LATEST ADDITIONS

With <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/10793/">Napster</A&gt; as the little red devil with a pitchfork prodding them on, the third-largest record company in the world, <A HREF="http://www.emigroup.com">EMI</A&gt;, making good on its <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/10745/">earlier announcement</A>, last week became the first major label to begin releasing music online. In a move the company hopes will silence the critics who say that Napster has become successful because the big labels have provided no Web-based alternatives, EMI put over 100 albums and 40 singles online "through all the normal retail websites."

<I>Who the heck </I>is<I> this guy? Is he David Johansen, the lipstick-wearing front man of the seminal glam-rock, proto-punk New York Dolls? Is he Buster Poindexter, the pompadoured and tuxedoed "Hot, Hot, Hot" soca stylist? Is he a lounge singer? A Latin artist? Johansen is all of the above, having achieved success in each incarnation.</I>

As often as not, it ain't the heat—it's the stupidity. When confronted by the smattering of self-referential dilettantes, acrimonious Internut wannabes, and obsessive-compulsive types who suck the air out of our aural fun-house, I find myself overcome with the desire to program my phaser for CLIP.

Now that SACD and DVD-Audio players are available, it's time to hear your predictions for the new formats.

Federal courts long ago established that music fans have certain "fair use" rights when it comes to making copies of recordings they own. They can transfer recordings from one format to another&mdash;such as from LP to cassette tape or from CD to MiniDisc&mdash;and they can share those recordings with others, provided that the results are only for private, noncommercial use.

E<I>ditor's Note: <A HREF="http://www.richardhess.com">Richard Hess</A> has recently spent time remastering several CDs and wrote about the experience for an engineering newsgroup. We think </I>Stereophile<I>'s online readers will find his comments about the process interesting.</I>

Information released last week by <A HREF="http://www.intelectmt.com">NPD Intelect</A> reveals eye-opening statistics about digital audio recorder formats. The numbers show that, from January to May 2000, unit shares of digital recording sales in retail stores were 30.8% for CD recorders (not including computer-based systems), 40.9% for MiniDisc recorders, and 28.3% for MP3 recording devices (also not including computer-based systems).