There it was in black and white, actually blue and white, the number one download on CNet's Download.com site was MusicCity Network's Morpheus with over 1 million downloads. What was second? Fellow Napster clone Audiogalaxy Satellite with 977,868 downloads.
Napster clones demolished Napster in online downloads this week. Those in CNet's top 10 drew a total of 3,876,580 downloads. Napster got only 18,296 downloads or less than 0.5% of what the others did. See the top ten list here.
They won their appeal yesterday and that puts them back online. That doesn't mean Napster is back in business because they still have to find people willing to pay for this service, a service they told users is about to start.
It looks now that Napster will only be able to play a new proprietary .NAP format and Real's Network's MusicNet format using a new secured player developed by PlayMedia.
Microsoft has announced that it will offer the capability to rip MP3s with its new Windows XP operating system after all. The catch? To do it, users will have to purchase an add-on package.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - MusicMatch Inc. on Sunday said it struck a licensing deal with the recording industry to broadcast musical performances on its Web radio service, paving the way for both parties to drop lawsuits against each other.
``Entering into this license made the lawsuits unnecessary,'' said Bob Ohlweiler, senior vice president of music development for MusicMatch.
MusicMatch was one of several Webcasters embroiled in an escalating legal battle over the royalty structure for Internet radio stations.
``Our beef hasn't been with the concept of sharing music,'' said Lars Ulrich, front man for the band Metallica. ``The problem we had with Napster was that they never asked us or other artists if we wanted to participate in their business.'' With those words, his band has settled its suit with Napster for an undisclosed sum.
Condoms are about 90% effective. The chances of anyone booting Windows up every time is certainly below 100%. But somehow Napster's 99.4% success rate with filtering out copyrighted songs is not good enough for the court and therefore the service must stay shut down until that number reaches perfection.
It almost seems to defeat the purpose of the MP3 format to put it in a portable player the size of a watermelon. That might be why Philips is turning to the MP3 community to product test their new player. There is a link to sign up for those who are interested.
A federal judge on Wednesday ordered Napster to remain offline until it can show that it is able to effectively block access to copyrighted works on its file-swapping network, according to both parties involved in the suit. The order by U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel came in a closed door session, according to a RIAA spokesman. The order was not immediately available, he added.
