The reconstituted Napster music service will be unveiled on Oct. 9, according to CD and DVD software company Roxio, its new corporate parent. Roxio has spent tens of millions of dollars over the past year to position itself in the increasingly crowded online music distribution business. The Napster it launches next week will be much …

With a pitch that evokes the heady days of 1999, digital music start-up Mercora is planning to launch a distribution service next month, inspired in equal parts by iTunes, Friendster and eBay. Headed by former McAfee CEO Srivats Sampath, the upstart will edge into terrain that has already been staked out by the likes of Apple Computer, with iTunes, Musicmatch …

SoundExchange, the organization created by the Recording Industry Association of America to distribute Webcasting royalties, said Tuesday that it completed its spinoff from its parent. The newly independent group retains a board membership with control split evenly between representatives from record companies and artists. By law, the organization is required to give 45 percent of Webcasting royalty revenue directly to …

A peer-to-peer group says it will cover costs for a 12-year-old New York girl who agreed to pay record labels $2,000 to settle a file-swapping lawsuit. P2P United, a peer-to-peer industry trade group that includes Grokster, StreamCast Networks, LimeWire and other file-trading software companies, said Wednesday it had offered to reimburse Brianna Lahara and her mother’s payment to the Recording …

MusicMatch plans to jump into the digital song-selling business next week, with Dell promoting the company’s new download service, sources familiar with the plan said. The Internet music software company’s service, which will provide a new online rival to Apple Computer’s iTunes and BuyMusic, will use the popular MusicMatch Jukebox software and will distribute music in Microsoft’s Windows Media format, …

The Recording Industry Association of America has withdrawn a file-swapping lawsuits after a possible case of mistaken identity. The trade association confirmed Wednesday that it had withdrawn its suit against Boston-area senior citizen Sarah Ward, who claimed that she could not possibly have been involved in the file-swapping incident attributed to her. Among other objections, Ward is a Macintosh computer …

File-swapping company Sharman Networks filed new antitrust charges against record labels and Hollywood studios, hoping to deflect copyright infringement claims still pending over the popular Kazaa software. The suit, which claims record labels and movie studios have conspired to drive Sharman Networks out of business in order to monopolize digital distribution, is virtually identical to charges first raised by the …

For the first time in the United States, BMG Music will release a music CD that’s loaded with anticopying protection, a move that opens a new round of technological experimentation for record labels. BMG division Arista Records will include “copy management” protections produced by SunnComm Technologies on soul artist Anthony Hamilton’s new album, the company said Friday. Although the label …

For much of the last year, the University of Wyoming and a company called Audible Magic tested technology that looked inside students’ file swaps for copyrighted music, with an eye toward ultimately blocking the transfer of such material. The job turned out to be harder than Audible Magic expected. On Wednesday, the company said it had given up on part …

Barely 24 hours after suing alleged file swappers around the United States, the recording industry has settled its first case, agreeing to drop its case against a 12-year-old New York girl in exchange for $2,000. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) filed 261 lawsuits Monday against computer users it said were exclusively “egregious” file swappers. One of the targets …