We're policing site, Napster tells judge

Napster has assured a federal judge it is complying with her order to police its system for unauthorised songs.

However, the website criticised the recording industry for allegedly failing to share the workload and provide required information.

Napster told US District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel that critical disputes had arisen as to what was required by her injunction.

The California-based company says the record labels suing it have misconstrued the burdens the court placed on Napster, and have falsely interpreted the March 5 order to mean Napster must search for infringing content even before notification from copyright holders.

More specifically, Napster says many of the submissions of copyright works from the recording industry have no associated file names for the company to block.

"Where a file name is connected to the work in the notice, Napster will exclude them.

Where no file name is connected to the work, Napster will not," said the company's compliance report to the court.

Judge Patel had ordered Napster to identify the steps it had taken to comply with the injunction within five business days of service of notice.

The Recording Industry Association of America spokeswoman said Napster was simply trying to buy more time with the courts by wrangling over the intent of the injunction.

"We are not going to debate the fine points of the order's implementation. We believe the court's intent is clear. Napster is required to stop infringing. Stall tactics are unacceptable," RIAA spokeswoman Amy Weiss said.

Napster also requested in its compliance report that the court convene a hearing at which the parties could address their differences in understanding the injunction handed down by Judge Patel.