Ulrich, accompanied by a band attorney, plans to present Napster with some 60,000 pages of information on more than 1.4 million alleged copyright violations. The documentation involves 95 Metallica songs and recordings originally included on commercially released albums, according to Q-Prime, the band’s management firm.

Metallica, E/M Ventures and Creeping Death Music filed suit against Napster and three universities on April 13, alleging copyright infringement and racketeering, among other offenses. Napster was asked to remove Metallica copyrighted works from the voluminous directory its members use to swap MP3 files. The universities were dropped from the suit when they voluntarily blocked or severely restricted student’s ability to use the Napster software.

The company refused to remove the directory listings and instead requested the names of users that are trading Metallica songs or infringing its copyrights. It is Napster’s policy to remove users identified as pirating copyrighted material.

Napster spokesman Dan Wool told Pollstar that removing offending service users is “in keeping with our policy; it’s part of the terms of service for the site.

“We are compliant with copyright law and will remove users if we receive a properly submitted ‘take-down’ order,” he said.

According to Napster’s Web site, the firm “reserves the right to terminate the account of a user upon any single infringement of the rights of others in conjunction with use of the Napster service.”

The site contains a sample form for reporting copyright violations, including specific information regarding the material in question and “including at a minimum the user name under which such material is available through the Napster service, and the path and file name.”

Wool declined to speculate on Napster’s response should any banished users attempt to re-register with the service.

Q-Prime said in a press release that the 365,435 names were accumulated when Napster was monitored during the weekend of April 28 – 30 for potential copyright violations. Monitoring was done by NetPD, an outside firm that has developed technology to track Internet usage.

Despite the belief by many online users that they can maintain at least nominal anonymity while using the Internet, enough information can be gleaned from Napster users to track individuals to their specific computers.

It’s believed to be the first time users of file-swapping software have been identified en masse as potential copyright pirates.

According to Q-Prime, the documentation being turned over lists the specific description of each alleged copyright infringement and the specific user involved in each transaction. The release alleges that those users on average offer five Metallica files for illegal transfer.

The names are not being added to the lawsuit but are being given to Napster at its own request, and Metallica is making no claims of copyright infringement with respect to live recordings by fans at Metallica shows, according to Q-Prime.