Musician and computer programmer Travis Hill of Utah has created a software program called Songbird that allows music copyright holders a new way to monitor the use of their material on Napster.

Now that Napster has been ordered to filter out most copywritten material by Judge Patel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, music fans have been scrambling to find a way to continue swapping music files for free via the Internet. Hard core file swappers have found that by mixing up the names and songs of the artists or misspelling the song title or artist’s name, it is possible to get around some of the filtering.

Napster announced yesterday that beginning Friday, April 6th, Prince & The NPG Music Club will debut and promote a new song to the Napster Community through the company's Featured Music Program. The song, called "The Work - Pt. 1," is the first track from Prince's upcoming album, "The Rainbow Children," that has no official release date but is rumored to hit store shelves later this year. Although Prince has released several cybersingles in the past through his own website, this is the first time he has ever teamed up with a digital music company to promote his music.

In principle, a music enthusiast should be able to pay for a fully functional Napster, but the recording industry representatives, with the exception of Bertelsmann, have rejected most of Napster’s offers for settlement. The recording industry isn’t known for seeing opportunity in new technology, as proven by their attacks on new formats like DAT, DVD-Audio and now MP3 file-sharing.

The injunction – issued late Monday night by Judge Patel – requires Napster to block copyrighted songs once it receives proper notice from recording companies. The notice to block songs must include the song title, artist and at least one file name under which the song is currently being traded on Napster. After that, all parties involved – Napster and the recording companies – must work to identify variations of the file names submitted for blocking.