• When Music Worlds Collide
  -April 28, 2000 -Wired 
  Music companies are finding innovative ways to combine real-world commerce with the online music experience of the Internet.

• Web Music Continues Despite Verdict
  -April 28, 2000 -Associated Press
  The music industry may have won a battle with Friday's verdict against MP3.com Inc. for copyright violations, but analysts say it can't win the war against music distributed illegally on the Internet. 

• MP3.com Loses to the Recording Industry
  -April 28, 2000 -The Standard
   - A New York judge finds the music Web site liable for copyright violations.

• RIAA Wins Suit Against MP3.com
  -April 28, 2000 -Wired
  The music site is found liable of copyright infringement for building a database of CDs. MP3.com's CEO says that compared to Napster, they're the good guys.

• MP3.com loses legal battle to RIAA
  

• Build Portable Mp3 Player
  -April 28, 2000 -Slashdot
  Posted by CmdrTaco on Friday April 28, @12:53PM
  from the fun-stuff-to-build dept.
  Greenpiece/Toasty writes: "Build your own portable MP3 player around 8000-9000 Yen. Uses 32 Megabyte flash media cards its the ultimate in geek. The link can be found here with circuit diagrams and pictures of the finished product. The kit can also be bought, but not from that page; another company is manufacturing it in Japan. The board seems quite easy to manufacture. "

• Court rules MP3.com 'liable'
  -April 28, 2000 -ZDNet
  Music site's stock plunges more than 40 percent after federal judge rules it violated copyright law. A federal court ruled Friday that MP3.com Inc. violated copyright law with its creation of a database in which users can store music and then access it via any computer connected to the Internet.

• SDMI: Shape Up or Ship Out
  -April 28, 2000 -Wired
  The recording industry's SDMI initiative, meant to create a framework to prevent music piracy, is moving ahead ever so slowly. This week, the group's director decided it was time for a kick in the pants. 

• Offspring Sides With Napster
  -April 27, 2000 -Go.com
  The Offspring has voiced its support of Napster, after previous reports had the pop-punksters considering legal action against the MP3-sharing-software company.

• Recording Chief Critiques Criticisms of Her Industry
  -April 27, 2000 -LATimes.com
  Q&A: Trade group leader Hilary Rosen talks about Internet piracy issues and a 'work for hire' act that has artists outraged. 
  Hilary Rosen is under siege. 

• MP3.com: The Verdict is . . . Sell? Buy?
  -April 27, 2000 -Internet.com
  On Friday, it is likely that the stock price of MP3.com (MPPP) will either soar or plunge. It is on this day that a federal judge in New York will hand down a decision on the merits of the massive lawsuit against MP3.com from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Basically, the RIAA is accusing MP3.com of violating industry copyrights. 

• Free, anonymous information on the anarchists' Net
  -April 26, 2000 -CNET
  London programmer Ian Clarke is putting a little bit of anarchism back in the Net. Clarke and a growing group of allied programmers are creating a kind of parallel Internet called "Freenet," where censorship is impossible, surfers are anonymous, and content is moved and hosted automatically to points near the people who want it. 

• I've Got Patents. So Sue Me!
  

• Can students be caught in Napster cross fire?
  -April 26, 2000 -CNET 
  The legal pressure on MP3-swapping software Napster is growing, and with it the focus on university students who may be breaking the law by using it.  Angry at what they see as theft of their work, several recording artists have filed lawsuits targeting students. Specific individuals have not yet been named, but the attorney for artists Dr. Dre and Metallica, the first musicians to file lawsuits, says he can add names to the complaint as he gets more information. 

• Rap artist sues Napster, students
  -April 25, 2000 -CNET
  Dr. Dre sues the MP3-swapping firm, but this time he's raising the stakes by targeting students at universities using the software to download MP3 files.

• Turtle Beach Unveils AudioTron Digital Music Deck
  -April 25, 2000 -Press Release
  Device Provides One-Touch Access to Personal CD Libraries, Streaming Audio, and Every Music File on the Internet Voyetra Turtle Beach, Inc. today announced one of the world's first home-networked audio appliances - the Turtle Beach AudioTron - at Microsoft's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference

• K-tel Launches Major Digital Music Initiative With Microsoft Windows Media
  -April 25, 2000 -Press Release
  K-tel International Inc. and Microsoft Corp. today announced that K-tel will begin selling thousands of titles from its music library as digital downloads this spring.

