The Rolling Stones, one of the last marquee holdouts against online music distribution, have finally agreed to sell their music online, according to record label EMI Music. The venerable rock band’s appearance online is both a signal of the increasingly rapid mainstreaming of digital music and a welcome relief to online music companies, which have …

Deep in the tense Jenin refugee camp in the Palestinian West Bank, a new file-swapping service is daring record labels and movie studios to turn their piracy-hunting into an international incident. Dubbed Earthstation 5, the new file-swapping network is openly flouting international copyright norms at a time when many older peer-to-peer companies are trying to establish themselves as legitimate technology …

A new pay-by-the-song music service is launching in Western Europe, putting an iTunes-like digital download store inside Microsoft’s Windows Media Player. Branded variously as the MSN Music Club and Tiscali Music Club, the service is actually run by online music company OD2, rather than by Microsoft itself. As with Apple Computer’s iTunes, the stores will be accessible inside the music-playing …

An Internet company trade association sent a letter to the Recording Industry Association of America, asking for information and dialogue over issues related to the subpoenas being issued for file-swappers’ identities. NetCoalition, a Washington, D.C.-based policy group that represents companies ranging from small Internet service providers to Yahoo and DoubleClick, on Monday said it is worried that ISPs are getting …

Digital song-tracking company Audible Magic is striking a deal with Universal Music Group for song information, getting another leg up in its quest to be able to identify–and potentially block–music as it is transferred online. The new arrangement, expected to be announced Tuesday, will see Universal give Audible Magic a “fingerprint,” or digital identification tool, for each song it releases, …

A Massachusetts court has blocked several recording industry subpoenas that are aimed at college song swappers, saying the universities involved are not immediately required to divulge the alleged file traders’ identities. The decision comes after officials at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Boston College challenged subpoenas from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), saying the trade group’s requests …