A federal appeals court gave Napster Inc. permission Wednesday to resume business over the Internet, overruling a lower court judge who had demanded more assurances on copyright protection.
Napster, which has been voluntarily offline since the beginning of the month, was allowed to resume operations “pending further order of the court,” the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said, Reuters reported.
The decision by the court’s three-judge panel overruled an earlier ruling by federal Judge Marilyn Hall Patel, who on July 11 instructed the song-swapping service stay offline until it showed it could make its filtering system pertain all copyright regulations.
“We’re pleased that the U.S. Court of Appeals granted our request for a stay,” Jonathan Schwartz, Napster’s general counsel, said in a statement. “We’re studying the implications of the decision. We continue to push ahead with the launch of our new membership service later this summer.”
During the past year, artists such as Metallica and Dr. Dre have accused Napster for facilitating music piracy over the Internet and running roughshod over copyright law.
On July 12, both artists reached accords with Napster and agreed to make some of their material available from time to time once an acceptable model is in place that ensures payment to both the artists and publishers for use of their work.
Napster will soon launch a free Beta test of the new monthly subscription service, the company said in an email to users on Wednesday.
“We want to make sure that Napster’s first bona fide ‘official release’ meets the highest technological standards,” Napster said in an email to users on Wednesday.
Napster said that half of what subscribers will pay for the subscription service would go directly to the artists, songwriters and other rights holders whose works are transferred between members of the Napster community, Variety reported.
“Napster is only as strong as the community that participates in file-sharing. We’re hard at work creating an environment that will sustain the Napster community over the long term,” Napster said.
Although Napster would not give a specific time for the Beta test, the company said it would begin the subscription service at some time this summer.
