PlayMedia Systems, Inc. v. America Online, Inc.

ORDER GRANTING MOTION FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION

I.

INTRODUCTION

This is a copyright infringement case. Plaintiff PlayMedia Systems, Inc. (“PlayMedia”) claims that the use by defendant America Online, Inc. (“AOL”) of PlayMedia’s AMP computer software infringes PlayMedia’s copyright. The fact of copying, however, is not at issue. AOL freely admits copying the AMP software, but claims it is permitted to do so by a licensing agreement between PlayMedia and Nullsoft, a company later acquired by AOL. PlayMedia argues that AOL’s use exceeds the scope of that agreement.

The AMP software, which was developed by PlayMedia, is a “decoder” that serves the function of decoding digital audio files compressed in the MP3 format. PlayMedia licenses AMP to serve as a decoding engine within certain larger software applications that can play MP3 files on personal computers.

In 1999 PlayMedia sued Nullsoft for copyright infringement, claiming that Null-soft used the AMP software without permission in Nullsoft’s MP3 player known as “WINAMP,” a stand-alone audio player that plays music on computers that use the Windows operating system. PlayMedia alleged that WINAMP was using, and indeed dependent…