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Napster: German sites under pressure

IFPI ultimatum: "Block Napster downloads until Saturday evening!"
Written by Martin Fiutak, Contributor

The national committee of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) tried to urge several German IT sites to take their Napster download sites down. "We are sure you don't want to offer illegal Software", the IFPI wrote in its emails and insisted that Napster should not be offered as a download option from these sites until Saturday evening.

"Napster always was illegal in the past and it will be in the future," IFPI legal adviser Clemens Rasch told ZDNet. He bases his opinion on several German surveys. "Every Napster user is also a pirate," explained Rasch. He isn't afraid of Gnutella and other Napster alternatives: "We will do the same with them: ask the sites to take them off, and, if they don't, sue the sites and the users."

Full story in German later tonight.

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