• Set Tops Prep for Music on Demand
  -April 25, 2000 -Wired
  The next stage for digital music distribution is on-demand, all the time. How will the record, cable, satellite, and Web companies divide the pie?

• The Men Behind MP3 
  -April 24, 2000 -The Standard
  The most influential builder of Internet software: Dieter Seitzer and Heinz Gerhauser 
  CATEGORY: Most Influential Software Developer
  WINNER: DIETER SEITZER & HEINZ GERHAUSER, Directors, Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits.
  Last year "MP3" overtook "sex" as the most-searched-for term on the Internet. No one (with the possible exception of Hugh Hefner) was more surprised than Dieter Seitzer and Heinz Gerhauser, the men who oversaw development of the MP3 digital-music format at the Fraunhofer Institute in Erlangen, Germany.

• Limp Bizkit, Napster join forces for free tour
  -April 24, 2000 -Reuters ( via Yahoo )
  Hard rock band Limp Bizkit has teamed up with controversial Internet company Napster Inc. to launch a free U.S. concert tour, and the group's singer Monday criticized fellow recording artists who have accused Napster of promoting music piracy. 

• Conservation: Hug a Tree with MP3
  -April 24, 2000 -The Standard
  In its spring newsletter, the Central Contra Costa Solid Waste Authority encouraged residents to help the environment by listening to MP3s. In the article "MP3 Means Waste-Free Music," newsletter writer Lisa Duba says that downloading music over the Internet helps stop the spread of packaging waste.

• Digital music chaos
  -April 24, 2000 -ZDNet
  The downloadable digital-music scene is still screwed up, and given the myopia of the big record companies, conflicts of interest out the wazoo, rapid advances in technology, and the ever-more-fully-established presence of such powerful (if flawed) standards as MP3, I'm not optimistic that we're going to get this straightened out anytime soon.

• CD Sales Up, RIAA's Case Down?
  -April 24, 2000 -Wired
  Despite all of the doom and gloom from the RIAA about piracy threatening to take money out of their children's mouths, CD sales are booming. Does this hurt their case?

• BMG to take stake in music Web site CustomDisc
  

• Gadgets Drive New Jersey Man
  -April 24, 2000 -Wired
  He loves gadgetry and technology, and has customized his car with a Net connection and email. But his obsession is not understood by everyone. Just ask his girlfriend, er ... ex-girlfriend.

• Hail, Metallica!
  -April 24, 2000 -Salon
  In which a British artiste of minor repute salutes his very heavy colleagues for their intrepid bravery in suing Napster.

• Battle of the timelords
  -April 22, 2000 -Electronic Telegraph
  Is it a key? Is it a camera? Is it a two-way radio? All three, actually. The humble wristwatch has come of age. Andy Goldberg wonders what it can't do and reports on the stiff competition as manufacturers vie for an upper hand

• MACAST Lite 2.1 debuts
  -April 22, 2000 -MacCentral
  MACAST Lite 2.1 the update to a popular MP3 playing tool has been released. MACAST plays MP3 and MP2 files, it can also play CD Audio, MP1 and Internet Streaming Audio, in the form of Shoutcast and Icecast.

• USC Won't Block Access to Napster
  -April 22, 2000 -Associated Press
  The University of Southern California says it will not join other schools in blocking students' access to the popular Napster Internet site, which lets people swap music.

• Napster Spat Pits Fans vs. Bands
  -April 22, 2000 -Wired
  Recording artists are poised to join Metallica in court battles with the music-sharing service. But some fans show loyalty to the MP3 swapping program instead of their favorite bands.

• MP3, Instantly 
  -April 21, 2000 -PCWorld
  Time tends to be an issue with MP3. Encoding a CD into MP3 format takes several minutes per track, and downloading an MP3 file can take 20 minutes or more over a dial-up modem connection. 

