It's working: Napster filters kick in
In a quick check of the popular site, searching for many artists' music ends with the response: "No matching files found."
All requests for an explanation from Napster's Redwood City, Calif., headquarters are directed to the company's public relations firms in New York and Los Angeles. Spokespersons on both coasts had similar explanations for the increasing number of vanishing artists and files--Napster is getting better at keeping up with all requests to remove music from the site. They say that Napster's actions are more evolutionary than revolutionary.
Napster's blocking of song titles is in compliance with last month's federal court injunction mandating that the popular file-swapping service eliminate illegally copied songs from its music index.
The world's big record labels--including Universal Music, Sony, Warner and EMI--first sued Napster in December 1999, claiming it was a haven for copyright piracy that would cost them billions of dollars in lost music sales. A March injunction by U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel was issued based on a suit by record companies, who are seeking to shut Napster down for facilitating copyright infringement.
In Napster's last published statement, dated March 27, Hank Barry, Napster's chief executive, wrote that his company was "aggressively complying with the injunction with significant measurable results."
He said: "In the three weeks since the court's injunction was issued, Napster has blocked access to over 275,000 unique songs and over 1.6 million unique file names. In addition, with the aid of Gracenote's database, Napster has added over 10,000 variations in artists' names and over 40,000 variations in song titles. The total number of files available through the Napster index at any one time has dropped by 57 percent from 370 million to 160 million and the average number of files being shared by users has dropped by almost two-thirds, from 198 to 74.
"Effective blocking is an ongoing and iterative process that we take very seriously. Thirty percent of Napster's staff is working full-time on aspects of compliance.... More progress is being made every day."
Files not found
Late last month, the Recording Industry Association of America e-mailed a list of copyright-protected songs to Napster. This morning, no matching files could be found for a number of artists from the RIAA's list--including 98 Degrees, Alabama, Beach Boys, Bare Naked Ladies, Eminem, George Michael, Genesis, Hootie & the Blowfish and Pink Floyd. In the past month, additional artists have been contacting Napster to have their music files blocked as well.
Thursday, searches for other popular artists such as the Beatles, Rolling Stones and Britney Spears end with similar results. But a slight misspelling of certain names--such as adding a second "T' to Britney--does allow a user to find one or two available files.
No mention of the increased blocking of artists and songs is anywhere to be found on the Napster site. But Napster continues with its copyright warning, in small type, at the bottom of its home page: "Thousands of MP3 (digitally compressed) files have been authorized for distribution over the Internet by copyright owners, however Napster users should understand that MP3 files may have been created or distributed without copyright owner authorization. Neither the MP3 file format nor the Napster software indicates whether a particular MP3 file has been authorized for copying or distribution. Copying or distributing unauthorized MP3 files may violate United States and/or foreign copyright laws. Compliance with copyright law remains your responsibility."