September 5 - 4:25pm EDT   Desktop and notebook PC maker Lenovo and Napster announced an agreement on Friday that will have Napster provide buyers of Lenovo PCs with a free 14-day trial to Napster's Napster To Go digital music service. The offer is valid for most of the models Lenovo sells in North America, and will give the customers access to more than 6 million songs and audio tracks in the Napster MP3 store introduced earlier this year. [full story]

September 4 - 11:05am EDT   Regular shoppers at the iTunes Store should not expect any announcements on the content side of the equation in the near future, rumors indicate. CNET cites anonymous sources, who say that people should not expect Apple to announce any new music content at its special iPod event on September 9th. More specifically, the sources claim they are certain Apple will not introduce a long-rumored subscription option for iTunes. [full story]

August 5 - 10:30am EDT   Apple's iTunes Store continues to control the US music market, a new batch of surveys suggests. Following several polls of Americans 13 and older, conducted between January and June of this year, the NPD Group says that iTunes maintained an existing lead, despite competition from major, firmly established corporations. The results are are also notable in that they reflect all forms of music sales, including not just iTunes' digital specialty but online and retail CD sales. Excluded are non-permanent options like the subscription services offered by Rhapsody and Napster. [full story]

June 30 - 7:20am EDT   Real this morning opened a test version of the Rhapsody MP3 Store, its first store to go without copy protected files. The MTV co-owned outlet is web-based and, unlike the company's subscription service, promises to work with any computer or device, including iPods; a Mac download manager is available to let users download all their songs as a complete package, Real says. The company has also successfully secured the catalogs of all four major music labels. [full story]

May 20 - 6:25am EDT   Napster today launched what it says is the world's largest MP3-based music store. Effectively turning away from its reliance on protected Windows Media files, the company is offering about 6 million unguarded MP3 songs through a web-based store accessible from any computer and playable through virtually any device -- including the iPhone and iPod, Napster is keen to note. Users with iTunes can auto-sync their Napster downloads to the jukebox software. Prices for tracks remain unchanged at 99 cents each, with most full albums selling for $10. [full story]

May 5 - 10:40am EDT   Following the debut of the necessary mobile TV service on the weekend, AT&T's LG Vu today became available online and in shops. The handset is AT&T's first primarily touchscreen-driven phone since the iPhone and makes video its focus, with a built-in MediaFLO tuner providing live, over-the-air broadcasts of digital TV similar to Verizon's V CAST TV service. AT&T also stresses media playback support with support for Internet radio streams from XM as well as direct downloads from the company's own music store as well as eMusic and Napster. [full story]

April 8 - 11:10am EDT   Research firm Ipsos has released a new study on the digital music industry, the results of which position Apple as the leader. Some 82 percent of American music downloaders are familiar with iTunes, versus a next-best figure of 76 percent for Napster. Some 38 percent of downloaders think of iTunes first when it comes to digital music, and while most major online outlets have had their name recognition increase during 2007, only iTunes showed a substantial growth in use past the first 30 days, up to 24 percent last year from 18 percent in 2006. Services such as Rhapsody and Walmart.com saw their 30-day-plus use decrease. [full story]

January 7 - 10:25am EST   Online music service Napster, which has for some time only sold tracks in a protected Windows Media Audio format, will soon begin selling music in the form of unprotected MP3s, according to Reuters. Starting in the second quarter of 2008, at least a portion of the files sold or offered via subscription will be unprotected, in what may perhaps be the most significant such announcement since Amazon's digital store launch. Napster claims to have some 750,000 subscribers, who make use of both plans and permanent downloads. [full story]

November 29 - 3:45pm EST   Warner Music Group on Thursday reported a major drop in profits for its last financial quarter that it largely attributes to online music. Although the company noted that its purely download-based music income increased by 25 percent to $130 million, the company's overall profit dropped about 58 percent and resulted in just $5 million versus $12 million the year before. This income would have been worse still had the company not taken advantage of a settlement with Bertelsmann over a Napster legal dispute. [full story]