It's a logistic, not a legal issue, said Howard King, who is representing the heavy metal group and rapper Dr. Dre in identical copyright infringement lawsuits against Napster
"It's simply unrealistic to sue 30,000 people -- it's economically ridiculous," King said. "That doesn't mean you didn't commit a crime if you don't get sued."
Earlier this month, King and Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich hand-delivered to Napster the names of more than 300,000 users accused of illegally downloading the group's music. Last week, Napster suspended 317,377 users on the Metallica list.
An Internet consulting company hired to monitor Napster last week compiled more than 200,000 names of users who allegedly violated Dr. Dre's copyrights, according to King, who said the names would be delivered to Napster on Wednesday.
According to the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, users who swore they did not violate Metallica's rights can be reinstated if the group declines to take action against those users. Napster did not say how or when it would restore services to banned users.
Napster said Tuesday that more than 30,000 users have submitted online affidavits swearing they were wrongly accused by the heavy metal band.
"All this points out is how inadequate Napster's copyright infringement policy is," King said in a telephone interview. "All people have to do is send in a form saying they mistakenly named, no details, no nothing."
He added, "Maybe one or two or three of these 30,000 people were erroneously named. Most of these people were lying, probably all of them."
