From Digital Coast Daily: "It was the ruling that many once feared would spell D-Day for Napster, but when U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel issued her injunction today, it left Napster with plenty of 'wiggle room,' in the words of digital music analyst Nitsan Hargil at Kaufman Brothers...

"Napster will now have to stop enabling its users from swapping copyrighted songs as the potentially lengthy court case proceeds. Once the copyright owners inform Napster about infringements, the file-sharing company will have three business days to prevent the trading of the files in question...

"At the Friday hearing to discuss the injunction, Napster announced that it would voluntarily block certain songs from being swapped, and over the weekend it had already started blocking some songs by anti-Napster acts including Metallica and Dr. Dre.

"But users quickly found ways to circumvent the blocks, such as Aimster's plan to convert file names into Pig Latin (here), a 'plus one' alphabetical system (see below) or the MP3 Translator solution posted at timwilson.org. Now, the labels and Napster will be working together to keep track of such schemes. Broussard said that will be a major headache for both parties. 'It's a proverbial game of Whack-a-Mole,' he said. 'File-sharing is a hydra: every time you cut the head off, it's going to grow two more...'

"Maybe this new 'shared responsibility' between Napster and the labels has the potential to spur some more positive developments. (Entertainment lawyer Whitney) Broussard pondered, 'I wonder ultimately if when these guys start really sitting down to figure out these technological issues, they don't just sit there and look at each other and say, "My God, why don't we just license this stuff, it would be so much easier!"'"

Read the entire article here.

From Silicon Alley Daily: "You got the new Sadiohead?

"Starting tomorrow I suggest that everyone start renaming their Napster files with a 'plus one' scheme on the initial character. So, Metallica becomes Netallica and Eminem becomes Fminem. Problem solved, let's all get back to stealing!

"In another six months when Napster and the music industry fight over whether it is legal or illegal to ban searches by names that are somehow related or derivative of real artist names (and you thought the pregnant chad court testimony was absurd?), we can all go to the 'plus two' scheme on the initial character and start searching for the new Fido track."

Read this excellent essay by Jason McCabe Calacanis (on right, with Broadcast.com founder Mark Cuban) here.

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From the press release: "Live365 announced today the appointment of three executives, with over 62 years of combined sales experience, to Live365's sales teams...

"Live365's Advertising Group appointment includes, Terrence Higham, to Director of Advertising Sales while the New Business Sales Group appointments include, Ron Denman, to Vice President of New Business Sales and Garrett Jamison to Director, New Business Sales...

"Higham gained unique experience selling Internet audio ads as the National Sales Manager for SurferNETWORK, which provided webcasting services for traditional radio stations...

"Denman joins Live365 from Spot Magic, where he spent 4 years as their executive vice president. Previously, Denman co-founded DG Systems, a publicly traded company with the world's largest digital distribution network for radio and television commercials...

"Jamison most recently worked as Director of Business Development at OnAir Streaming Networks (also formerly known as www.com), where he previously sold private label radio services."

Read the press release here.

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Comedy World has announced that they've formed a partnership with Jones Media Networks (as Jones Radio Networks and Jones Media America) for programming affiliations and sales services.

In January, Comedy World told RAIN that they had decided to concentrate on the development and syndication of their content to traditional radio and other web sites -- and get out of Internet distribution by eventually ceasing the live streaming from their site.

Comedy World also announced Jamie Weissenborn will oversee the relationship with Jones as VP/Revenue. Weissenborn has experience at Univision and Comedy Central.

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Reprinted from yesterday's afternoon News Flash...

Napster may have received the most crushing blow yet. Judge Marilyn Patel's revised injunction against the file-sharing service, handed down earlier this afternoon, requires the company to remove all copyrighted files from its system. Record labels are to supply a list of the infringed titles, and Napster then has "three (3) business days" to rectify the situation.

This measure effectively forces Napster to share the burden of "policing" the illegal trade of copyrighted song material. Patel gave Napster five business days to show that they are complying with the order.

The order also requires Napster and the record companies to go to "reasonable measures in identifying variations of the filename(s), or of the spelling of the titles or artists' names," to block their trade over the service -- preventing users to "cheat" around the filename filters.

Additionally, the ruling allows the record industry to provide "advance notice" to Napster of as-of-yet unreleased material from artists likely to be popular on the service. This eliminates the "free ride" for file traders during the time it takes for the record companies to identify files newly introduced to the system.

According to MSNBC coverage of the story, analysts are calling the injunction "a worst case scenario" for Napster. It's believed that Napster will file an appeal and ask for a stay of the injunction -- but won't likely get it. Patel's ruling allows for an appeal if Napster believes it can't feasibly live up to the requirements, but explicitly states such a request "will not operate to stay this injunction or afford relief from it."

For the text of the ruling, click here. Read the MSNBC report here.

May 3-4, 2001	Streaming Media Asia 2001: Hong Kong