• PC World
• » Consumer Advice

Digital music is changing its tune on the Web, and new music sites are auditioning to join in the chorus.

A Federal district judge this week ruled against MP3.com, declaring that the music-sharing site violates the rights of music recording giant Universal. MP3.com had settled with the other major labels, but the multimillion-dollar fine in the Universal case could stifle its song. (See "Court Gongs MP3.com.") File sharing site Napster is still making music after a temporary injunction from an appeals court judge, but still faces litigation from the Recording Industry Association of America, which claims copyright violation and wants to stop the music sharing site permanently. (See "Napster Wins Reprieve.")

One of those tuning up during the lull is Aimster, a file sharing application used with America Online Instant Messenger. Aimster programmers hustled to launch the site at the end of July, when it looked like Napster would be shut down. Forty-eight hours after Aimster became available, the site was receiving six download requests per minute, says Johnny Deep, Aimster spokesperson. (See "AIM Add-On Boosts File Sharing.")

"We had to stay up all night just to babysit the servers," Deep says. "They kept crashing." Aimster's managers claim to have hit one million users in the month since its launch, and the company is said to be in alliance talks with technology firms.

Watching Napster

Aimster is like Napster in some ways. Napster lets Internet-using music fans search out and download MP3-format songs on the hard drives of other Napster users. The RIAA claims Napster contributes to music piracy because its servers contain the Internet Protocol addresses of PCs in the Napster network.

Napster's popularity (if not its financial and legal success) encouraged Aimster. "We've been watching Napster since they came out last May," Deep said. "We were rooting for them, but we worried they would overwhelm us."

Other file sharing programs like Freenet and Gnutella get around Napster's legal problems by operating in a peer-to-peer network, in which IP addresses are distributed with no central server and thus no single entity to sue.

Aimster ties AIM users into the Gnutella network, and to each other. Aimster enables users to search and retrieve files from the hard drives of other Aimster users on their buddy lists, as well as from Gnutella network computers. The software does not, however, let Gnutella users search Aimster users' PCs. That's a security facet that differentiates Aimster, Deep says.

"Mainstream America doesn't want to share their hard drive with millions of users," Deep says. "This is the mainstream solution."