According to the LA Times, US Federal Anti-trust investigators have said they will reinvestigate allegations that the major record companies conspired in the days of the original Napster to stop third party download ventures from licensing their music for legitimate operations.
The new investigation comes amid those previously reported allegations made in a long running lawsuit between the major record companies and some of the financial backers of the original Napster. After the original P2P company went into bankruptcy the major record companies went after the organisations who had financially backed Napster, arguing that by funding the P2P company they had enabled and were therefore liable for copyright violation.
However one of those organisations being sued - Hummer Winblad Venture Partners - has hit back claiming that the major record companies acted uncompetitively in their dealings with the original Napster which, prior to its bankruptcy, had been trying to find a way to make its hugely successful but ultimately illegal P2P network into a legitimate record-label-friendly operation. Hummer Winblad argue that the major record companies conspired to stop Napster from launching a legitimate operation by refusing to license their music - a decision motivated by the fact the majors at that stage were investing in their own download ventures, MusicNet and Pressplay.
These are not new allegations, and the US Justice Department investigated them between 2001 and 2003, ultimately concluding that no evidence of unfair play could be found. However, Hummer Winblad claim to have new evidence to present at their civil case, in particular that there are discrepancies between what the majors told that Justice Department investigation, and their actions, as well as "serious omissions" in some of the documents the record companies submitted.
The judge hearing the civil case, Judge Marilyn Hall Patel, agreed that Hummer Winblad's evidence raised a number of questions regarding the record companies' past submissions on this issue, while saying that the edited documents submitted were "deliberately misleading". On those grounds she ordered that the majors hand over certain communications that they had had with their lawyers in recent years, utilising the so called "crime-fraud exception" to get round the client-attorney privilege rights. The majors have appealed that order, and have been granted a stay until the argument can be heard by a higher court.
But, it seems, while both sides await that court hearing federal investigators will be looking at the evidence Hummer Winblad's have so far presented. Whether that will lead to a full reopening of the Justice Department's investigations remains to be seen.
PS: When we say major record companies in this particular story, we are really talking about EMI and Universal, who are leading the legal assault against Hummer Winblad. SonyBMG aren't really involved, mainly because BMG's parent company Bertelsmann is one of the financial backers of the original Napster that EMI and Universal are suing. BMG were, of course, the only major to ever entertain the idea that working with the original Napster might have been a good way to try and turn the P2P using kids into legit downloaders - a strategy which could well have been now paying considerable dividends had the other major record companies not left their fellow major out on a limb on this one, preferring instead the "sue-them-into-bankruptcy-so-their- customers-switch-to-harder-to-track-P2P-systems" approach, which has worked so well for everyone ever since. P2P usage, of course, continues to grow. As do the wallets of EMI and Universal's lawyers.