758.T), Warner Music (NYSE:AOL - news), EMI Group Plc (news - web sites) (EMI.L) and Bertelsmann AG (news - web sites)'s (BTGGga.D) BMG first sued Napster in December 1999, claiming it was a haven for copyright piracy that would cost them billions of dollars in lost music sales.
AI
