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Music sales over the past two years have increased almost everywhere except near college campuses, according to a recent study undertaken by Reciprocal">http://www.reciprocal.com/">Reciprocal, Inc., a digital-rights management company. The first quarter of 2000 showed a 12% rise in overall music sales compared to the same period in 1998—except at stores located within five miles of a college campus. Reciprocal reached its conclusions based on figures supplied by sales-tracking organization Soundscan">http://wallofsound.go.com/charts/index.html/">Soundscan, Inc.

Will the European Union extend copyright protection to new digital media? That question was still unresolved Friday, May 26, after extended talks between ministers of the EU's 15 member nations failed to produce a coherent result. Meeting in Brussels, the ministers have been discussing how best to protect the interests of copyright holders while allowing consumers adequate leeway to use and reproduce legally purchased music, movies, video, and computer software.

When we received notice several days ago from Panasonichttp://www.panasonic.com">Panasonic; that the company was finally releasing its DVD-Audio players next month, we filed the press release for a couple of days to see if it would last the week (see previous">http://www.stereophile.com/news/10620/">previous story). Apparently, the products are still a go. Panasonic says it will offer a full line of DVD-Audio/Video models under both the Panasonic and Technics brand names, with the first units arriving in stores in July. As previously">http://www.stereophile.com/news/10509/">previously announced back in August 1999, the Panasonic DVD-A7 will have a suggested retail price of $999.95, and the Technics DVD-A10 will have an SRP of $1199.95.

Jonathan Scull stuffs as many "relatively inexpensive" building tweaks as he can fit into "Fine">http://www.stereophile.com//finetunes/230/">"Fine Tunes" #21. Find out about basic room and electrical treatments on the relative cheap.

In an effort to smooth the way for websites that wish to legally reproduce copyrighted music, BMIhttp://www.bmi.com">BMI; announced last week that it has now become the world's largest online digital rights management company with the launch of its Digital Licensing Center (DLC) and "Klick-Thru" online copyright licensing system. The company says that the DLC is intended to help Internet companies digitally obtain a music-performance license through BMI.com, allowing them to publicly "perform" any of BMI's 4.5 million copyrighted works from its 250,000 songwriters, composers, and music publishers.

The gold rush is on in the wake of a Federal">http://www.ftc.gov/">Federal Trade Commission decision effectively ending the music industry's policy of minimum advertised pricing (MAP) on compact discs. Attorneys in California and New York wasted no time in filing class-action lawsuits against the music industry's major conglomerates, following the FTC's">http://www.stereophile.com/news/10744/">FTC's announcement May 10 that it had reached a negotiated settlement with them over a longstanding noncompetitive pricing policy.

The Consumer">http://www.ce.org">Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) reports that factory-to-dealer sales of audio products soared in March, with dollar volume increasing by 14% over March 1999, to a total of more than $721 million. According to the CEA, sales in the first quarter of this year were 10% ahead of first-quarter 1999, at approximately $1.75 billion.