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you may or may not be aware, your software, while exciting to both consumers and producers (including potentially our members) of sound recordings, unfortunately facilitates in many cases the unauthorized posting of our members’ sound recordings.” Maybe there were good ways to reduce the number of unauthorized listings, he suggested. And while there were legal issues involved, Creighton said, he “would prefer to focus on operational issues, and see if we can’t create a productive working relationship.”

Fanning exulted at Creighton’s soft approach, which he interpreted as weakness. “He took that as a sign that even the RIAA thinks we’re legal,” Amram said. Fanning e-mailed a reply that he was interested in talking; he just needed to “coordinate things internally.” Copying Amram and Bales on the message, Fanning said he would be back in touch the following week. Instead, four weeks went by. Creighton wrote again in October: “I hope you have had a chance to dialogue with your colleagues. . . . I would really like to move this forward as I am receiving much press interest about your service and would like to respond that we are in some productive dialogue.” This time, Fanning replied that he thought such a positive statement to the media would be “an appropriate response.” But he added that it was unlikely he would be the right person to represent Napster, saying he would let Creighton know who that person was. “Thanks for the response John, but this issue can’t wait,” Creighton wrote. “I need to speak to the appropriate person ASAP.”

Hours later, Creighton got a phone call from Richardson. “She was very nice. She came across by her own admission as being very naive. She said she didn’t understand the nuances of copyright law, and so she didn’t know what I wanted and what she had to do.” Creighton gave her a week to get up to speed. When he called the next time, she was full of information about the Supreme Court’s ruling on VCRs and about why she didn’t have to shut Napster down or filter out copyrighted songs. Still, Creighton pressed for a meeting, getting only the runaround. On October 27, RIAA president Hilary Rosen decided to raise the stakes. “I think we need a complaint drafted to be ready” to file in court, she wrote to the RIAA lawyers. “Frank is not getting very far with them.” And Rosen encouraged a response to a local district attorney who had inquired about a possible criminal probe into Napster and its users. No one in the loop at

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