Better get your rewritable CD-ROM drive cracking, free-music aficionados. Soon Napster will be gone, perhaps for good. In case you haven’t heard, a federal judge handed down an injunction against the controversial music-trading Web site, ordering it to cease operating as of 4 p.m. EDT on Friday.
The judge said Napster encourages “wholesale infringing” of music copyrights; the site and its thousands of enthusiasts, of course, say that personal copying of music recordings is protected by federal law.
The Recording Industry Association of America sued Napster in December to stop music fans from stealing songs and burning free CDs. According to the RIAA, 20 million people are song-swapping on Napster, costing the music industry more than $300 million in lost sales.
