UTAH SENATOR NOT NAPPING
ON NAPSTER ISSUE

While Sen. Hatch (R-Utah) said he agreed with the appeals court ruling that the file-swapping service did violate copyrights, the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee announced on Wednesday (2/14) he plans to hold further hearings on the issue within the next few weeks.

Said Sen. Hatch from the Senate floor, "I guess my feeling about this Ninth Circuit decision is a gnawing concern that this legal victory for the record labels may prove pyretic and shortsighted from a policy perspective."

We're almost certain that Hatch meant Pyrrhic (costly to the point of negating or outweighing expected benefits) not pyretic (of or relating to fever).

Sen. Hatch said Napster's imminent shutdown would send users toward Gnutella and other systems that are decentralized and harder to control. Users could also prompt Congress into passing legislation that could infringe on the rights of musicians and copyright holders.

The senator, who has long criticized the music industry for failing to embrace the new technology, prompted the labels to develop their own online music-distribution systems and establish legitimate distribution licenses.

"Now might be a good time to get those deals done," Hatch said.

Sen. Hatch said he'd prefer not to introduce music-sharing legislation to the Senate Judiciary Committee, but did not rule it out entirely.