Napster co-founder Jordan Ritter has left the company and joined a San Francisco financial technology start-up, Round1 Private Capital Marketplace. [News.com]

Napster is asking its fans to participate in a two-day "buy-cott" this weekend, a plan aimed at winning support for the music-swapping firm. [News.com]

Fans of the online music-swapping company downloaded 1.39 billion songs in September, transforming the hotly contested technology into one of the Internet's most popular applications, according to new studies. [News.com]

The file-swapping service releases a new version of its software that includes an e-commerce component linking to the Bertelsmann-owned retail site. [News.com]

An industry-backed group of musicians has launched a high-profile ad campaign against online music piracy, hoping to persuade fans not to use Napster and other similar Net tools. [News.com]

In wireless phones, the next killer application may have more to do with music than with conversation. [News.com]

One of the most popular meeting spots for trading MP3 songs and information on the underground Internet Relay Chat network has closed its virtual doors. [News.com]

MP3Board.com, the small MP3 search site being sued by the record industry, has a new strategy: blame America Online. [News.com]

MP3Board.com fired a legal shot over recording industry to preserve its ability to guide Web surfers to online music files, legal and illegal. [News.com]

Special report focusing on MP3 files, the music business, and the regulation of online copyrighted music. [News.com]