Metallica, who has sued Napster and 3 universities for copyright infringement, announced today that they have dropped Yale from the list of defendants after the school shutdown access to Napster.

Shortly after the the initial announcement of the lawsuit was made, Yale univeristy network officials shutdown access to Napster. Tom Conroy, a Yale spokesman, said, "Last Friday, we began to block Napster around the clock in response to the lawsuit and until we can clarify the legal issues surrounding Napster."

Metallica saw fit to drop Yale as a defendant after the school decided to block Napster and has also stated that they will not seek further damages. Metallica released a statement on Wednesday in which they said, "We appreciate the prompt and responsible reaction by Yale University in dealing with the gross violations of copyright laws and the protection of intellectual property."

What is ironic about this whole situation is that though these universities have blocked one file sharing application, there are at least 3 other popular ones around upon which people can use to find their MP3's. link(sx.scour.com,Scour Exchange), link(www.cutemx.com,CuteMX) and link(www.imesh.com,iMesh) are just the top of the hat of file sharing applications that remain open for use by students. Even if these applications were in fact blocked, link(software.cybertropix.com/gnutella.phtml,Gnutella) remains a viable alternative which is virtually unblockable. One would speculate as to why Metallica has not decided to go after these other file sharing applications if they are indeed concerned about piracy of their artwork.

We know you have feelings on this subject, so come share your views with us.