No. of US users in May

Napster 8.027m Bodetella 1.011m Audiogalaxy 978,000 Imesh 474,000 Limewire 388,000 Bearshare 382,000 Napigator 323,000

Implementation of the landmark court ruling against Napster has dragged on for several months as lawyers and techies quibbled over the efficacy of Napster's filtering software to remove copyright material.

The world's five leading music companies brought the court case against Napster, but may not be prepared to go through the lengthy court battle all over again with a host of rival services.

Similarly, certain record labels have agreed copyright terms with Napster, but may not be prepared to negotiate with a clutch of other song swapping services.

The major record companies themselves have forged plans to launch their own online song services.

But with online music fans already developing preferences for the existing sites, an end to the fragmentation looks increasingly unlikely.

"The next generation of underground file sharing services underscores the need for legitimate music providers, and not just the major labels, to act promptly, putting battles over platforms and copyrights behind them as soon as possible," said Mr Mooradian.

Shrinking Napster

Online Napster usage dropped to 2.2 billion minutes in June 2001, almost a third of its peak usage of 6.3 billion minutes in February.

Napster's demise, number of users worldwide

February 26.4 million March 21.1 million April 17.7 million May 20.3 million June 18.3 million

And the number of unique users of Napster dropped 31% from 26.4m to 18.3m between February and June.

Amongst Napster's rivals, Audiogalaxy has grown at the fastest rate, with one million American users in May 2001 compared with just 550,000 in March.

Bodetella has taken the number two spot after Napster, with more than a million users in May, while Imesh is also gaining popularity fast.

The figures compiled by Jupiter span 14 countries that together make up 85% of the world's online population.