PC World - Selling music legally online in Europe got a whole lot easier Tuesday, when French royalties-collecting agency SACEM agreed in principle to relinquish its tight grip on the handling of royalties for artists based in France.

Reuters - Apple's iTunes online music store may reach more customers throughout Europe after the body tasked with collecting artist royalties in France agreed to allow counterparts elsewhere to license its catalog.

AP - Mel Gibson and his girlfriend, Russian musician Oksana Grigorieva, are expecting a baby, only six weeks after his wife filed for divorce.

AP - EU antitrust regulators told the music industry Tuesday to move quickly and change licenses that currently restrict online music stores such as iTunes from offering the same songs for sale across Europe.

NewsFactor - Apple may be planning to expand from its smartphone, MacBook and music players by bringing its own netbook into the market. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company is preparing to release a netbook, a small portable laptop computer designed for wireless communication and Internet access, according to one vocal Piper Jaffray managing director and senior research analyst, Gene Munster.

AP - President Nicolas Sarkozy's governing party rejoiced when it muscled one of his pet projects through the French parliament: an unprecedented law to cut the Internet connections of people who repeatedly download music and movies illegally.

PC World - Services, such as maps and music downloads, will dictate how consumers select their mobile phones, and hardware will adapt to meet this trend, said Tero Ojanper#228;, Nokia's executive vice president of services.

AFP - Four music industry giants want heavy fines imposed on the three founders of The Pirate Bay filesharing website as long it keeps running, the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter reported Tuesday.

AP - Recording companies went to court Tuesday claiming euro13 million ($17.5 million) from a Spaniard they accuse of profiting from computer programs he designed to allow free music downloads over the Internet.

NewsFactor - Napster moved to transform itself again on Monday. The digital-music company slashed the price of its online streaming music service to less than half price.