• Net Music Controversy- More School Bans
  -April 21, 2000 -Net Culture
  Indiana U. bans Napster.com and bands are said lining up to sue the MP3 download phenom in the wake of Metallica's lawsuit. Plus, one musician's deadline runs out. The record industry's up against fans who get their tunes "free" online.

• Hit Squads
  -April 21, 2000 -TheStandard
  Music sites are betting their futures on armies of college kids like Keith Cutler, who are paid to create buzz.

• Venture capitalists circling Napster, warily
  -April 21, 2000 -CNET
  Napster's legal problems have riveted key Internet investment firms, leading them to take an uncharacteristically cautious approach toward the controversial music technology company.

• Napster - We're Not Gonna Take It!
  -April 20, 2000 -The Standard
  A host of prominent recording artists are planning to follow Metallica's lead in suing Napster, the online service that allows users to download and trade music recorded in MP3 format. "There are going to be more lawsuits filed in the next few weeks by prominent artists," says Howard King, who filed suit on behalf of his client Metallica but also represents Dr. Dre, The Offspring, Smashing Pumpkins and the Goo Goo Dolls.

• SmartDisk, stockholders file to sell shares
  -April 20, 2000 -Reuters (via Yahoo)
  SmartDisk Corp. whose products and personal storage systems let consumers store digital pictures, music, video and data, filed on Thursday for an offering of 4.2 million common shares. The Naples, Fla.-based company is selling 2,224,561 of the shares while various stockholders, including Toshiba Corp. , are selling the other 1,975,439 shares, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

• Indiana University gets cautious, drops Napster
  -April 20, 2000 -CNET
  Another ally has fallen away from beleaguered music-swapping software company Napster.

• Napster undeterred by musician's demands
  

• Giving It Back to Metallica
  -April 20, 2000 -Wired
  A website gives people who pirate the heavy-metal band's music a medium to anonymously pay for past offenses committed using Napster. The site promises to forward donations to the group.

• Driving Downloads
  -April 20, 2000 -Wired
  Online music retailer Gene Hoffman says the party is almost over for Napster users, and the next big step for MP3 is car audio.

• MP3.com Puts Money Where Its Mouth Is with Million Dollar Payback Program
  

• Dre Puts Napster on Notice
  -April 19, 2000 -E! Online ( via Yahoo! )
  Is Dr. Dre's threat against Napster a simple matter of protecting artist rights...or just nuthin' but a me thing? The jury's still out among music fans, but the West Coast rap godfather has joined a growing list of musicians ready to battle Napster--the Internet's pesky song-swapping program offering free MP3 music files.

• Yale drops Napster after legal pressure
  -April 19, 2000 -CNET
  The weight of lawsuits pending against MP3-swapping company Napster is taking its toll on universities that had turned a blind eye to students' use of its software.  Yale University, one of three schools named along with Napster in a lawsuit filed by rock group Metallica earlier this week, has told students it will ban use of the company's software on its college networks. In response, Metallica's agents said today that the band is dropping Yale from the lawsuit--a move that could put pressure on other universities to follow Yale's lead.

• Napster backlash
  

• Excite@Home, MTVi prep high-speed music site
  -April 18, 2000 -CNET 
  Cable Internet service provider Excite@Home and MTVi together are developing a Web site for broadband users devoted to music and entertainment, the companies said. The new site, called Excite Music, will feature high- and low-bandwidth music programming. The site will serve as a music guide featuring content from MTVi's existing holdings, including SonicNet, MTV and VH1.com. 

• Dr. Dre Raps Napster
  -April 18, 2000 -Wired
  The rapper threatens to sue Napster if it doesn't pull his songs off its song-swapping directory by Friday. 

• Net Lessons for Labels at Indies
  -April 18, 2000 -Wired
  Record labels will unleash their download libraries by summer, but what lessons have they learned from indie sites that are already making money?

• S3 hears sweet music with MP3 plans
  -April 18, 2000 -CNET
  S3, the graphics chip giant turned Net appliance company, is pushing an ambitious plan to integrate popular MP3 digital music download technology into numerous products and markets. 

