3com Inc

Zomba Records, the powerful independent record label that is home to the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears, said Thursday that it had settled a copyright infringement lawsuit with online music company MP3.com Inc., a unit of Vivendi Universal. "The parties have settled the litigation between them and resolved their differences to their mutual satisfaction and have entered into a licensing arrangement for the My.mp3 service," Zomba said in a statement. The terms were not disclosed.

MP3.com Inc. reached an agreement with EMI Group that will allow the online music company to use songs owned by the British record label in the My.MP3 Web-based database, a source familiar with the talks said Thursday. "An announcement is expected Friday that says MP3.com can use EMI's music as part of the My.MP3.com service," the source said. MP3.

A New York federal judge dismissed a lawsuit against online music firm MP3.com Inc. and four major record labels, saying the musicians seeking online royalties do not own the digital rights to these songs. The suit--filed in U.S. District Court by the Chambers Brothers, the Coasters and the Original Drifters--claimed that MP3.com, Time Warner Inc. and units of Seagram Co., Bertelsmann and Sony Corp. did not have the right to transmit their tunes over the Net.

The Recording Industry Assn. of America has sued MP3.com Inc. over its features allowing users to instantly hear music and add their personal music to a play list. The federal suit, filed in New York, claims the San Diego-based company illegally compiled an online library of 40,000 copyrighted albums. Officials with MP3.com could not immediately be reached for comment.

MP3.com Inc. is using "indefensible" and "frivolous" arguments to justify its online distribution of copyrighted music, a federal judge said Thursday in a decision explaining last week's ruling that MP3.com had infringed record company copyrights. U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff ruled Friday that San Diego-based MP3.com had infringed the record labels' copyrights by transmitting, for free, tens of thousands of songs to computer users who subscribe to the company's "My.MP3.com" service.

MP3.com Inc. would face damages for copyright violations on every compact disc it infringed, not every song, if a lawsuit by record companies against the Web music site goes to trial as scheduled Monday, a federal judge ruled. U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff in New York ruled that for purposes of determining damages, the copyright works in the case are the CDs that MP3.

MP3.com Inc. and several prominent record labels were sued in federal court by musicians who seek royalty payments for the distribution of their songs over the Internet. The suit, filed by musicians who perform as the Chambers Brothers, the Coasters and the Original Drifters, seeks a ruling that neither MP3.com nor the record companies--Time Warner Inc., Sony Corp. of America and two others--have the right to transmit their songs over the Internet.

TVT Records said a court has declared a mistrial in its copyright infringement suit against online music company MP3.com Inc., in which it was awarded a wrong amount of damages. In April, the federal judge who presided over the trial said he was considering what to do about an almost $300,000 copyright infringement verdict awarded against MP3.com after jurors told him their math was wrong and they had intended a figure of several million dollars. MP3.