Following in the footsteps of Apple’s iTunes media store, Amazon.com, one of the largest online retailers of music, is opening an online music outlet to sell digital files without copy protection. The move could have implications for TV shows being sold online as well.

Amazon plans to sell songs that can be copied without restriction to any personal computer, mobile phone or music player, including Apple’s iPod.

The initiative was widely seen as another nail in the coffin of digital rights management (DRM) for music files. Success in the music industry could lead to similar pressure on television, video and motion pictures to drop copy protection as well.

Amazon announced last week that it would add the music download store to its Web site this year. It will sell songs and albums in the unrestricted MP3 format, a generic file type that will play on virtually all media players regardless of brand or type.

The service, Amazon said, will include music from EMI and about 12,000 independent music companies that have chosen not to use copy protection software.

If the unprotected tracks from Apple and Amazon prove popular, music executives said the other major labels would feel pressure to follow EMI’s example.

The Smashing Pumpkins have announced two sets of residency gigs: nine shows at the Orange Peel in Asheville, N.C., (June 23, 24, 26, 27, 29, 30 and July 2, 3, and 5) plus eight shows at the Fillmore in San Francisco (July 22, 24, 25, 27, 28, 30 and 31 and August 1).

The band will vary set lists from night to night, performing songs from the upcoming album Zeitgeist, Pumpkins classics, plus unreleased material and tunes written the day of the show. The concerts are designed to give fans a glimpse into the Pumpkins’ creative process.

San Francisco dates mark the first time the band has played The Fillmore since April 1994. The Asheville shows mark the first time the Pumpkins will have played a residency since their four gigs at the Double Door in Chicago in 1994, before the release of Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness.

Fans attending the Fillmore and Orange Peel shows are invited to capture the concerts with audio and video recorders.

General admission tickets for these all-ages shows go on sale Sunday, May 20. The San Francisco tickets ($25 each) and will be available at 10 a.m. Pacific time via www.ticketmaster.com and www.livenation.com. For the Asheville show, tickets ($20 each) will go on sale at 1 p.m. Eastern at www.theorangepeel.net and www.ticketweb.com. Tickets for both shows will be available through Internet only and will not be sold at the box offices, charge-by-phone or ticket outlets.

There is a two-ticket limit per person and the purchaser must pick up tickets at the box office night-of-show only. Zeitgeist is set for release July 10 and is Billy Corgan & Co.’s first album of new material since 2000’s Machina/The Machines of God and the free, digital-only release Machina II/The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music. The band’s world tour gets under way May 22 in Paris.

Kelly Clarkson, who recently unveiled dates and cities for a summer tour, has confirmed venues for the run.

She is also slated to appear at the July 7 Live Earth concert at East Rutherford, NJ’s Giants Stadium, which takes place just a few days before the official start of her tour. The outing is scheduled to hit more than 35 cities and run until late September; full details are included below.

“This will be the biggest tour I’ve ever done,” Clarkson said in a press release. “It’s all about the music-we’re bringing extra musicians and we’ll be making an arena environment intimate because I want the fans to be part of the show! And you’ll hear all your favorite hits too!”

Clarkson will be backing her forthcoming album, “My December,” due July 24. It follows her 2004 smash “Breakaway,” and is her third studio album since triumphing on the first season of “American Idol” in 2002. “Breakaway” earned Clarkson a Grammy award for Best Pop Vocal Album at last year’s awards ceremony. She also picked up a trophy in the Best Female Pop Vocal Performance category for the album’s hit single, “Since U Been Gone.”

“Breakaway” has sold more than 5 million copies in the US, according to her publicist.