This summer's highly anticipated release hasn't been Tomb Raider or Pearl Harbor, but Napster's new membership service.

And even though the Redwood City, Calif.-based Internet song-swapping service has yet to announce a launch date any more ambiguous than "later this summer," there are signs that something will happen soon.

The latest information being leaked out of the Napster camp is that the company is pairing with Los Angeles-based Playmedia Systems to create a new secure music file format.

"What's new is that the music files are in a special file format - the .nap," says PlayMedia chairman and CEO Brian Litman.

The new file format is expected to let Napster have final say on who has access to its files and under what conditions. The company's new service will still allow for the traditional sharing of MP3 files. Litman says he doesn't expect Napster users will have to encode their files any differently than before.

"We have been working hard with engineers from Napster and Bertelsmann," says Litman. "I think this does nothing short of re-confirming Napster's commitment to its community and its summer launch."

Playmedia, the company that put the "AMP" in AOL's Winamp, has worked with Napster before. Napster's media players have been using Playmedia's popular AMP technology since the Beta 8 version was released in December 2000. Playmedia's security technology is also being used by DMX and AEI to use the Internet as a way to program and pump background music into some well-known retail stores instead of using mail order CDs or tapes.

"Their (PlayMedia's) technologies and consulting services for playback and advanced file security have been instrumental in helping us build a new Napster service," says Napster interim CEO Hank Barry.

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AMP is also used in other applications such as CD-ROMs, online games, music education applications and digital music jukeboxes. The technology works on Microsoft Windows, Linux, Mac, Symbian QNX, and VxWorks operating systems and can be used in portable electronics devices and set-top boxes. Napster will still have final say on where they will allow the new file format to be played.

A California court still holds the key to when Napster's files can be traded. Under a recent decision by U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel , Napster must stay offline until it can block 100 percent of the copyrighted songs floating around its system.