Hummer f*cked in Napster lawsuit - LA Times

"Record labels and music publishers won a round in their copyright lawsuit against Napster and its two lead investors when a judge ruled Wednesday that Hummer Winblad Venture Partners improperly urged its employees to delete e-mail about the pioneering song-swapping service. If the 3-year-old San Francisco lawsuit reaches trial, jurors will be told they can infer that the e-mail would have hurt the venture capital firm's defense, U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel ruled. "

Record labels and music publishers claim that Hummer and another major investor, German media conglomerate Bertelsmann, helped Napster users violate copyright laws. The deletion of e-mail came to light earlier this year. Two days after Hummer Winblad partners John Hummer and Hank Barry received subpoenas in a previous Napster-related lawsuit, a third partner, Ann Winblad, sent an e-mail to employees in June 2000 urging them to delete certain e-mail, according to case documents