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In December, after months of conducting listening tests with audio professionals in the US, the Secure">http://www.sdmi.org/">Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) choose a watermarking technology from Verance">http://www.verance.com/">Verance Corporation for DVD-Audio copyright protection. Test results had indicated that Verance's system was the least detectable of the contenders under consideration.

The last week of July was a busy one for music-industry attorneys—and, by some measures, a successful one. As almost everyone in the world is aware, on Wednesday, July 26, the Recording">http://www.riaa.com/">Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) won a round in its fight against Napsterhttp://www.napster.com/">Napster;, a San Mateo, California–based software company that enables the sharing of MP3 music files over the Internet. On that day, in a US Federal court in San Francisco, Judge Marilyn Patel decreed that the widespread sharing of music using Napster was a form of wholesale copyright violation, and ordered the service shut down effective midnight on Friday, July 28. Napster, in turn, appealed and won a stay of execution two days after Judge Patel's ruling that will enable it to remain online and in business until at least mid-September.

The last week of July was a busy one for music industry attorneys, and by some measure a sucessful one. As almost everyone in the world is aware, on Wednesday, July 26, the Recording">http://www.riaa.com/">Recording Industry Association of America won a round in its fight against Napsterhttp://www.napster.com/">Napster;, a San Mateo, CA-based software company that enables the sharing of MP3 music files over the Internet. On that day, in a US Federal court in San Francisco, Judge Marilyn Patel decreed that the widespread sharing of music using Napster was a form of wholesale copyright violation, and ordered the service shut down effective Friday, July 28 at midnight. Napster appealed and won a stay of Judge Patel's injunction that will enable it to remain online and in business until at least mid-September.

For the millions of fans who search the Internet for their favorite music, one thing always required is the name of the artist or song sought. But what if you don't know exactly what you want to hear, and would rather search for the kind of music that suits your mood?

Several class-action">http://www.stereophile.com/news/10750/">class-action lawsuits have been thrown against the music industry in the wake of its admission that it engaged in a price-fixing scheme known as Minimum Advertised Pricing, or MAP. The policy arose as a response to widespread CD price wars in the early 1990s that drove prices of some CDs below $10 each, and was intended to prevent mass-market merchandisers from offering CDs below cost as lures to pull customers into stores. The MAP policy was officially discontinued after the Federal Trade Commission reached">http://www.stereophile.com/news/10744/">reached a settlement with the industry in May of this year.

Sometimes a product can take a while to reach its potential. As Jonathan Scull writes, "First, the Accuphase">http://www.stereophile.com//digitalsourcereviews/249/">Accuphase DP-75V CD player took a full two weeks to warm up and pull its act together. If anything, it was too polite, warm, and over-the-top bloomy when I first lit it up. The '75 requires a long warm-up period. But wait . . . just wait for it." When the wait was over, J-10 filed his observations in detail.

According to a new report, the number of adults going online to access music-related content has exploded in the few months, increasing 48% between December 1999 and March 2000. These numbers are based on recent findings released by market analysts Cyber">http://www.cyberdialogue.com">Cyber Dialogue, who say that "The dramatic growth in online music users can be attributed to the media's newfound obsession with Napster, Gnutella, and MP3. When combined with a marked increase in online music offerings and the proliferation of file-sharing software, the increase in demand for online music makes perfect sense."