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Well, This is fully off topic but as you requested it:

• I was hosting a slash-like website on one of my computers, using my univ. lines
• Of course it was not commercial (no banners, nothing to sell, etc.), just free medical information about reseach, new therapies,...
• Yet one day the single sysadm decided that medical information was "off topic" on the univ. network, and blocked all the ports of my machines
• I moved the site to another french university where I know the admins, but this BOFH threatened them, and asked them to remove the site asap
• 2 weeks later I installed it in the us, and sent a humoristic email to the BOFH : "you didn't succeeded".

That's the whole story ; free speech is not really protected in France, and there are anal rules for medical information ; a bit like the DMCA in the US.

IMHO, Napster should act accordingly : don't fight, comply with the laws i.e. kick the users abusing copyrights on request from the copyright holder.

Then move (chess-like) , i.e. let people use anonymising software, don't log their IP or their usernames : the other guys will have to forgive all this because it is a battle they can't win.

They can't cut the whole internet.

Why hell should Napster spend time and money in legal battles against artists?
Let it go!
As Patton said, "don't die for your country, but make the other guy die for his country".

In this very case, Napster is taking risks (in a PR point of view) while they could just sit back and see what will Metallica do next to hamper their own reputation. (ok, it is *not* really like the WW2, but I really like Patton fortunes anyway :-)

As I previously said, I had problems with my medical website in my country.

Did I start a legal battle? Nope. I just moved it to a counntry where free speech is protected (hint: see the nifty 'made with pride in the US' picture on the top of the page)

Guess what? The guys from my univ who caused me problems can not do anything now.
And they already have ruined their reputation in this 'battle'.

It reminds me the oversea website story.

I am really interested in these stupid laws stories since I have my website oversea in the good Ol' US ; see the "made with pride in the USA" picture.

Why?

Because there is no real free speech in europe, and we depend on the US for free speech. Will EU have to rely on the US to fight stupid patents?
We can't since america already has software patents.

Last week the EU parliement considered keeping ban on software patents, following the Germany advice.
Damn good idea, and a real advantage over the US (that and free crypto) but the brits are alas part of the EU, and want to stick their crappy patents deep in my throat.

Why fighting software patents if any company can trademark smells. What will be next? Color patents? Or maybe music patents?

I can imagine this : "Mr MP3.com artist, your musing sounds too much like metallica, even if it is completely different, so cease&desist&go hell

Joe Lawyer".

Maybe I should trademark foot smell and foul words to get $$$$...

I do **not** want my website in the EU and I proudly added a 'made in the USA' picture.

I've already had my load of problems with the stupid french laws (hell, I'm a french citizen therefore I have no free speech even on the internet !)

To avoid any kind of ftp-from-france problems, I am administering the website from a remote shell account in the USA too.

If one day I am prosecuted and ruled guilty, I'll consider "demander l'asile politque aux USA" :-))

Did you now my univ threatened another university in France where I had to move the website after it was decided by a single administrator that this website was not in the policy of the univ?

This bloody idiot was running a NT and had no idea of what 'dynamic' of 'perl' meant and said I should consider moving to geocities or chez.com

This kind of providence-state-feed idiots with honests taxpayers' money is a disgrace to the whole EU.