Apple Computer on Thursday announced plans to celebrate its iTunes Music Store by giving away songs and other prizes, as the service nears the 100 million download mark. Apple will give away fifty 20GB iPods, one to the purchaser of each 100,000th song downloaded between 95 million and 100 million songs. The number of songs …

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 …

The U.K.’s fondness for music downloads has spawned a new virtual singles chart. The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) has announced it will be running a chart of the most popular U.K. downloads from Sept.1, with numbers gleaned from song-shop staples such as iTunes, Mycokemusic.com and Virgin. The chart will be compiled by the Official U.K. Chart Company (OCC) and will …

Germany’s T-Mobile is trying its luck with online music, launching a download service that lets digital music fans in Europe play songs over their cell phones. The service allows subscribers to download tunes to T-Mobile handsets equipped with its new Ear Phones technology. Three of the five major record labels–Sony, Warner and Universal Music–and various independent music labels have signed …

The U.S. Senate on Friday overwhelmingly approved a controversial proposal that would let federal prosecutors file civil lawsuits against suspected copyright infringers, with fines reaching tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. The so-called Pirate Act has raised alarms among copyright lawyers and lobbyists for peer-to-peer companies, who have been eyeing the recording industry’s lawsuits against thousands of peer-to-peer …

Digital music provider Napster has teamed up with Best Buy to enlist new subscribers. Under the terms of the deal, announced Thursday, Best Buy will promote Napster through in-store marketing and media advertising. It will also launch a co-branded version of the music service to be sold online through Bestbuy.com. In return, Best Buy will get stock of Napster parent …

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 …

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 …

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.