Napster Naps During Software Upgrade

Napster took down one of its servers early Monday to fix a glitch that occurred when it installed new software for identifying songs, paralyzing its music file-sharing service for most of the day.

Users could access Napster's chat and search functions but were still unable to trade files by midafternoon, a company representative confirms.

Napster has disabled all previous versions of its song-swapping software as part of an effort to comply with a U.S. court order that requires it to prevent copyright material from being traded on its service. As a result, users must download the latest version, Napster 10.3, in order to continue trading songs. This version includes new filtering and fingerprinting technology designed to prevent trading of copyrighted music.

Monday's glitch is related to the installation of the new identification software, say Napster representatives. They say the outage occurred during the installation process and was not caused by a flaw in the technology.

Napster officials would not speculate on how long it would be before users could resume their song swapping.

"We're working to bring it back up as soon as possible," a spokesperson says. "We're not speculating on a time frame."

Popularity Drops Under Restrictions

Since Napster began imposing new restrictions earlier this year, the number of songs traded over its servers has dropped significantly. Digital music research firm Webnoize says users in June had an average of only 1.5 songs available to trade on their PC, down from an average of 220 in February.

The music-swapping site has quietly been negotiating settlements with a number of the record labels that have sued it. The licenses will permit Napster to provide only copyrighted music from specified labels in its new incarnation.

Napster has announced plans to launch a new, fee-based version of its service in the next few months. Despite Monday's problems, the company says it remains "on track" to launch the new subscription service in the third quarter.