A federal judge in San Francisco has ordered music exchange website Napster to remain offline.
Sources at the closed-door hearing said US District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel has ordered Napster to continue its shutdown, which began on July 2nd.
Napster had closed down to implement software filters that would keep some 800,000-plus copyrighted songs off the network. Judge Patel had ruled Napster allows its users to engage in wholesale copyright infringement.
Yesterday’s off-the-record hearing was to discuss whether the website had the technology to comply with Judge Patel's order to remove the copyrighted songs from the site.
"Napster came to the hearing with the idea that they could keep the judge happy by showing they could keep most of the disputed songs off their system, but the judge wanted 100 per cent compliance," said a source who confirmed accounts of the meeting.
"That meant keeping Napster down for the time being."
Napster executives have publicly vowed to appeal the judge's ruling.
AFP