Napster is loved by many an eager file sharer and loathed by the creators of the media it distributes. In recent months, Napster has garnered more press than most other news stories, and it continues to gain interest across the globe. There are numerous Metallica hate sites on the Internet (and a sparse smattering of "Save Lars" types as well), though the most interesting exploitation is the combination of Metallica with Napster itself. Hence, the name Metallicster.

Metallicster's Andrew Hughes

As it happens, there are two Metallicsters on the Internet. There is Metallicster.com, a vicious parody of Napster, which is designed to spite the very group that banned its fans. Metallicster.org, however, is of a more benign and sentient nature. Holed up in a northern England flat, two 20-year-old university students are hard at work on Metallicster.org, avidly developing this new file-sharing protocol.

ZDNet Music recently had the opportunity to talk with Andrew Hughes, one of the principal minds behind Metallicster.org. In this exclusive interview, he discusses the origins of Metallicster, the confusion with its hate site counterparts, and where he intends to take the future of file sharing.

First, tell us a little about the Metallicster team.
There are two of us, and we're located in the northern UK. We're university students - I, Andrew Hughes (aka Xor), and Daniel Goodliffe (aka RandomDan), the only other person currently involved in the project, make up the Metallicster team. We are keeping the team small so that we can formalize our ideas before other developers join up. When you have a lot of people contributing to one project, ideas often become convoluted. There was a third guy who was part of the team initially - he left, as there was a distinct conflict between our interests.

A conflict between you and him?
Yeah, when this site launched on the fourth of May, the other guy was still part of the team. But he was out to hurt the music business and hurt Metallica. He was in it to spite and offend these groups, whereas Dan and I are after an advancement of technology.

So, the Metallicster program is technology driven, and not for political, musical, or financial gain?
This is definitely a technology thing. I know that there will be political consequences. I mean, we're not trying to annoy people; we want to significantly advance digital communication technologies. We know this will have political effects on the music business, but we feel that these effects would eventually happen for other reasons anyway. If anything, we feel more like the trigger for an inevitable change in the music industry.

Continued