Charter Communications has filed a lawsuit in an effort to bar the Recording Industry Association of America from obtaining the identities of its cable customers that have allegedly traded songs illegally online. The cable company on Friday filed a “motion to quash” the RIAA’s requests for the names of 150 Charter customers who the trade group claims violated copyright law …

Earthstation 5 has released a new edition of its file-swapping software, responding to reports that running older versions could allow hackers to delete critical files on a user’s computer. The concerns were raised in a bulletin posted to security lists last week by a programmer with the pseudonym Random Nut, who . In an e-mail statement sent to CNET News.com …

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 different from the original–there won’t …