News

John Mitchell, an outside counsel for the National Association of Recording Merchandisers (NARM), warns that Florida and Utah have passed second-hand goods legislation (familiarly known as "pawn-shop laws") that could make the buying and selling of used CDs extremely unprofitable for stores and inconvenient for consumers trying to unload music they no longer wish to own.

It began with an email from reader Ed Hoffman. "I was looking for a Pass Labs dealer and found out that Pass Labs has dumped all of their dealers around the country. Do you have any information about what is going on?"

Internet radio streams have received a reprieve from the US Copyright Review Board (CRB) decision to restructure">http://stereophile.com/news/042307net/">restructure the royalty fees for the format. In March, the CRB established fees, effective retroactively to the beginning of 2006, that would be ramped up each year through 2010, with a cost of 0.08¢ per performance (per listener) in 2006, going up to 0.11¢ in 2007; 0.14¢ in 2008; 0.18¢ in 2009; and 0.19¢ in 2010.

"Slava" has died. The great Russian cellist, known as much for his defiance of the Soviet oligarchy as for the more than 170 compositions dedicated to him, had been hospitalized in Paris at the end of January, but chose to fly to Moscow shortly thereafter to spend his last months in his beloved homeland. He is survived, not only by his two daughters and his wife and frequent collaborator, the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya, but also by the huge number of recordings that attest to his eloquence.

Harman International Industries, Inc has agreed to be acquired by Goldman Sachs Capital Partners (GSCP) and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR) for a price of $120 per share (a total near $8 billion). The share price represents what Bloomberg.com characterized as a 17% premium over its price one day earlier. The company's stock had been increasing in value, having risen by about 2.6% since the beginning of 2007, but beginning April 18, the stock began to surge, "indicating some investors anticipated the buyout," according to Bloomberg. John Rogers, a Citigroup analyst, had predicted in February that Harman was choice for acquisition, estimating that private equity buyers could pay a premium of 20% over its share price and still see annual returns of 20%.

The Internet audio forum Head-Fihttp://www.head-fi.org/forums">Head-Fi; is one of the few places on the Web where you can hang out with truly passionate audiophiles and not come away despairing at the state of current public discourse. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that Head-Fi's regional and national meets have that same sense of relaxed solidarity. But what always strikes me at these events, such as the national Head-Fest 2007 get-together in San Jose on April 21 and 22, is just how darned sociable Head-Fiers are, considering they are celebrating an activity that is so intensely solitary.

On April 16, the US Copyright Review Board (CRB) denied an appeal of its decision to restructure the royalty fees for Internet radio. As we reportedhttp://stereophile.com/news/031907internet/">reported;, independent Internet broadcasters and the NPR called it a "stunning, damaging decision," predicting that it would price small operators and public broadcasting, which do not receive widespread commercial underwriting, out of business.