Federal Court Says RadicalMail.com Using Copyrighted Technology

This week a federal judge in Los Angeles found that Streamedia.com LLC, doing business as RadicalMail.com (www.radicalmail.com), is in fact a licensee of helloNetwork.com's ( www.hellonetwork.com) proprietary, copyrighted streaming audio/video software. The decision is based on a preliminary injunction filed by helloNetworks in March 2000.

The judge declined to grant an injunction against RadicalMail.

"We are pleased that the court has vindicated our position on this most important issue,'' stated Craig Ellins, helloNetwork's president and chairman of its board of directors. "While the judge did not go as far as we would have liked, our litigation continues full-steam ahead on all the other phases of the case.''

RadicalMail allows streaming audio and video to be added to e-mail messages. The technology requires no executable files, or special plug-ins; its rich media player adds 2K to the e-mail's file size. District Judge Nora M. Manella ruled that helloNetwork owns the copyright of its streaming audio and video software that RadicalMail is using.

In March, helloNetwork filed suit against RadicalMail for copyright infringement, false and misleading representations of fact, rescission, breach of contract, intentional interference with contractual relations, misappropriation of trade secrets and unfair competition.

RadicalMail was not immediately available for comment.