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Many fans of the band found themselves

The band, which is notorious for outspoken criticism of corporate values, said it had not been consulted about the action. After bitter fans began complaining about the ban on the band's Web site, guitarist Tom Morello posted a

"While we were not aware of this plan to deprive our fans of our music, once we were made aware of the situation, we started taking steps to correct it," Morello said. "We want to apologize to our fans, and it is important to us to make it right."

The band posted 15 song files and eight videos, all previously unreleased and many of them live recordings, to the site as evidence of its sincerity.

Rage Against The Machine was just the latest in a string of bands whose fans found themselves barred from the popular Napster song-trading service after trading copyrighted tracks. The hard rock band shares management company QPrime with Metallica and Dr. Dre, the first two major artists to

Morello's band, however, is the first to publicly oppose a ban already in place and call for its immediate removal. The high-profile spat highlights the lack of industry unanimity on the best way to approach the growing number of record buyers who regularly use Napster or other file-trading services.

A copyright suit filed by Metallica and Dr. Dre against Napster is still pending in federal court, as is a

August 21, 2009 5:00 AM PDT (1216 recent comments)

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