Bloomberg News Service
REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — Napster Inc. isn’t likely to meet tomorrow’s deadline to cull 135,000 songs from its online music-sharing service. It faces a shutdown or lesser penalties, analysts said.
Napster CEO Hank Barry said employees "working day and night" have blocked access to 115,000 file names related to those song titles to avoid copyright infringement. Up to 6 million file names must be blocked.
The technology Napster is using to filter its databases for songs on the list compiled by the five major labels isn’t good enough to beat the deadline of 5 p.m. tomorrow, California time, an industry analyst and a legal expert said. Failure to block the songs in time may lead to a court-ordered shutdown, they agreed.
"The filter is not working," said Brian Alger, a Pacific Growth Equities analyst. If a judge finds Napster is violating the injunction and that the company "is in contempt of court, she could shut it down."
On March 6, U.S. District Judge Marilyn Patel gave Napster three business days after receiving a list of copyright songs from the music industry to block access that music. The industry submitted its list Friday night.
The court probably won’t hold Napster to a strict deadline, and will instead see if the service made a good-faith effort to fulfill terms of the injunction, said Ian Ballon, a partner at the law firm of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips LLP in Los Angeles.
Five record labels sued Napster in 1999, saying it violated copyrights by enabling about 64 million people to trade digital song files from each others’ computers.
Patel issued an injunction to keep Napster from permitting trades of songs owned by Vivendi Universal SA, AOL Time Warner Inc., Sony Corp., EMI Plc and Bertelsmann AG. Together, those companies distribute about 90 percent of all recorded music.
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