LOS ANGELES -- Songs, songs and more songs.
The world's big music companies plan in the next day or two to provide Napster with the names of more songs to remove from its service, just days after they e-mailed the company a list of 135,000 tunes to be blocked from the wildly popular computer song-swap service, industry sources said on Monday.
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) spokeswoman Amy Weiss said on Sunday the list of 135,000 song titles sent to Napster on Friday was an initial effort that would be followed by further lists. But she declined to give times or details.
"I believe the RIAA is delivering more songs today," said one executive at a major recording label.
Both Napster and the RIAA have declined to comment on the types of songs that were submitted.
Under a court injunction issued on March 5 resulting from the landmark copyright infringement suit filed against Napster by the music industry, Napster has until Wednesday to block the first batch of songs. It is required to bar the transfer of songs specified within three business days of notification by the copyright holders.
One person familiar with the list said that each major label used its own criteria to identify songs to be blocked.
"Each label has different catalogs with different songs of importance," the source said.
For the most part, it would seem that labels would be eager to bar newer works that are currently playing on the radio and comprising a big portion of their revenues, ahead of older titles.
However, labels would also be anxious to protect legendary material in their catalogs such as hits by Frank Sinatra and the Beatles.
"I think they generally started with pop stuff," said one executive at a recording label.
Industry experts expect that Napster's service will slow down significantly once the blocks are implemented, although users have been getting more adept at finding their way around the screening mechanism.
Napster tried to block 500 to 1,000 song titles over the past week, but with only limited success.
The world's biggest record labels -- including Vivendi Universal's Universal Music, Sony Music, Warner Music, EMI Group Plc and Bertelsmann AG's BMG first sued Napster in December 1999, claiming it was a haven for copyright piracy that would cost them billions of dollars in lost music sales.
"There are a number of real popular techniques to get around the screening," said Ric Dube, analyst with Webnoize.
By using minor variations in a song's file name, people have managed to access the songs they like.
"People are using pig Latin, backwards spelling and inserting numerals and deliberately misspelling names," said Dube.
"This injunction only feels like a victory to the recording industry. They can hand in lists as long as they want, but what we've seen is that if fans want to share something they figure out ways to do it," Dube said.
