Group to Tell Napster to Block 135,000 Songs

The record industry said it will e-mail Napster Inc. a list of 135,000 copyrighted songs that the beleaguered song-swapping company will have to block from its service by Wednesday to comply with a federal court order. The list includes artist names, song and album titles, and variations on digital file names that Napster users used to identify each song on the Napster system, according to officials at the trade group Recording Industry Assn. of America. Napster officials declined to comment, saying only that they had not received the list as of late Friday. Napster was ordered by a federal judge Tuesday to stop the unauthorized free trading of copyright-protected music on its service. Napster has until Monday to outline how it will police its network and whether it will be able to comply with the injunction. The major record labels aren’t the only ones who have been sending lists of songs to Napster. Last week, Roy Orbison’s estate and his widow, Barbara Orbison, notified Napster of more than 1 million copyright violations of the singer’s back-catalog, and requested that the tunes be blocked.