Napster starts limited blocking, users unfazed

Sue Zeidler

LOS ANGELES: Song-swap service Napster Inc. on Monday said it had started

blocking users from 2 million music files late Sunday, but industry sources said

that amounted to barring only several hundred copyrighted songs on the online

directory in which billions of such files are traded monthly.

Napster users said they noticed a slight operational change in the service on

Monday, but some were already figuring out ways to get around the screening

mechanism. Music files blocked included some that contained songs by the Beatles

and Metallica, among others, a Napster spokeswoman said.

Napster offered to block a million files on Friday in a last-ditch effort to

keep the service from being shut down completely as it scrambles to conform with

an injunction that US District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel is expected to

impose at any time.

The move by Napster to block music files follows a landmark

copyright-infringement suit filed against it by the recording industry. The

outcome is expected to define how books, video and other entertainment will be

distributed in cyberspace.

Sources close to the situation said a million files would involve a much

smaller number of songs because many music files can represent any single song.

They said just over 500 songs were blocked by the mechanism Monday, although

that figure would continue to increase in coming days.

Napster users create their own files for songs as they download and trade

them. If a user types in "Satisfaction" on Napster, for instance, they

are likely to get 100 or so files, all with the same Rolling Stones song. So by

blocking only a few songs, Napster is able to block many millions of files.

"As the recording industry sends us requests in the format specified by

Napster's proposed injunction, we will increase the number of files we

block," the company spokeswoman said.

Napster is using a filter that takes the names of artists and titles and

screens out files that match. For instance, it could block out a file that is

named "Metallica" or "Unforgiven" or "Metallica-Unforgiven".

"We're blocking songs based on notices that are issued to Napster.

Metallica has supplied millions of file names to Napster as part of its own

lawsuit against Napster," the spokeswoman said. Copyright holders have also

provided information on the Beatles and other artists, she said.

Users already outfoxing screening process



Since the lawsuit was first filed by the recording industry, Napster has amassed
more than 60 million users who swap songs for free by trading MP3 files, a

compression format that turns music on CDs into digital files.

"I believe that Napster is making a big mistake by blocking certain

files. They are giving in to the pressure of the music industry and the

courts," said one angry user on a bulletin board forum on Napster's Web

site.

Meanwhile, other users were busily figuring out how to outsmart the screening

process by finding new ways to identify songs and music files. "Before

today, any Metallica songs were available but now you have to misspell the names

of songs to get a file," said one Napster user.

Ric Dube, analyst with tracking firm Webnoize, said that at least one Napster

fan had already proposed in a Web site a whole new way of spelling songs with a

translation engine.

At Web site (http://www.timwilson.org), visitors are asked to type in an

artist and title name, which are then translated automatically. The site says

that upon receiving the translated artist and song title, users can rename their

MP3 files and tag information to the translated name or search for the

translated name on Napster or another MP3 search engine.

For months, Napster has said it does not have the ability to separate files

of copyrighted material on its service. At a hearing on Friday, Napster said it

was racing to perfect new software to filter out copyrighted material and hoped

soon to reach agreement with the recording industry on how to identify such

material.

May ultimately face shutdown



Napster's Web site this weekend carried a notice that said the screening
operation was a complex process that will degrade operation of the service.

But given the challenge of entirely blocking trade in copyrighted material,

Napster may ultimately have no choice but to shut down entirely to conform to

the injunction.

"Napster's Web site is used for software distribution and its 170

servers service the Napster software and facilitate music trading," said

Dube. "All they'd have to do is shut down the 170 servers by pulling a

switch in their headquarters," he said.

But experts note there are dozens more unaffiliated servers like MusicCity,

DJNap and PowerNap using Napster-like software that would keep on operating

despite an injunction.

The world's biggest record labels - including Vivendi Universal's Universal

Music, Sony Music, Warner Music, EMI Group Plc and Bertelsmann AG's BMG - first

sued Napster for copyright infringement in December 1999. On Friday in San

Francisco, Judge Patel conducted hearings into how the injunction against

Napster should be framed.

(C) Reuters Limited 2001.