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ber discussing Napster copyright issues with anyone, even though he had been designated as the copyright agent for the company, the person to whom complaints should be directed under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. During the lunch break, Pulgram assured Parker that he was doing fine. When they returned, Borkowski placed a printout of the text from one of Napster's earliest Web pages on the table, then pushed it forward to Parker meticulously, using two fingers from each hand. Was it Parker's handwriting, Borkowski asked, that suggested adding the sentence, "And no more wading through page after page of unknown artists?" Yes, Parker said, it was. And yes, that suggestion did make it to the website. That wasn't so bad, Parker thought—the word "unknown" had been picked deliberately because it could mean unknown only to that particular user.

But Borkowski had saved the best for last. As he placed the printout of Parker's e-mail to Fanning on the table and began pushing it across, the corners of his mouth turned up. The involuntary, evil-looking smile reminded Parker of Dr. Seuss's Grinch. He reluctantly read his own words about the strategies for making the RIAA see that Napster was "not just making pirated music available." Pirated music. What in hell had he been thinking? How could he explain it away? "Did you write that?" Borkowski asked, in his clipped and precise tone. Pause. "I believe I did," Parker said. The best defense he could muster was that he had been using "pirated" in the sense the RIAA meant it, that all MP3s were illegitimate. "I did not write that I felt that Napster would be making pirated music available," Parker said. By the time Borkowski's colleague Jeff Knowles got to ask about the user-anonymity document, it seemed like so much piling on. The damage was done. Founder or not, Parker's name disappeared from Napster's website.

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Armed with the new evidence and Patel's refusal to grant Napster a safe harbor, the RIAA moved in for the kill. On June 12, just a few weeks after Hummer Winblad's investment, the labels filed for a preliminary injunction that would shut down or cripple the Napster service. "Napster has been aware from the moment of its creation that its service offers lit-