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]

Metallica released their long awaited "Download This" CD, and the band declared it Napster-proof. [BBspot]

The attorney representing Metallica and rap star Dr. Dre in their lawsuits against Napster is sending a barrage of letters to top universities, pushing them to block students from using the popular file-swapping software. [News.com]

Napster's "New Artist Program", was recently redesigned to include a genre tree of music categories. Listen.com is now suing, because it thinks that the pages look too similar to information on its website. [Wired News]

Napster's appeal of a court-ordered shutdown has granted the company more time but little room to maneuver in its ongoing clash with the recording industry. [News.com]

Federal Judge Marilyn Hall Patel released the details of her decision ordering the company to close its digital doors. [News.com]