Hands up if you trade Dr Dre's music, you may be on his hit list!

Read Full Article

Rapper Dr. Dre has given Napster a list of over 239,612 users that are allegedly violating his copyrights by downloading or trading his songs online.

But Dr. Dre isn't interested in having the users barred from using Napster. Instead he wants his songs deleted from Napster. This would mean deleting files from users' hard drives. Napster has been reported as saying it will review the list and delete the users but not the songs.

Metallica users who were recently banned from Napster have been returning using new user names, perhaps indicating that banning users is little more than a short-term tactic to counter what some regard as 'music piracy'. Even more interesting is the decision allegedly taken by over 30,000 Napster users to legally protest against being banned from using the service.

According to the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, banned Napster users have the right to challenge their banning with a response explaining their innocence. If Metallica fails to initiate legal proceedings against each individual respondent within 10 days, Napster can reinstate each user.

Metallica is currently claiming they have received only 17,000 challenges. But they will not be taking the bait of getting tied up in legal wrangles with Napster users.

Metallica's lawyer, Howard King, said the band will not be pursuing the individual claims of innocence. This means the banned Napster users who filed a challenge against Metallica will have their accounts re-activated.

But it is unlikely that Metallica will drop their guard against Napster itself. King has been quoted on various web sites as saying that the ultimate goal is to prevent Napster from facilitating copyright infringement.

Still, even if Napster is ultimately closed down, there will be dozens of clones ready to take its place. Just as there are now.

Download Napster if you haven't already. While you're here explore CuteMX, iMESH, Rapster (Mac) and Macster.

 

Related Stories: