Napster revival sparks online frenzy

Napster usage has exploded in past 48 hours

Music fans have been rushing to Napster following the failure of the recording industry's attempt to shut down the file-sharing service.

Use of the Napster service has been four to five times heavier than normal, said Allen Tsai of Keynote Systems, which measures traffic on the internet.

Next legal steps

18 August: Deadline for Napster to present written legal arguments

8 September: Deadline for RIAA rebuttal

12 September: Deadline for Napster reply

Hearing on first available court date after 12 September

He said that though traffic might die down in the next few weeks, it would shoot up again the moment the case was back in the courts.

Some industry experts have warned that the decision to take on Napster could end up backfiring on the recording industry by speeding up the pace of trading music on the internet.

On Friday, a US federal appeals court blocked a judge's ruling ordering Napster to stop online trading of songs owned by some of the biggest recording labels in the music industry.

Napster rocks on

The decision means Napster could stay online pending a further resolution of the lawsuit brought by the Recording Industry Association of America, (RIAA).

Napster: Stayin' alive, for now

The RIAA is trying to have Napster shut down, accusing it of facilitating wholesale music piracy.

Napster allows users to download software which allows them to search each others' hard drives for MP3 files.

With 20 million users, Napster is the most high-profile of the music-sharing services on the web.

But a side effect of the legal wrangling has been to drive music swappers to lesser-known services like Gnutella, which offer file sharing programmes that are much harder to control.

"The record companies should be careful about what they ask for," said Stephen Bradley of the internet consulting firm Gartner Group.

"Their short-sighted desire to shut down the popular Napster music site will make it nearly impossible to control the online trading of music."