• Memory Corporation plc - Launch Of SoulMate Solo Using Secure MOS Digital Format
  -April 18, 2000 -Press Release
  SoulMate Solo, which is expected to retail at less than 50 pounds sterling, is a matchbox sized, lightweight (40 grams including battery) portable digital music player which uses secure ``Music on Silicon'' (MOS) technology. These MOS chips -- which are expected to retail at less than 16 pounds for an hour of pre-recorded music content -- are read only and therefore cannot be re-recorded or accept music downloaded from the Internet. Future variants of the Solo, which will allow music to be downloaded, will be based on a removable flash multimedia card (MMC) with a full digital rights management package. The
  MMC card format is an open standard recognized by the mobile telephone industry.

• RioPort, Inc. Appoints Technology Pioneer and
  Business Strategist James E. Long as President and CEO. E-business Expert Mark Thompson Named Chairman of the Board
  -April 17, 2000 -Pres Release
   RioPort, Inc., a pioneer in the digital audio download market, today announced the appointment of James E. Long, a high technology pioneer and business strategist, as company President and Chief Executive Officer. Additionally, RioPort announced that it has named Mark Thompson, an e-commerce visionary, as Chairman of the Board. Long will assume his role at RioPort beginning today.

• Macs to join Napster party?
  -April 17, 2000 -MacCentral
  Will Macs be invited to the Napster party? Napster, the file-swapping software from the company of the same name, has grabbed headlines since its inception last year because it allows users to anonymously exchange MP3 files--most of them pirated versions of popular hits. But the software, which is especially popular on college campuses, is available only in a Windows version, and Macster, a similar program for the Mac, lacks some of the features in its better-known sibling.

• Record Industry Shoots Itself With MP3 Bullet
  -April 17, 2000 -ZDNet
  Napster may have supplied the ammo, but so far it has been the record labels shooting themselves in the foot over accessing music on the Internet. Although people have been downloading pirated MP3 music files for more than two years, the record labels are just now responding with something other than a lawsuit.

• Hardware makers ready to roll with Pocket PC devices
  

• Napster Takes a Nap
  -April 17, 2000 -Wired
  The music sharing service goes silent Monday morning. The company's Internet provider says it's part of a larger failure. 

• Swap MP3s, go to jail?
  -April 14, 2000 -CNN
  Interested in those powerful new tools for swapping MP3 files? So's the FBI -- and the crackdown begins next month. Pirates. That's all the infuriated music industry sees in Napster, the first online application that lets you download basically any MP3 music without spending a dime. In fact, the Recording Industry Association of America has pushed Napster out on the plank: A San Francisco judge soon will rule on its lawsuit alleging Napster runs a giant haven for music piracy. 

• Can Napster be stopped? No! 
  -April 17, 2000 -CNET
  As a columnist, I typically aspire to write about ideas or concepts that are unexplored, aiming to offer a new viewpoint or fresh perspective. Occasionally, however, well-covered ideas can still be underappreciated. The rise of a software application known as Napster, which has been much discussed in many national publications, is just such a phenomenon.

• Developing Technology for Internet Music Sales
  -April 17, 2000 -New York Times ( free registration required )
  The major record companies BMG and Sony Music Entertainment recently announced long-awaited plans to sell their music online via digital downloads. But the fine print suggests that mainstream Internet users are not going to buy their music digitally any time soon. 

• Taiwan's CMC Melds New Economy With Old
  -April 15, 2000 -Reuters ( via Yahoo! )
  CMC Magnetics may have big paper profits from investments in nearly 300 Internet start-ups, but the Taiwan-based compact disc maker says it's just a way to nose out new manufacturing business. CMC Magnetics began shipping MP3 digital music players last year because it sees a bright future for portable devices that combine MP3 players, digital cameras and personal digital assistants

• Seeking Harmonious Resolution
  -April 14, 2000 -Wired
  The recording industry and mp3.com square off in a New York courtroom. While the two slug it out over copyright infringement issues and possibly talk settlement, the rest of the digital music dot-coms are preparing to capitalize on the outcome.

• U.S. keeps 1999 global sales in tune
  -April 14, 2000 -Reuters ( via Yahoo )
  The global king of music sales, the United States, sang along to another year of robust demand in 1999, but rampant piracy in Latin America and weakness in the core Japanese market left only modest sales growth worldwide.

