Diamond Multimedia launches the portable MP3. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act signed by President Clinton. Intellectual property provisions address software piracy and publishing copyrighted material on the Web. Metallica files suit against Napster and 3 universities. Metallica delivers boxes containing 350,000 Napster users' identified as copyright infringers to Napster's door.
Critics say the users change their user names and continue to download unauthorized music files.
Judge Marilyn Patel grants the recording industry a temporary injunction, citing Napster at least partially responsible for copyright infringement. She states that Napster internal documents prove they developed their technology to facilitate the piracy of protected music. Napster a reprieve. These amount to carefully worded criticisms of Judge Patel's decision. They state that such legal directions could threaten consumer technology development.