“Visual radio” is coming to the United States–and no, that’s not just a newfangled name for a TV set. Radio giant Infinity Broadcasting is working with Hewlett-Packard to bring a kind of Net-enabled FM radio to U.S. markets, sending information such as album art, concert dates and buy-this-album buttons alongside broadcasts. The broadcasts will be …

When Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs walked into the suites of top record label executives in 2002, iTunes software in hand, he was welcomed as a trailblazer to a digital music future. Now, nearly two years after Apple’s iTunes launch, record executives have become worried that they have inadvertently ceded too much power over their industry to this charismatic computer …

The Recording Industry Association of America said Tuesday it would file suit against students at 18 universities accused of trading files on the supercharged Internet2 network. The suits, to be filed Wednesday, are the first to focus on the next-generation research network operated by universities. The i2Hub file-swapping service has operated for a year on campuses that are connected to …

As the Supreme Court mulls the fate of file-swapping networks, justices are studying a rarely used element of copyright law that sparked bitter controversy when raised in Congress last year. Last week, the nation’s top court heard arguments from the entertainment industry and file-swapping software companies in a landmark review of the legal status of peer-to-peer networks. In the course …

It’s the latest way to study natives in their natural habitat: Check their iTunes music libraries. A group of researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Palo Alto Research Center presented a study this week outlining the behavior of the wild cubicle-dweller when using Apple Computer’s digital music software. Sharing playlists on an office network turns out to …

A Canadian appeals court has temporarily blocked last year’s ruling that overturned that country’s “iPod tax,” a fee collected on the sales of MP3 players that was distributed to copyright holders. Last December, a court ruled that the fee, which is applied to all blank recording media in Canada, should not be applied to digital media players like the iPod. …

Ken Fuhrman’s Colorado-based start-up company is a television junkie’s dream, making powerful home media servers to hold digitized versions of television shows, movies and music. But Fuhrman is worried. On Tuesday morning, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether file-swapping software companies Grokster and StreamCast Networks should be held responsible for the widespread copyright infringement on their networks, and …

On Tuesday morning, lawyers from Hollywood and the technology industry will meet at the U.S. Supreme Court to argue over the fate of peer-to-peer software. But they’ll be spending much of their time talking about the VCR. At the core of the file-swapping dispute is an interpretation of the 20-year-old decision that made Sony’s Betamax legal to sell in the …

A group of underground programmers has posted code online it says will reopen a backdoor in Apple Computer’s iTunes store, allowing Linux computer users to purchase music free of copy protection. The release comes just a day after Apple blocked a previous version of the program, called PyMusique, in part by requiring all iTunes customers to use the latest version …

Apple Computer has closed a security hole that allowed an underground program to tap into its iTunes Music Store and purchase songs stripped of antipiracy protections. The PyMusique software, created by a trio of independent programmers online, emerged last week as a copy protection-free back door into the popular iTunes store. One of the creators was Jon Johansen, the Norwegian …