College students have recently found a new past time; downloading songs on Napster. The file sharing service that has been under fire from major record labels and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has caught on so big with the college set that 34 percent of American universities have banned the use of Napster according to a report from the technology market research company, Gartner Group.

The news of Napster’s possible demise sent users into a downloading frenzy over the past 18 hours, but now downloading freaks can relax a little. The injunction served to the online file sharing service Napster this past Wednesday was lifted today. Originally scheduled to be shut down tonight at 3am (EST), Napster has been temporarily granted a stay until a formal appeal can be heard by the U.S. Court of appeals for the Ninth Circuit. This appeal is not expected to be until September with Napster’s opening brief due on August 18, the RIAA’s response due September 8 and Napster’s optional reply due on September 12. Napster was granted the say primarily based on the claim that the injunction would have caused the company to "suffer irreparable injury" and would force them to terminate many of their employees. Legal experts say that it is common for this type of stay to be ...

Napster, the online music service that allows users to swap MP3 audio files for free, was ordered to stop distributing copyrighted songs yesterday by Judge Marilyn Hall Patel. A preliminary injunction was issued against Napster despite attorney David Boise’s attempts to argue that personal copying of music is protected by federal law and that the main purpose of Napster is the promotion of new music.

San Diego’s MP3.COM recently announced that there are now over 500,000 songs and audio files available for users to download. The song "Self-Respect" by the artist Buckley V. Valeo was the 500,000th track added to the site and can be accessed at www.mp3.com/bvv. With so many artists posting their music on websites such as MP3, this begs the question: what chance is there of an artist being successful without the support of a major or indie record company? MP3.COM’s current Top Five list of downloads includes:

Napster has brought on high-powered attorney David Boies to prepare the for the upcoming court case where Napster will face the RIAA who represents the major record labels. Most famous for being instrumental in breaking up Microsoft, Boies and his team of lawyers are developing a defense strategy that emphasizes the promotional aspects of Napster and how they can benefit the very record companies and artists that are suing the company. Napster has signed deals with a few small record labels to further emphasize the promotional side of Napster. According to a report by CNN, Napster will use the "pencil defense" which will require the company to show that Napster has many non-infringing uses, like a VCR or a pencil. A VCR has for example can be used to dub illegal copies of video and a pencil can be used ...