From a joint Sony and Intel press release: "Intel Corporation and Sony Music Entertainment today announced they will work together to enable users to access music, images, videos and other Sony Music Entertainment content on powerful, Intel-based cellular phones and PDAs.

"Together, the companies will optimize Sony Music Entertainment's mobile applications, services and content for mobile devices running the Intel Personal Internet Client Architecture (Intel PCA) -- providing users with PC-quality digital music and video on their cell phones. The two companies also plan to co-develop future applications and services for Intel-based phones, including applications that will enable consumers to use PC-based multimedia content on their cell phones.

"'Music, and music videos in particular, promise to be among the most exciting applications for mobile devices,' said Ron Smith, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Wireless Communications and Computing Group...

"The initial products from the collaboration are expected to be available through carriers and handset makers in 2004."

Read this press release online here.

From the San Jose Mercury News: "Napster's back -- but it's not the Napster you might remember.

"The Napster brand and kitty logo now adorn an online music service the record industry first envisioned as the anti-Napster.

"The question is whether Napster 2.0 can recapture the buzz -- and the 60 million users -- of the original outlaw service.

"Moreover, Napster now must compete with its own progeny: free file-swapping services like Kazaa and iMesh that remain wildly popular. And it faces an increasingly crowded field of competing pay-to-download services from tech companies Apple Computer, Dell and Sony, online giants America Online and RealNetworks, and traditional retailers such as Wal-Mart.

"Nonetheless, today's launch of Napster 2.0 will be hard to miss. Roxio, the Santa Clara software company that now owns the Napster name, will unveil a massive promotional campaign that includes ads in premier music publications like Rolling Stone and Spin, mainstream magazines such as Time, and new animated commercials airing on MTV, ESPN and Comedy Central."

Read this entire article in the Mercury News here.

From Radio Ink: "Songwriters Richard Leigh ('Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue'), Regie Hamm ('Babies') and Peter McCann ('It’s the Right Time of the Night') recently recorded 30-second spots thanking radio stations across the country for 'keeping the music on the air by obtaining proper music licenses from SESAC, my performing rights organization' as part of a new campaign to educate the public about the need for artists, writers and musicians to get paid for their work.

"'A lot of people are trying to get their music for free these days and that hurts writers and artists,' each [songwriter] recorded in separate 30-second spots to be distributed to radio stations nationally...

"SESAC President/COO Bill Velez said... 'We’ve found that the public has trouble distinguishing between various forms of music delivery and accessibility and don’t understand that artists need to be paid for their work. This message makes it clear that their favorite radio stations value the music and the creators and aren’t joining any of the illegal processes used to steal music and royalties.'"

Read this entire story here.