The "Circumventing Napster Bans" user forum was shut down and in its place was a warning from the company after ZDNet News published a link to the forum.
"Any posts regarding the circumvention of bans placed by Napster will be deleted and the username will be banned," Napster told visitors to the forum. "The IP will be logged, and a second offense will trigger an IP ban on the individual's account."
"The Napster discussion boards are moderated and they have a policy of removing any user posts related to working around the user blocks regarding Metallica," said Napster spokesman Dan Wool.
Doing battle online
Last week Metallica, which is suing Napster for copyright violation, produced the names of hundreds of thousands of fans who had traded the band's music online. Napster responded by banning 317,377 users on Wednesday.
The ostracised fans complained they'd been tricked into downloading the latest version of Napster, which had installed tracking identification on their computers. Within hours, a way to get back online was posted in a Napster forum.
A user who asked not to be identified protested in an Internet Relay Chat with one of Napster's developers.
"[The instructions] went down because our PR firm told us to take them down," said the developer, identified as "nocarrier." "...Having that information on our boards gives the impression to the world that we support the removal of our lock."
Crying censorship
"So it was removed," replied the user, "MindRape." "But that's censorship."
It's called protecting our company, the developer wrote. "We will GO OUT OF BUSINESS for s--- like that! Delete the post, or lose the court battle, and you lose your napster! This is reality man!"
I understand, the user replied. "You had to do certain things to show you applied effort, but to CENSOR. I dunno man, I think that's Orwellian. Well, good luck."
"Thanks. We need it," the developer replied.
