SightSound Asks Court to Close Napster
SightSound Technologies has filed a request for a preliminary injunction against Napster, asking the court to temporarily close the door on the song-swapping pioneer's music download business until it has reached a verdict. SightSound filed suit against Napster in October over an alleged patent violation.
Despite its previous reputation as being the bad boy of the music industry, Napster went legitimate when Roxio resurrected the brand name, fast becoming one of the world's largest online music stores. Although it may have changed its whimsical ways, even the reformed Napster cannot seem to shake controversy.
SightSound holds the rights to a wide breadth of patents for the distribution of digital media. The company maintains that Napster violated its copyrights after it failed to secure a license on account of to its "eleventh hour" demands for the inclusion of a video license at no additional cost, despite the fact that Napster does not offer video downloads.
"This lawsuit is the regrettable outcome of a long process that could have been resolved amicably," stated SightSound President and CEO Scott Sander. "It is surprising that Napster has taken this road given that it seems to have been working to restore its brand value."
SightSound filed the motion alleging patent violation in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania on October 8, 2004.
A Napster representative dismissed SightSound's request for an injunction, saying, "Napster believes there is no legal basis for a request for injunctive relief and are therefore highly confident that the request will be denied."
SightSound's patent portfolio dates back to 1993, when its founder received rights to a "methodand system for the electronic sale of digital audio and video recordings." Since that time, the company has continued to accumulate related patents and today counts a total of 15 intellectual property holdings - notwithstanding many are common Web practices.
However ambiguous they may seem, several of the patents have withstood courtroom challenges by Bertelsmann AG, which settled with SightSound in February 2004 after a six year legal contest over their validity. Napster has requested that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office reexamine of the patents.
SightSound has several patent applications pending in the field of trusted and decentralized peer-to-peer networks.