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LOS ANGELES -- Sep. 25th, 2002 - Danni Ashe, the world's Most Downloaded Woman and the only person in history to have been downloaded over a billion times, today revealed that she has been threatened with legal action by National Public Radio, Inc. for tuning her company's telephone on-hold radio to NPR's Los Angeles affiliate, KCRW.

Ms. Ashe is a longtime fan and subscriber of KCRW, her local NPR station, along with many of her fifty-strong staff members. She has also been interviewed on numerous NPR programs over the years and felt it was the natural choice for on-hold callers to the office of her world famous website www.danni.com.

"The letter from NPR came as a complete shock," said Ashe. "Perhaps I've been naïve in assuming non-profit 'public radio' is supposed to be about delivering high quality programming to as many people as possible without bias, exclusion or concern for financial gain. It's those assumptions that led me and many of my staff members to contribute to our local NPR station, and why I chose to share it with people who phone my office. If you have to put someone on hold, why not try to make that a productive, rewarding experience for them?"

The writer of a recent Slate (http://slate.msn.com) article made note of being impressed by an adult entertainment company that would chose to put NPR on hold for their customers. Danni's office received a threatening letter from NPR the following day.

Ms. Ashe was told by Neal Jackson, NPR's General Counsel and Secretary, that a failure to immediately remove NPR from her company's telephone system could result in:

"…litigation against your organization and against any persons as (sic) individuals knowingly causing, authorizing or contributing to the continued infringement."

Though she's complied with NPR's request, Ashe is still confused over the immediate and dramatic response to a practice that thousands of companies are involved in, and seems no more harmful than having a radio playing in the lobby of a busy office.

"Considering the general goal of any radio station is to reach as many people as possible and the extremely limited distribution offered by my telephone switchboard, I'm amazed that anyone at NPR thinks I'm a threat to their network. If they're surprised that pinup models listen to 'All Things Considered' and 'Left, Right & Center' between photo shoots, or that the people who call my office can appreciate intellectual stimulation, then perhaps they're not doing their job of keeping an open mind."

For the time being, Ms. Ashe has removed NPR from her on-hold system.

About Danni Ashe: Danni Ashe is a preeminent, female, Internet CEO and has been featured on the front page and covers of such American media institutions as The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Industry Standard and eCompany Now; as well as in the pages of Time, U.S. News and World Report, Yahoo! Internet Life and numerous other newspapers and magazines, as well as on television and radio. She has testified before Congressional committees regarding Internet issues and is a popular speaker worldwide on issues of streaming technology, marketing and convergence.

Danni.com, a soft adult content entertainment site, is owned and operated by Danni Ashe. Created by Ashe herself in 1995 with $8,000 worth of computer equipment and a crash study in the HTML Manual of Style, the site and its creator have been the focus of numerous articles focusing on the fact that she and the popularity of her site provide one of the few web-based business models for consistent growth and profitability.

MEDIA CONTACT: Samuel Agboola, 310/258-0930, sam@danni.com

KEYWORD: DANNI ASHE