The Recording Industry Association of America has an ambitious goal with its first wave of lawsuits against file swappers: trying to change an anarchic, deeply rooted online culture. As yet, evidence is mixed as to whether the group’s attempts are succeeding. According to several Net monitoring groups, traffic on file-swapping networks fell throughout the period …

Charles Dumond of San Mateo, Calif., learned that he was targeted in a landmark series of recording industry piracy lawsuits only when reporters started calling his home on Monday. One of 261 people named by the Recording Industry Association of America in an unprecedented wave of lawsuits aimed at alleged “egregious” file traders, an angry Dumont said the accusations had …

The Recording Industry Association of America sued 261 alleged file swappers Monday, launching a legal campaign against ordinary Internet users that could ultimately result in thousands of additional lawsuits. But are you at risk? If you or a family member have used Kazaa or any other file-swapping application recently and have left your computer open to the Net, the answer …

Sony will launch its own digital music service next year, in a project that will see its music, movie and electronics divisions work closely together, the company said Thursday. Announced by Sony Vice Chairman Howard Stringer at an event in Paris, the service appears to be conceived as a rival to Apple Computer’s successful iTunes digital music store, and as …

Colleges and the entertainment industry have made considerable progress toward turning back the file-swapping tide on university campuses, representatives of both groups said Tuesday. From teaching incoming freshmen about the legal and ethical issues of file trading to starting up trial projects offering campus-sponsored digital music services, colleges are beginning to make inroads against student copyright infringement, representatives of a …

A group of small Webcasters on Wednesday filed an antitrust suit against the Recording Industry Association of America, alleging that the trade association tried to push independent music stations offline. The Webcaster Alliance has been threatening to sue the RIAA for months, after Congress ratified royalty rates for Internet radio stations that many small operators said will drive them out …

The Recording Industry Association of America leveled a full legal barrage at the sole Kazaa user fighting its attempts to identify file swappers, saying she was indisputably a major copyright infringer. In papers filed Tuesday with a federal court in Washington, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) said it did not oppose the anonymous Kazaa user’s request to fight …

Hollywood studios and record labels are getting allies in their quest to overturn a court ruling that said file-swapping software companies aren’t responsible for the copyright infringement of their users. Several groups, including a list of legal scholars, international copyright organizations, legal music services and other copyright holder groups filed “friend of the court” briefs Tuesday, asking that an April …

A new set of services aimed at giving independent music labels online distribution is springing up, hoping to reach companies like Apple’s iTunes and the new Napster. San Francisco-based Independent Online Distribution Alliance (IODA) is the latest to hit the scene. It launched Monday with deals in place to negotiate digital rights on behalf of 50 labels whose music it …

The U.S. Department of Justice said Thursday that it accepted a guilty plea in a criminal copyright case involving the former leader of a Net music piracy group called the Apocalypse Crew. The defendant in the case, 21-year-old Mark Shumaker, faces a maximum prison sentence of five years and a maximum fine of $250,000. Shumaker helped coordinate the supply and …