Metallica and Dr. Dre have settled their legal disputes with the controversial online song-swapping service Napster, ending all legal actions between the parties, it was announced Thursday.
“It’s time to end the court fight and shake hands,” Shawn Fanning, founder of Napster, said in a statement, “We are pleased that this chapter is behind us.”
Napster has agreed to block access to files that artists do not want to allow users to share. In exchange, Dr. Dre and Metallica have agreed to make some of their material available from time to time once an acceptable model is in place that ensures payment to both the artists and publishers for use of their work.
“I work hard making music–that’s how I make a living,” Dr. Dre said in a statement, “Now that Napster has agreed to respect that, I don’t have any beef with them.”
Napster will continue to refine its filtering technology for identifying and blocking copyrighted material, meeting the requirements of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The technology is available to all artists and their labels.
“The problem we had with Napster was that they never asked us or other artists if we wanted to participate in their business,” Lars Ulrich, co-founder of Metallica, said in a statement. “It’s good that they are going legit.”
