Napster given 72 hours to block copyright tunes

A US judge has ordered Napster Inc to block any copyright-protected songs from its service.

Judge Marilyn Hall Patel says once record labels present Napster with lists of songs they want banned, the internet music firm has 72 hours to comply.

It is not clear what will happen if Napster is unable to comply with the order, and Napster officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

Hilary Rosen, president of the Record Industry Association of America, says the record labels will comply fully with the court's order.

Judge Patel says the record labels must notify Napster of the title of the song, the name of the artist and the name of the file containing the infringing material.

Napster, which began a screening system this weekend in an effort to weed out such copyrighted music, then will have three business days to implement a system of blocking access to that file.

"We are gratified the district court acted so promptly in issuing its injunction requiring Napster to remove infringing works from its system," Ms Rosen said. "We intend to provide the notifications prescribed by the Court expeditiously, and look forward to the end of Napster's infringing activity."

The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last month that an original injunction against Napster issued by Judge Patel was over the top because it placed the entire burden on Napster of ensuring that no "copying, downloading, uploading, transmitting or distributing" of works occur.

Napster, which claims it has 50 million users, has tried to deploy a system over the weekend to screen its system for one million song filenames that include various permutations and spelling of titles from Metallica and Dr Dre, artists who have previously sued Napster and have now joined the recording industry's suit.

All parties are due to meet with a mediator on March 9th.