Rap Star Dr. Dre Asks Napster to Remove His Music

Rapper Dr. Dre became the latest artist to lash out at Napster Inc., giving the song-swap software company until Friday to take his music off its directory, which he says is infringing his copyrights.

Dr. Dre made his demands known in a letter to Napster’s acting Chief Executive Eileen Richardson. The rapper’s action follows a lawsuit filed last week by heavy-metal band Metallica, which sued San Mateo, Calif.-based Napster and three universities alleging they encouraged users to trade songs and recordings without the band’s permission.

“We wrote a letter [Monday] on behalf of Dr. Dre to Napster basically putting them on notice that the listing of his songs and masters on Napster and the facilitation of the transfer of those files constitutes an infringement of his copyrights,” said Howard King, an attorney who sent the letter on behalf of Andre Young, known as Dr. Dre.

King said he has been contacted by no fewer than 10 artists or managers and a major publishing company in the last week about pursuing Napster either in connection with the Metallica lawsuit or in separate lawsuits.

A representative for Napster was not immediately available for comment on the Dr. Dre letter.

Napster works like a co-op, where users sign on and trade their libraries of MP3 files, a compression format used to convert music on CDs into computer files. The software, available at no charge, enables users to search a giant database that grows every time a new user signs on.