Technology aimed at identifying and blocking copyrighted songs as they’re being traded on file-swapping networks is beginning to move into high schools. Filtering technology from Audible Magic has been installed at several high schools around the country, most recently at private Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose, Calif., and a technical high school in Cape …

A group of big music stores has mothballed a plan to join forces on the Internet to fight online services such as Apple Computer’s iTunes, a move that highlights painful choices brought on by a digital shakeout. Echo, a joint effort launched with a splash of publicity in early 2003, was supposed to give the big brick-and-mortar retailers such as …

Talks have begun that could finally make the songs of The Beatles available for sale online, sources familiar with the situation said. Representatives for The Beatles have spoken with numerous online music providers, ranging from small companies to Microsoft, which is planning to open an Internet music store this year. The Beatles’ side is asking for a considerable sum in …

The recording industry is testing technology that would prevent consumers from making copies of CD “burns,” a piracy defense that could put some significant new restrictions on legally purchased music. News.context What’s new: Record labels say CD sales have plummeted as a result of copies–and copies of copies. Now the labels are testing technology that would limit the number of …

Audible Magic, a content-filtering company, announced on Friday a wide-ranging agreement with Sony Music, aimed in part at improving tools to combat peer-to-peer piracy. The record label will provide digital “fingerprints” to Audible Magic, which creates technology that identifies and blocks songs as they are transferred online through file-swapping applications or other tools. Sony will also license Audible Magic’s song-identification …

The recording industry this week claimed progress in a controversial legal campaign targeting individuals who use peer-to-peer networks, but its optimism appeared to clash with at least some of the evidence, which remains murky. By some measures, usage of peer-to-peer software such as Kazaa has been cut in half since the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced in late …

Several proposals to collect money from Internet service subscribers to pay for online music swapping are bubbling to public attention in the United States and Canada. A trade group representing Canadian songwriters and music publishers argued in front of that country’s Supreme Court on Wednesday that ISPs should pay into a nationwide pool–similar to a tax now imposed on blank …

The Recording Industry Association of America said Wednesday it had sued another 41 people in its ongoing legal campaign against file swappers who are trading copyrighted music online. This is the RIAA’s third batch of suits against computer users since early September, bringing the total number of people sued to 382. The group also said it had sent out an …

As the success of digital music services like Apple Computer’s iTunes and Napster puts new pressure on corporate and other private computer networks, a generation of tools is springing up to control the software. On Tuesday, network traffic management company Packeteer released an upgrade to its software that would allow network administrators to identify and control the use of these …

A San Francisco federal judge last week moved the venue for SBC Communications’ lawsuit against the recording industry’s file-swapping legal strategy, a potentially significant victory for record labels. The decision, which was released late last Wednesday, transfers a closely watched legal battle over the Recording Industry Association of America’s (RIAA) dragnet for online music traders to courts in the nation’s …