Song-swap music firm allowed back online

A San Francisco court has allowed Napster to resume its song-swapping operations on the Internet.

The decision by the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals overturns a federal judge’s ruling last week ordering the Redwood City company to remain offline until it could fully comply with an injunction to remove all copyright music.

But it remained unclear whether Napster would ever resume its free song-swapping service as it gets ready to deploy a paid subscription service later this year.

‘‘We have no immediate comment on when we are going to start,’’ Napster spokeswoman Ricki Seidman said.

US District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel issued the shutdown order on July 11 after a court hearing in which Napster said it was about to restart its music-sharing service following a short hiatus to retool song-screening software.

Napster, sued by the recording industry in 1999 for copyright infringement, said it could now block more than 99% of all infringing song files. But Patel told Napster it needed to block 100% of unauthorised copyright songs or stay offline indefinitely.

Napster immediately sought relief from the appeals court, which overturned Patel in a two-sentence order.

Napster’s free song-sharing service has been down since July 2.

It is not the first time the appeals panel reversed Patel in this case.

In February, the court modified Patel’s order demanding Napster to remove all protected works from its site. The panel said Napster must remove the works, but only after the recording industry notifies Napster which files on Napster’s servers contain copyright songs.

Napster reminded the appeals court of that earlier ruling when it asked the appeals court to lift Patel’s most recent order.

The Recording Industry Association of America noted that the court only temporarily lifted Patel’s order and will hear arguments on the case later this year. At that time, the industry says it expects to prevail.

‘‘We are confident that after a thorough review, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will uphold Judge Patel’s decision,’’ RIAA lawyer Cary Sherman said.

Sherman added that the three-judge panel’s decision still required Napster to remove copyright works that both Patel and the appeals court found were violating copyright laws.

‘‘It is important to note that today’s ruling does not change in any way the fact that Napster must prevent copyrighted works from appearing on its system as previously ordered by the court,’’ Sherman said.