The Offspring have cut a deal to sell official Napster merchandise, with the profits going to charity.

Last week the band started selling Napster-branded t-shirts, stickers and caps from its site - without the software company's permission. But Napster as a trademark owner is required by American law to defend its logo or risk losing all rights to it; as a result the software firm served the Offspring with a letter demanding "...the removal of all offers relating to the sales of our merchandise..."

Then yesterday, in an unexpected twist, Napster and the Offspring released a joint statement announcing that they have "....agreed to work together to offer a more complete line of Napster products." The Offspring will not now pocket the profits but donate them to a charity agreed between singer Dexter Holland and Napster founder Shawn Fanning.

In bootlegging and selling the clothing, the Offspring were responding to huge public demand on Internet bulletin boards for Napster t-shirts. But the mischievous punks, writers of hits such as "Why Don't You Get A Job", also seemed to be testing the MP3 (?) trading company's new-age stance
on copyright infringement.

MP3 fans can, for the time being, breathe a sigh of relief as Napster appears to have passed the test. "The Offspring have been great supporters of Napster...", said Shawn Fanning, "...we are looking forward to working with them." Dexter Holland's only recorded comment was "T-shirts … good", in a pointed reference to "Napster BAD!", a barbed Web animation which portrays Metallica as money-grabbing Neanderthals.

The Offspring agreement, while based not around songs but t-shirts, represents the kind of co-operation with bands that new Napster CEO Hank Barry has recently been advocating. This could prove to be the first of many such pacts.

Andy Strickland