Napster, increasingly harried by the recording industry, is beginning to buckle under the weight. Meanwhile new fileshare programs are popping up like mushrooms. Amongst them, Spinfrenzy.

A special bonus, by the way, to the reader who sources the - admittedly butchered - quote.The Recording Industry Association of America filed a brief this week asking a U.S. District judge to grant an injunction which would prevent Napster from ?facilitating or assisting others in the copying, downloading, uploading, transmission or distribution of copyrighted musical works.? That covers just about everything, doesn?t it? The request was supported by declarations filed by Motion Picture Association of America president Jack Valenti and MP3.com CEO Michael Robertson. Robertson supported the recording industry’s claim that San Mateo, Calif.-based Napster’s music-swapping service was a breeding ground for widespread copyright infringement.  ?If Napster can encourage and facilitate the distribution of pirated sound recordings,? he said, ?then what’s to stop it from doing the same to movies, software, books, magazines, newspapers, television, photographs or video games?? Indeed. But what?s to stop anyone else doing it, to?What the MPAA have patently forgotten in their anti-Napster fury is that the technology behind the software, far from being unique, is basic to the structure of the Internet. One injunction against Napster may ruin the company, but it would take hundreds of thousands of injunctions to halt the widespread trade of content online. Assuming anyone took any notice of them, that is. Meanwhile, new filesharing software like Gnutella, Freeserve, Scour, and the recently launched Spinfrenzy and Launch are ready to step in to fill any gap left by Napster should it meet an untimely death. As we?ve been arguing for quite some time over here at Ninfo, any attempt to fight fileshare is an attempt to  fight the nature of the net itself.  Launch’s CEO Dave Goldberg argues that Napster was inefficient anyway, and is pitching his new tech to universities as a replacement. ‘People want the music, but the way they’re getting it is detrimental to the way networks are designed,’ he says. ‘Suddenly everyone has become a server for everyone else in the world.‘Goldberg plans to ease the strain on universities’ fragile and expensive connectionz to the Internet by with Launchcast, software which allows users to create custom Internet radio stations based on the music they like. Users choose their music but not the order in which it is played because that would violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Launchcast does, however, allow students to share accounts so that one student could listen to a personalized broadcast created by another. So what does the recording industy think it’s fixing by going after Napster? One day Big Media’s going to have to get hip to the fact that it’s fighting a losing battle over the issue of digital copyright. Right now, however, it will be surprised to have found a new ally in Mike Robertson, who only settled his own suit with them the RIAA last week. Major recording labels had sought to halt Robertson’s ?Instant Listening Service?, which allowed users to purchase CDs via the Web site and listen to them online before they were physically delivered to the buyer. The recording industry eventually settled with MP3.com and  has entered into a new licensing agreement to allow the service. Robertson is now apparently concerned that the work of his Web site’s fledgling artists are being given away through Napster. ?Any such distribution would cause potential detriment to both MP3.com and the artists who upload their music to the Web site,’ he said. It seems amazing to us that a man who has made his fortune from filesharing should now be naysaying it in an attempt to clear out the competition.  Fileshare frenzy, anyone? Spinfrenzy: you?ll make it. They?ll break it.Or perhaps a Launchcast is more to your taste. Check www.launch.com