• MP3.com's destiny may be decided this month
  -April 14, 2000 -CNET
  A federal judge in New York heard arguments today in a case that could mean the difference between life and death for Web company MP3.com.

• Metallica's Napster hit: 'Enter Lawman'
  -April 14, 2000 -ZDNet
  Rock group sues Napster and several colleges, alleging copyright violation by allowing the illegal swapping of its storied music.

• Napster, Gnutella, Bans, Lawsuits And More
  Posted by CmdrTaco on Friday April 14, @07:56AM
  from the it's-been-a-busy-week dept.
  It's been a busy week for Napster and Gnutella... mbell sent us an MSNBC story on Gnutella which gets a lot of stuff right, but spends more time...( click title to read more )

• MP3.com, record labels sued by artists over royalties
  -April 13, 2000 -Bloomberg
  MP3.com and several prominent record labels were sued in federal court today by musicians who seek royalty payments for the distribution of their songs over the Internet. 

• Napster, universities sued by Metallica 
  -April 13, 2000 -CNET
  Heavy-metal band Metallica sued the Napster MP3-trading software company and a trio of universities today, charging that together they were responsible for massive violations of the band's copyrights.

• Metallica Rips Napster
  -April 13, 2000 -Wired
  The heavy metal artists are the first musicians to sue the software maker and universities for enabling music piracy.

• MP3 Isn't Just For Music Anymore
  -April 13, 2000 -Forbes
  MP3 is still largely thought of as a noisy campus novelty, a way for youngsters to get a pirated copy of a Filter song or to swap tracks of a favorite band. But MP3 and other audio compression formats are beginning to show promise outside the dorm room. The technology could soon replace everything from training manuals to travel guides.

• Sony pushes Memory Stick as mobile storage standard
  -April 13, 2000 -CNET
  Sony is eyeing cell phones and personal digital assistants as it attempts to establish its storage technology as an industry standard. The consumer electronics giant today announced plans to expand its Memory Stick storage technology by developing the Memory Stick Duo, the working name for a cartridge intended to boost the storage capacities of cell phones and PDAs.

• Was resistance futile?
  -April 13, 2000 -Press Release
  In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission just before Thanksgiving in 1997, RealNetworks summed up its assessment of a direct Microsoft threat in about one paragraph. This year, it listed enough concerns to fill more than two pages. 

• Sony Announces Plans For Further Developing the "Memory Stick" Network
  -April 13, 2000 -Press Release
  Development of "Memory Stick Duo" for Miniature Products At Its Core

• Amazon sued over music samples patent
  -April 12, 2000 -Bloomberg
  Amazon.com, the world's largest Internet retailer, was accused by Intouch of infringing patented methods for consumers to preview prerecorded music samples over the Internet. In a suit filed in federal court in San Francisco, Intouch claims two of its patents--awarded in 1993 and 1999--protect technology allowing in-store customers to listen to parts of songs at a kiosk, or to hear the music through a computer, before deciding whether to buy

• Giving up
  -April 12, 2000 -Salon 
  Record labels move to lift the minimum-price rules that kept mom-and-pop stores in business.

• Coop's Corner: The Napster farce
  -April 12, 2000 -ZDNet
  Why the Napster trial rates as the farce of the (still young) cyber century. On paper, the battle between the recording industry, with all its billions of dollars and storied lobbying muscle, and the sundry legion of software geek pirates should be a no-brainer. If you take that bet, you'll lose your shirt.

• Devil is in the details
  -April 12, 2000 -CNET
  Initially, it appeared to be a routine part of the daily flood of industry announcements touting some new product, service or partnership. But on closer examination, some say RealNetworks' latest move with Microsoft could be the high-tech equivalent of doing a deal with the devil. 

• AOL found guilty of allowing music bootlegs
  -April 12, 2000 -CNET
  A German court today found America Online liable for allowing people to swap pirated music files on its service, a ruling that could boost the entertainment industry's battle to clamp down on the Net music black market--at least in Europe. */

• Will Microsoft push RealNetworks from the streaming media top spot?
  -April 12, 2000 -CNET
  Within the high-tech industry, it is known as "getting Netscaped."
  The damning label is applied to companies that have dared to cross swords with Microsoft since its well-documented campaign to take the browser business away from Netscape Communications. And many industry veterans say RealNetworks risks suffering a similar fate in multimedia, a situation exacerbated by a particularly acrimonious history with its arch enemy.

