Let me introduce you to our new Hall Monitors: James,
Lars, Jason and Kurt.
In my humble opinion these fuckin' guys suck...
--Rick Miller
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Metallica fingers 335,435 Napster users
By John Borland, CNET News.com
Metallica has been taking names.
The heavy metal band, which is suing music-swapping
company Napster for what the musicians say are massive
copyright violations, says it has identified more than
335,000 individuals who were allegedly sharing the
band's songs online in violation of copyright laws.
The band's attorneys will deliver close to 60,000
pages of documents to the small software company
Wednesday afternoon, asking that Napster block all of
those individuals from the service. It's the first
time Napster or other file-swapping software users
have been identified in bulk as potential copyright
pirates.
"I don't know if it's going to put a chill on the
user end," said Howard King, the Los Angeles attorney
who represents Metallica and rap artist Dr. Dre, who
also is suing Napster. "But it certainly is going to
show other artists what they can do to get their work
out of Napster."
The massive number of individual names to be unloaded
on Napster's front door could send shock waves through
the online music community. Many individuals using the
software or rival products believed they were
operating anonymously or that individual actions would
go unnoticed among the massive quantity of files being
traded at any given time.
Napster and a handful of similar programs have allowed
hundreds of thousands of computer users to open their
hard drives and share music files with others online.
People can remain superficially anonymous, but enough
information is transmitted by the Napster service to
track many individuals to their specific computers,
network administrators say.
Attorneys for Metallica say they hired NetPD, an
online consulting firm, to monitor the Napster service
this past weekend. The firm came up with more than
335,000 individual users who had made the band's
content available online, the lawyers said.
Napster has consistently refused to remove specific
artists' content from its service, noting that it is
only a directory for the individuals who are trading
the files. But the company has said it would eject
users who are specifically identified as copyright
violators.
Napster had no comment on the news.
Metallica's action is the latest development in what
appears to be a campaign aimed at dissuading people
from using Napster by adding an element of risk.
The band initially sued three universities that
allowed students to use Napster, charging that they
were assisting in copyright piracy. All three quickly
backed down, blocking or sharply restricting use of
the software on their campuses.
Metallica and Dr. Dre also included slots for unnamed
students and universities in their lawsuits, saying
they would be added later as the musicians obtained
more information.
The current list of Metallica song-traders will only
be given to Napster and will not be included in the
lawsuit, King said. Dr. Dre has not yet conducted his
own search for pirates, but the same techniques will
likely be applied to the rapper's work if Napster does
respond, the attorney added.
Another lawsuit against Napster, filed by the
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), is
in federal court, where a judge is expected to make a
preliminary ruling any day.
Metallica is scheduled to chat with fans online
tomorrow at the Artistsdirect.com Web site to explain
its fight against Napster.
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