The owners of the popular Kazaa file-swapping software have withstood assaults from the record industry for years, but now they’re facing a new enemy that may be even harder to fight: competition. When a federal judge shut down Napster in 2001, Kazaa parent Sharman Networks quickly stepped in as the replacement of choice, signing up …

The Recording Industry Association of America said Thursday that it will add sales of digitally downloaded singles to its longstanding gold and platinum sales certification program. Under the program, artists who sell 100,000 downloads of a song will receive a gold award; songs that sell 200,000 downloads will be certified as platinum; and multi-platinum awards will be given out for …

Internet service providers cannot be held liable for the copyright infringement of their subscribers, even when a cached copy of a work is held on local servers, a Canadian court has ruled. The decision on Wednesday marked an important victory for the country’s ISPs, which were worried about being held legally or financially responsible for subscribers’ use of peer-to-peer and …

Apple Computer said Wednesday that its iTunes digital music store had sold more than 800,000 songs during its first week of operation in European markets. The news marked a strong start for the service in a region that is already substantially more competitive than the U.S. market was when iTunes initially launched in early 2003. The store opened its digital …

The Recording Industry Association of America launched a new round of lawsuits Tuesday against online music swappers, targeting 482 individuals around the United States. As with previous rounds of suits filed by the music industry group, the “John Doe” lawsuits come without names attached. The identities of the individuals are expected to come out through a court discovery process. The …

Having learned a thing or two about the guitar and songwriting, Geoff Byrd is practicing another instrument that could prove even more important to his musical career: the Internet. News.context What’s new: Independent musicians are augmenting traditional promotional methods such as touring, word of mouth, fan clubs and posters with Web sites, e-mail lists and blogs. Listener recommendations, online preview …

Executive ranks are shifting at MusicNow, the online music service that Circuit City Stores recently purchased. CEO Scott Kauffman will step down but will stay on the company’s management board. Co-founder Gary Cohen will take the company’s reins as president. No new CEO will be appointed, since the company is now inside Circuit City’s corporate infrastructure, a spokesman said.

Consumer groups, electronics companies and record labels squared off Wednesday in the first full public airing of proposals for antipiracy protections for digital radio networks. Digital radio, which transforms traditional over-the-air broadcasts into the same kind of bits and bytes used in Internet transmissions, promises to boost the audio quality of FM signals to that of a CD. But it …

For the first time, the No. 1 album in the United States is loaded with anticopying protections, marking a clear step into the mainstream for the controversial technology. According to figures released by Nielsen SoundScan, Velvet Revolver’s “Contraband” was the top-selling album in America last week, despite being prominently labeled on its cover as being “protected against unauthorized duplication.” The …

A day ahead of the launch of Apple Computer’s iTunes music store in Europe, local rival On Demand Distribution, or OD2, on Monday rolled out a new streaming service aimed at bolstering its appeal against the powerful newcomer. As announced in January, the new service will allow listeners to pay just .01 euro (1 cent) per song, without being billed …