HITB News

It's not all that ironic that the greatest tool for the music industry to neutralize Napster and its clones is not the courts or the legislature, but technological progress and good old competition (that includes recognizing that bandwidth can be a tool in their favor and utilizing it). It doesn't matter if Napster lives or dies, songs will continue to be traded, but it is conceivable that soon the songs available on P2P services may not include the most recent releases because they will be unavailable in CD.

Saw this over at SNN

The Ninth U.S. District Court of appeals granted a stay of execution to Napster yesterday, granting an injunction to the plaintiffs, but referring the matter to a lower court for further review and clarification. Practically speaking, this means that Napster isn't dead yet, but it looks grim. Recording artists -- you know, the folks who actually make the music -- appear split. Chuck D. preaches power to the people, while Eminem just wants to get paid.

Hours after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said an injunction against Napster was "not only warranted but required,'' Napster has vowed to challenge the ruling that sets the stage for a lower court to shut the file trading service down.

mp3newswire.net.

By the end of the trading day, struggling EMusic got a huge boost from Napter's bad news. With the ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that Napster must stop trading in copyrighted material, EMusic's stock literally shot through the roof. Read all about it here.

The ruling coming from the 9th circuit court of appeals is that the injunction against
Napsters service is stayed. The court sent the ruling back to U.S. District Court Judge
Marilyn Hall Patel to make clarifications and adjustments to the original injunction. The
courts ruling also said Napster is guilty of contributory copyright infringement and Judge
Patels injunction is upheld. Napster is scheduled to hold a press conference at 11:30 PST.

Yes I grabbed this straight from /. so don't flame me...

A very interesting article in today's
New York Times on how home studios are breaking the
stronghold of recording companies on music production.
Nowadays, anyone with some talent, a PC and a couple of peripherals and good
mikes can produce music which would have required spending weeks in an

Catching Napster fans off guard, a short notice appeared on the Web site of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Friday (screen shot is at the end of the linked article) announcing that a ruling on the case would be issued 10 am PST Monday morning. Check out the full report on this here.

The pimps over at Deskmod have posted the latest alpha for Winamp 3. Many people were dissapointed with
Winamp 3 but this version should fix tons of bugs and less CPU usage. Download it from here or here.

According to reports that came out a couple of days ago, Napster is finalizing plans to launch a subscription service for users. The fees will begin around
the beginning of this summer. Napster will also start using a digital rights managment system on its network. You can get more details
about the changes over at Wired.

The alpha for WinAmp 3 is out! Head over to Winamp alphas directory for the goods.