• Start-up aims to grab chunk of portable storage market
  -April 11, 2000 -CNET
  Storage start-up DataPlay is making a run at providing a new, high-capacity storage technology for small devices such as music players and digital cameras that it hopes will be the floppy drive of the Internet appliance era.

• Content Shifts to the Edges
  -April 11, 2000 -Business 2.0
  The message of Napster, the wildly popular MP3 "sharing" software, is plain: The Internet is being turned inside out.  Napster is downloadable software that allows users to trade MP3 files with one another. When someone requests a particular song, the Napster server initiates a direct file transfer from the user who has a copy of the song to the user who wants one.

• S3 sells graphics chip biz to VIA
  -April 11, 2000 -ZDNet
  Another company switches focus to the Web. S3 will focus on Internet-music players and information appliances. ( Editor note: S3 bought Diamond Multimedia which makes the Rio line )

• Napster suit tests new copyright law
  -April 11, 2000 -CNET
  A new copyright law designed to protect the works of songwriters, artists and movie directors is being tested in a case that pits the powerful recording industry against a wildly popular, but controversial music start-up.

• Fast-Growing MP3 Player Market Chaotic as Industry Struggles over Copyright Issues According to New Report
  -April 10, 2000 -Press release
  Forward Concepts has announced the publication of its newest market research report that covers the MP3 Internet Audio market, detailing the market dynamics and both software and hardware trends.

• Latest Internet freeware creates pirating bonanza
  -April 10, 2000 -San Jose Mercury News
  To makers of music, movies and software, it's like a cancer metastasizing out of control across the Web, an infectious method of thwarting copyright law and undermining big business. But to users and proponents, a subversive little program called Gnutella and its many freeware imitations have changed the Internet into what purists say it was designed to be all along: an easy-to-use and open environment to share information.

• Guerrilla "Napster" movement takes off 
  -April 10, 2000 -CNET
  Gnutella is dead. Long live Gnutella.
  This morning, a new portal launched that aims to assemble the open-source community's work on Gnutella, a popular piece of file-swapping software capable of turning anyone with a computer into a music pirate.

• Fear of an MP3 Planet
  -April 07, 2000 -The Standard
  The music industry has taken another hesitant step towards embracing digital music. BMG, announcing an alliance with Liquid Audio, became the first major label to commit to selling downloadable music. The Wall Street Journal added that Sony Music has also promised to release digital tunes, and the San Jose Mercury News noted, in passing, that the Universal Music Group label will release digital music by June. Does this mean that the industry finally gets it? Probably not.

• MP3: You can't stop the music ...
  -April 07, 2000 -ZDNet
  How MP3 went -- with a bullet -- from an obscure German compression technique to the music industry's current chart-topping controversy. 

• Napster Not At Home With Cable
  -April 07, 2000 -Wired
  Napster's ban from campus networks extends to the ISP realm as cable Net provider Cox@Home tells customers to stop using the music exchange software or lose their accounts.

• Sony to Unveil Plan for Digital Music Distribution
  -April 07, 2000 -Reuters
  Sony Music Entertainment, home to such stars as Mariah Carey and Bob Dylan, will unveil plans on Monday to start offering digital music downloads of its music at the end of this month, a company spokesman said. 

• Meet Sen. Kerrey, MP3 Pirate?
  -April 07, 2000 -Wired
  Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey is a techie all the way -- right down to his MP3 files. But are those legal MP3s? Um, yeah, sure, you betcha. 

• BMG partners up for digital music
  -April 07, 2000 -Reuters
  BMG Entertainment has inked agreements with an array of major high-tech firms that will facilitate the conglomerate's plans to begin selling secure digital music downloads via online retailers this summer.

• Music Industry Finally Embraces Net
  -April 06, 2000 -Forbes
  Bertelsmann, Sony, Seagram, and the newly merged Warner Music-EMI are finally getting ready to distribute music over the Internet. It's about time.

