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By Lisa Burroughes, 20 June 2001 00:30

NEWS Napster users and silicon.com readers have reacted angrily to the US court ruling that the online music sharing community must be closed down at the end of this week. The San Francisco court granted a temporary injunction to shut the site down on grounds of copyright infringement. Napster has already lodged an appeal and speaking after the ruling Hank Barry, CEO of Napster, said the company would continue to fight. "The judge's ruling that one-to-one non-commercial file sharing violates the law. We will fight this ruling in a variety of ways to keep the Napster community growing and strong," Barry said. Ian Jones, graphic designer and silicon.com reader, said he was disgusted by the decision. "The way music is communicated has changed and frankly if they [the music industry] haven't implemented the appropriate structures to take advantage of 'the new way' and they suffer, then they suffer at their own hands," he said. The common feeling among users is that without Napster the number of CDs bought through retail outlets will decline - supporting recent research by Jupiter Communications. One silicon.com reader said: "I personally use Napster to sample music I might not have otherwise bothered with, then buy the CDs." Another insisted: "If Napster goes, then this will be one music customer who will not be buying as many albums." But Jim Batchelor, head of products at Virgin Megastores, answered: 'Napster involves the theft of copyright and therefore Virgin Megastores cannot condone it. The way in which people use Napster is not an issue, neither is there an issue with technology, but how the technology is being abused.' The implication is that any company using software that enables file sharing over the internet could face prosecution. Chris Evans, founder of UK lobby group, Internet Freedom, warned: "This could set back technology development and file sharing software. Napster needs to find a business model but the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is trying to defend its territory and is hostile to alternative business models at the moment." But the spirit that created Napster remains alive as one silicon.com reader pointed out: "There will always be FTP and newsgroups. The RIAA won't stop music piracy by shutting down Napster. It will just relocate piracy to areas that will be even harder to control."