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Oh, these people

need to be is...

isolated and that noise

Is gonna bother these

other noise.

Who the f*** are you a**holes?

Do you have any idea what

creativity is about?

That was a f***ing

super buzzkill.

Uh, and, and you know, we,

we won a few like

Minor battles, but the war

was completely lost.

I had the advantage

And uh, sean parker didn't

enjoy this luxury.

But i had the advantage of

kind of being able to

Kind of stick my head

in the sand,

In terms of being able to just

work on the product.

So, i had this attitude of if

things got crazy,

Or people seem to be

acting irrationally,

Or uh, if we were nervous, i

could just work harder

On the product. Write more code,

Put my head down.

So that got me through a

lot of the time.

First of all, what is your,

what is your name

And what do you do here?

I'm shawn fanning. I uh,

started the, the company

And i'm currently an

engineer at napster.

How 'bout you?

I'm sean parker, i am also

a founder and um,

I do a variety of things.

Working with the

legal team to uh,

Business related strategy.

Do you have a nickname,

like napster?

Um, no.

Shawn fanning and i, we

literally went from being

High school kids leading

relatively normal

Mundane lives.

To...

...12 months later, nearly

bringing one of the largest

Us industries to its knees

And basically fighting what is

uh, in terms of potential

Assessed damages, the largest

corporate lawsuit

In the history of the world.

The music swapping website,

napster,

Which for almost a year now,

has provided

Millions of music

fans world-Wide

With an

unprecedented opportunity

To copy and trade music

on the internet,

Was dealt a serious

blow on wednesday,

When federal court judge

marilyn patel issued

A temporary injunction

against napster, pending

The outcome of a trial,

which will ultimately

Determine the future of

the software.

An internet community to help

music fans find mp3s,

I didn't' think it would be

embroiled in a legal battle.

But we are. And as you know,

The recording industry

has filed a suit

To shut napster down.

To shut you down.

Today there as an important

Hearing in court.

And the judge ruled against us.

Hank barry, napster ceo,

Is here to tell you what

happened today

On the 27th of july,

we all gathered

In judge patel's courtroom

And uh, we had a hearing and it

was supposed to be

Something relatively low key,

you know...

it was a hearing on a

preliminary injunction

Motion that the labels, uh,

were moving

And uh, the judge

came in and uh,

Right from the outset

didn't look good.

Uh, this is a preliminary

injunction uh, it's been

Entered without the basis of any

evidentiary hearing.

We asked for an

evidentiary hearing.

We asked to have an

opportunity to come in,

Cross-Examine their witnesses,

to have this

Decided not on the basis of uh,

15 minutes for me

And 15 minutes for dan

johnson argument.

But on the basis of

actual evidence.

We asked to have this

decided at trial.

Um, the court decided to do

it on the basis

The court decided to do it.

David boies was a lot of hype.

He had just won

The microsoft thing and had

had that big aetna

Thing that he had won etcetera,

etcetera.

So it was like, we got

the big name.

But, fundamentally, he did

not understand k

What was going on.

At a technical level.

So the legal arguments he was

making didn't fit with

What was actually going on.

And it was a complete and

utter disaster.

I felt like we had

developed a better

Understanding of the

impact of the tmca

And all the complexity

around trying to make

The case work. To watch it be

handled the way it was

With patel. It was actually

very disheartening.

And then you know, shawn's email

Came out.

Uh, there were these early

memos that were

Discovered, where um, i made

reference to the fact

That we were well aware

Of the fact that our users

were pirating music.

Uh, and given that our users

were pirating music,

It might be, it might behoove us

To protect their anonymity.

So that our users weren't sued.

And the documents that

judge patel relied on

Is the following...

users will understand that they

are improving their

Experience by providing

information about their

To name or address or other

sensitive data.

That might endanger them.

Especially since they

are exchanging

Pirated music.

That is the

co-Founder of napster

Writing what the system is

intended to do.

And it is exactly what the

system has done.

And this was uh, at a time

when uh, when we

Believed that what

we were doing,

Basically, just

facilitating relationships

Between users so that they

could share music,

Was totally legal under the dmc.

It was like essentially a

brainstorming document

Where i used the word piracy. Which was

a, which was a taboo word at napster.

You're not allowed to talk about

piracy, only allowed

To talk about sharing.

The focus then became the email.

When in fact, there were all

these other issues.

So sean became the scapegoat.

I, i was sort of on this

forced vacation...

...in north carolina the, the

lawsuit was happening.

On the other side of the world,

I was sitting in this beach

house and i got the call

From alicia, who was

hank's assistant.

And uh, and was writing the

litigation and she said

She said sean it

doesn't look good.

And your memo is up on it,

it's blown up in a,

You know, 4000 point type on a

huge screen, in the

Courtroom. And uh, you know,

they're calling you

A music pirate and they're

calling us all music pirates

And the judge doesn't like it.

They needed a nail. They found

the nail and they

Put it straight into that

coffin and that was it.

Now, it was easy for the

business guys to say, 'look

This guy not only

doesn't add any value

In our opinion, but he also

wrote this email.

And it's all his fault.

There wasn't a whole lot i

could do about it.

It, it sort of, it sort of

was what it was.

The company needed to

make a clean break

From its past and try

to move forward.

Um, and so i sort of realized

That that was the end.

So i had this one

meeting with hank,

He walked me through uh, walked

me through, then i

And that was it.

I vividly remember the

conversation of him

Asking me to come to his aid

and help him preserve

His role in the company.

And after we talked for a while

About what that would be

i just told him that i

Thought he was lucky.

To be able to get out of this

thing and go work

On something else.

Um, because it had felt like,

You know, it had been uh,

nothing like the first

You know, the first phase that

we had gone through

And enjoyed.

I don't know uh, if that

really contributed to it

That email. But i do know

That it had a huge effect

On the judge's perception

of our intent.

We are pleased with the

court's decision.

We think the decision

will pave the way

For the future of online music.

This once again

establishes that the rules

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