• Sony Online Entertainment president resigns
  -April 06, 2000 -CNET
  Less than a week after Sony announced it was reorganizing its online properties, the president of Sony Online Entertainment has left for CBS. 
  The departure of Lisa Simpson, president of Sony Online Entertainment in the United States, would appear to be a temporary setback to Sony's plans to transform itself into what it is calling a "broadband entertainment company." 

• BMG, Liquid Audio unveil plan to sell digital downloads
  -April 05, 2000 -Reuters
  BMG Entertainment and Liquid Audio Inc. on Thursday said they formed an alliance to sell digital music downloads this summer from BMG's catalog ranging from Santana to Backstreet Boys.
  BMG, the entertainment arm of Bertelsmann AG, said it will begin with an offering comprising current hits and catalog product that consumers can experience through secure software and hardware products.

• Mini Music Storage
  -April 05, 2000 -Wired
  DataPlay has a solution for music lovers who want to take entire albums with them: technology that can store up to 10 hours of MP3s on portable devices. 
  At Internet World on Wednesday, the Boulder, Colorado company unveiled a matchbook-sized optical drive that can store 500MB and will cost consumers less than $10. The storage technology could be used in portable music players, e-book readers, handheld computers, wireless phones, and digital cameras as early as next spring, when shipping begins.

• Pirate web threat to music industry
  -April 05, 2000 -BBC
  George Michael: Musicians could lose out Musicians and songwriters could lose millions of pounds unless the industry makes it easier to buy music legally over the internet, a UK Government report warns.
  The study suggests people will buy from pirate sites and foreign competitors if they cannot get quicker and easier online access to music. Global online sales are expected to account for 8% of the total music market by 2004.

• MP3.com Sends Music Directly to Fans via E-mail; New, Free Music Messenger Service Expands MP3.com's Reach
  -April 05, 2000 -Press Release
  MP3.com, Inc., the premier online music service provider, today announced the release of its new Music Messenger Service, a free song delivery system that enables fans to regularly receive music from their favorite genres via e-mail.

• Researcher Borrows from Napster
  -April 05, 2000 -Wired
  A researcher is building a Napster-type application for sharing research data about the Human Genome Project. But the controversy surrounding Napster might make this another scientific hot potato.

• Columbia sets records
  -April 05, 2000 -Reuters
  Columbia Records broke records for the fiscal year ended March 31, posting gross revenues of more than $730 million in a year that was defined by MP3 and alternative means of delivery for music. 

• Napster Copies Move Forward
  -April 04, 2000 -Wired
  The music industry is suing to stop Napster, a utility that lets you share music files, so open-source advocates are pushing forward to develop software of their own.

• Creative takes digital music firm stake
  -April 03, 2000 -Press Release
  Multimedia company Creative Technology Ltd said on Tuesday it had taken an 18 percent stake in a Singapore-based digital music retailer Soundbuzz.com.

• Scour.net to Debut 'Son of Napster
  -April 03, 2000 -The Standard
  Engineers at Santa Monica, Calif.-based Scour.net developed the latest entrant to the fray, Scour Exchange, and made it available for download over the weekend. Like Napster, Scour Exchange allows its users to exchange MP3 files for free. Unlike Napster, Scour Exchange doesn't necessarily search for the .MP3 file extension. Users may swap any file, whether it's a photograph, a video clip or an audio file.

• MP3: Death of the Music Intermediaries?
  -April 03, 2000 -Fool.com
  By Yi-Hsin Chang
  I have written about MP3 before, but I had not realized the full impact the Internet likely will have on the record industry until I recently attended a talk by Chuck D of Public Enemy, who, as you might imagine, is very vocal and well-versed on the subject. I left the lecture thinking one thing: "The major music intermediaries -- record labels, music stores, radio stations -- are dead."

• EMusic.com Sells Its One Millionth MP3
  -April 03, 2000 -Press Release
  EMusic.com Inc. today announced that within the past month, it has reached several significant industry milestones as the Internet's leading seller of downloadable music.

• Indie Music Goes to Small Screen 
  -April 03, 2000 -Wired
  It's one thing for unknown bands to be heard. Now Riffage.com is going one step further, helping music groups to be seen as well -- on television.