NAPSTER...GOODBYE!!!

Beer Good. Napster Gone!...Well, almost. As of about 2:00 today, Napster, the music-swapping service, has been ordered to cease all operations. A federal appeals court ruled Monday that the music-swapping service Napster must stop trading in copyrighted material and may be held liable for "vicarious copyright infringement." Napster must prevent users from gaining access to copyrighted content through its lists of songs archived by the service's users, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said. Napster officials have said such a ruling could force them to shut down the service. In a 58-page opinion, a three-judge panel told a lower court judge to rewrite her injunction to focus more narrowly on the copyrighted material. The panel also directed the Redwood City-based company to remove links to users trading copyrighted songs stored as MP3 files. Napster can stay in business until U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel retools her injunction, which the appellate court called overly broad. Millions of users had flooded the company's computer servers this past weekend to download free music, fearing an immediate shutdown of the service that has changed the face of music. Napster has an estimated 50 million users. CLICK HERE for the full story.