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“Again, how do you define income?”

“Does anybody pay you money for anything?”

“People pay me money, yes.”

“For what?”

“You’d have to be more specific.”

“No. I want you to answer my question. What do people pay you money for?”

After Fanning’s lawyer objected, Fanning responded: “That’s too broad a question.”

“How do you earn your living?”

Fanning paused. “I consider that to be overly broad. I do work as a director of Napster, I’m the largest individual shareholder, and I was the founding chairman and CEO.”

Fanning said he didn’t know if he was still chairman of Napster and that he couldn’t say which other companies he was currently a director of without refreshing his recollection. When the Napster directors complained to the judge, William Chandler, that Fanning had wasted their time, the judge agreed. Chandler ordered Fanning to sit for another deposition, answer the questions, and pay what came to $14,503 in fees for the opposing lawyers’ time.

Bertelsmann didn’t want to get in the middle of the firefight, and it urged the two sides to resolve their differences. Among other things, it demanded a unanimous Napster board vote and 90 percent shareholder approval. At first, Barry refused to cut any such deal with Fanning. “We don’t negotiate with terrorists,” he told others at Napster. But a bargain was reached in April 2002 that would give Fanning and the other early Series A Junior holders $2.4 million, while the rest of the investors split $14.1 million. All that remained was to seal the deal with Bertelsmann.

Surprisingly, even with the total $16.5 million price established and a truce in Delaware, the talks with Bertelsmann dragged on. According to people briefed on the negotiations, the stumbling block was whether Barry and John Hummer could wheedle enough protection out of Bertelsmann in the event that the record companies sued them personally. First, Barry and Hummer asked that Bertelsmann promise that if it settled with the record labels, the settlement would include pledges that the

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