Napster fights for corporate life in copyright hearing

"Sometime this weekend, we will have completed the software implementation so that those file names will be blocked," Boies said of a list of recordings provided by music labels and artists including Metallica and Dr. Dre.

He said people at Napster were "working night and day to develop a system to block access to these files." It was unclear whether the file names represented 1 million different songs, or simply spelling variations on a much smaller number of selections.

Music industry attorney Russell Frackman told U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel that a far greater number of songs should be screened out, including recordings not yet released to the public. Napster should start with the Billboard Top 100 singles and Top 200 albums, and by policing its system to keep those lists current, he said.

"It is an easy source of current hits," Frackman said. "It would be quite easy for Napster to use this to supplement whatever other knowledge it has."

But when Frackman suggested that the record labels also would like to submit tomes of older music catalog material -- not in a computerized format -- to Napster so that those songs too could be blocked, Patel suggested the record labels start with the latest hits that music swappers are more interested in.

Boies argued during the three-hour hearing that the new screening software would be bogged down by such voluminous requests.

"They're not going back looking for White Christmas, they're looking for Britney Spears," Patel said.<