plus: "Is there a doctor of humanities in the arena?" Napster's new filtering technology. Rolling Stone on Destiny's Child [ tickets ].

A Los Angeles law firm has filed a $40 million, copyright-infringement lawsuit against MP3.com, Inc., on behalf of songwriters Randy Newman [ tickets ], Tom Waits [ tickets ] and Ann and Nancy Wilson of the band Heart [ tickets ].

According to a press release, the suit "alleges that MP3.com willfully infringed upon the copyrights in hundreds of songs written by these artists when MP3.com copied tens of thousands of compact discs onto its computer servers as part of the My.MP3 service."

The My.MP3 service allows subscribers to store CDs in MP3 format and listen to them from personal computers. Last August, Bloomberg News reported that MP3.com's CEO Michael Robertson admitted that subscribers could download files from the site and distribute them.

Last year, the five major record labels sued MP3.com for copyright infringement. Universal took the case to trial, winning a $53 million award, while the others settled for undisclosed amounts. Click here to read about that.

Tim McGraw [ tickets ] will receive an honorary doctorate in humanities from the University of Louisiana-Monroe on Saturday (5/12), Billboard.com reported.

Well, hell, we want one, then.

On Sunday (5/6), Napster began using the new screening technology that identifies the sonic properties of a copyrighted song and can prevent someone from posting it if the label has listed it as off-limits.

You know Destiny's Child's song "Jumpin' Jumpin'"? We were somewhat shocked when we first heard it, as we couldn't think of any group that sang about infidelity with as much importunate joy (though there probably is one somewhere).

So we read Rolling Stone's recent cover story on the band, and learned that the members would have been teenagers when they recorded the song, and that they have one of those all-powerful disciplinarian father-managers in charge of their career, who has been pushing them since they were 12 or something and who presumably approves their skanky outfits.

We mention this as a small antidote to Rolling Stone's typically celebratory propaganda, in which the father simply helps the girls along toward "their" goal, and in which their devout religious faith is presented without comment--not that they're not sincere in their faith, but when someone starts letting reporters into their children's religious life, that person is not to be trusted. (The Stone article does provide the service of reminding folks that Destiny's Child played at Bush's inauguration.)

And if you are religious, you might want to pray that the girls' manager is tending honestly and competently to their finances so that they don't end up like ____________ (FILL IN THE BLANK).