Liberty, illegality, fraternity: Napster users are revolting

In fact it seems the major record labels have only managed to make themselves even more unpopular with the record buying public. One Napster user has called upon his peers to "blacklist albums from the record stores until the recording industry backs off." This particular revolutionary signed off his article: "$20 richer today from the money I didn't spend at the record store!"

By Wednesday Napster should have removed 130,000 songs from its servers, but as yet there is little sign of the service complying with this order, with music from Abba to ZZ Top still moving freely across the service.

Mainstream music from all major labels is still readily available for download, although songs are becoming slightly more difficult to find. Typing the name of a number of artists or groups is starting to prove fruitless. For example, a search under 'Madonna' returns no results though the songs are still available - searching under song title for some of her greatest hits, such as Like a virgin or Material girl, still returns thousands of songs for download.

A source close to the industry defended the record companies' moves to protect revenue, saying: "People are quick to judge and don't seem to appreciate the costs associated with producing music."

However, the efforts of record industry are taking their toll on the number of people using the file-swapping site.

A report by Webnoize has said that users are downloading 50 per cent fewer files, and the number of music files shared per user has also dropped 59 per cent.