Napster settles with Metallica

Napster has settled out of court with heavy metal rock group, Metallica who had spearheaded a campaign to stamp out file sharing across the Napster service since accusing the organisation of denting its profits.

The hirsute rockers have accepted the company's pledge to identify and block access to music files that the artists do not want Napster users to access.

In return, Metallica and its allies in the music industry will "make certain material available from time to time, once an accepted model is in place that ensures payment to artists and publishers for the use of their works", according to a report on Reuters.

The settlement comes only 24 hours after the district court ruled that Napster had not yet complied with the injunction slapped on it in February and ordered the company be kept shut down until it can prove its filters are 100 per cent effective.