Aimster Feels Napster's Pain

The major record labels sued Aimster on Thursday, charging the Albany, New York-based file-sharing start-up with copyright infringement. However, a federal judge in Albany enjoined the plaintiffs from proceeding with their complaint, filed in New York City, until a hearing Wednesday.

The movie studios are expected to file a similar suit of their own against the company soon.

Three weeks ago, Aimster filed suit against the Recording Industry Association of America in an attempt to stave off an anticipated attempt by the record industry to shut down Aimster. The record industry will present its motion to dismiss that case at Wednesday's hearing in federal district court in Albany.

"We believe [the RIAA's] action is a backdoor attempt" to divest the Albany court of its authority, says Aimster attorney George Carpinello of Boies, Schiller & Flexner, the same firm representing Napster.

"Aimster is Napster all over again," Cary Sherman, general counsel to the Recording Industry Association of America, says in a statement. "Beneath the added bells and whistles lies the same service that Napster provides."

Opposing Opinions

Aimster's software piggybacks on instant-messaging applications to allow users to trade files with other people on their so-called buddy lists. Aimster contends that because these lists are private, it does not have the right or responsibility to monitor or control the files or information exchanged among users.

Not so, says the RIAA. "Aimster is hanging its hat on a complete and utter misperception," Sherman says. "The truth is you do not need to have any buddies to use Aimster. It works with or without a buddy list."

In his statement regarding the suit, Sherman explains that the RIAA had tried to meet with Aimster on two separate occasions but that the software company abruptly canceled both times. A day after canceling the second meeting, Aimster sued the RIAA, according to Sherman.

"Under these circumstances, we can reach no other conclusion than that they never intended to talk to us," Sherman says in the statement. "The only apparent reason they agreed to meet with us at all was simply to delay matters while they prepared their lawsuit."

Familiar Sounds

But Aimster Chief Executive Officer Johnny Deep denies that the RIAA ever tried to contact him, aside from the letter the trade group sent last month along with a CD containing 500,000 song titles it said had to be removed from the service within a week or the RIAA would take action. "They never attempted to talk with me or anyone at Aimster," Deep says.

The RIAA's suit against Aimster echoes those filed last year against Napster and Scour. While Scour was forced to declare bankruptcy before seeing its day in court, Napster continues to limp along as it tries to comply with a court injunction to filter copyrighted music from its file-sharing system.

But Deep argues that, in some ways, Aimster's chances are better than those companies, despite its small size and minimal private financing. "We didn't organize ourselves to be a big public company," Deep says, adding that Aimster aims to "guarantee privacy to users of the Internet and make networks easy and free to help small businesses and home businesses compete with big ones. It's harder to stop that than to stop a company that's just trying to cash out."