Napster may block hundreds of thousands of fans

With showmanship worthy of a stadium concert, hard-rock band Metallica dumped a truckload of legal documents on software company Napster's doorstep Wednesday, identifying more than 335,000 screen names for people the band says may have been illegally pirating its songs. The band's attorneys say they fingered the individuals sharing Metallica songs online while doing a scan of the software service last weekend, and they want those people stopped. The band isn't threatening to sue the software users, but it demanded that Napster block them from its MP3-swapping service. It's the first time that alleged copyright pirates on Napster or a similar service have been identified in bulk. The move puts the small software company in the uncomfortable position of choosing between defending its members and defending its own legal right to exist. The company said it would block people from its service only if Metallica's documents--submitted in paper rather than computerized form-- had all their legal i's dotted. "Napster will review the over 300,000 fan names that Metallica turned in as soon as possible," Fenwick & West attorney Lawrence Pulgrum, who is representing the company, said in a statement. "If the claims are submitted properly, the company will take the appropriate actions to disable the users Metallica has identified."