Court refuses Aimster case
Plea was 1st appeal of Net music ruling to reach justices
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court refused yesterday to hear a challenge to a federal judge's order that scuttled the online music file-sharing service of Aimster, a provider of free software used by millions of computer users. The court gave no explanation for declining to hear an appeal by Aimster's founder, John Deep of Cohoes, N.Y., in the first Internet music-swapping case to reach the justices.
Aimster, since renamed Madster, now faces a trial on claims that it infringed the copyrights on songs distributed by the recording industry.
Deep created the Aimster software in August 2000, and put it online with three corporate partners in January 2001. Aimster hosted a website that collected and organized information from users interested in music-sharing, but did not itself make copies of music files.
The recording industry challenged the Internet service within months after it began operating, suing Deep and his business partners in California, Florida, New York, and Tennessee. All of the cases were transferred to a US District Court in Chicago, where the industry sought a court order to block Aimster. A federal judge issued an injunction in September 2002, and that was upheld in a federal appeals court in Chicago last June.
In seeking Supreme Court review, Deep urged the justices to clarify the scope of a 1984 ruling that has become a leading precedent in Internet copyright cases -- the Sony Corp. decision protecting makers of videotape recorders from copyright liability when their machines are used by others to make copies of copyrighted television shows.
Deep's appeal said the Sony decision "has now become a source of great controversy" as lower courts seek to interpret its impact on the new technology of personal computer software. Other cases testing that issue are now making their way through lower courts. In April 2003 a federal judge in California dismissed lawsuits by the recording industry demanding the shutdown of two popular file-sharing services, Morpheus and Grokster, because he ruled that they did not contribute to copyright infringement by their customers. The recording industry is currently appealing that decision.
Besides turning aside Deep's plea, the justices also declined to hear a constitutional challenge to the 1991 federal law that bans all unsolicited advertisements sent by facsimile machine. That law was upheld last March by a federal appeals court based in St. Louis, in a case involving Fax.com Inc., a California-based mass marketing company that has sent out faxed ads for some 10,000 advertisers.
Last week, Fax.com was fined $5.4 million by the Federal Communications Commission for violating the ban on faxed ads. The company told the Supreme Court in its appeal that it has recently been sued in California in a case seeking $2.2 trillion in damages for violations of the law.
The Supreme Court made no comment as it denied review of the appeal.
In another order denying review, the court refused to rule on the scope of local governments' power to impose conditions on transfers of cable TV franchises.
Charter Communications Inc., a major cable TV operator now owned by Microsoft Corp. founder Paul G. Allen, sought to appeal a ruling last year by a federal appeals court based in San Francisco that local governments have wide discretion on whether to allow changes of ownership of franchised cable systems, and to impose conditions on their transfer.
Local officials in Santa Cruz County, Calif., said they would agree to transfer of local cable rights to Allen's ownership if Charter paid the county $500,000 and imposed a two-year freeze on rate increases.
The unsuccessful appeal was supported by the National Cable and Telecommunications Association and the American Cable Association, arguing that national cable policy should take precedence over local regulation of individual franchise ownership.
In a second communications case, the justices turned down an appeal by Omnipoint Communications Enterprises, a wireless telephone service company, challenging the authority of local governments to refuse permits to build facilities to close gaps in mobile phone coverage.
Omnipoint failed to win a permit to build a 110-foot tower in Easttown Township, near Philadelphia, to enable it to provide uninterrupted digital phone service in that area. The local zoning board said the area was adequately served by another provider.
