On Thursday, July 25, the ACLU filed a federal lawsuit in Boston on behalf of a 22-year-old computer programmer and recent Harvard graduate, Ben Edelman, who has done considerable research into the effectiveness of Internet filtering…
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The war over digital copyright protection intensified in late July, when the American Civil Liberties Union launched a legal attack against the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Almost simultaneously, a congressman from Southern California introduced a bill that would give copyright holders the right to hack computers owned by suspected copyright violators.
I am sad to say that Larry Archibald's "The Final Word" column in the November issue, posted this week in this website's "Archives" section, is his last. When Larry, Stereophile's publisher emeritus, resigned from his salaried position at Emap Petersen at the end of June, he and I had envisaged him continuing to contribute "The Final Word" to the magazine.
This has not proved possible, so I will take this opportunity to thank Larry for luring me from the UK to the US in 1986, and for having allowed me the editorial freedom to say what I thought needed to be said and to publish what I…
It's still too early in the game to guess what a profitable music download business might look like, but it's clear that it won't involve highly restricted access—or high prices.
Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group both acknowledged this marketplace reality in early June, announcing price reductions for tunes downloaded on the Internet. This summer, UMG, in partnership with Liquid Audio, will offer single tracks for 99 cents each, and full albums for $9.99—with the capability of transfer to MP3 players and other portable devices. Sony will drop its price per track to $1.49…
Most manufacturers who advertise in Stereophile hype an exquisite blend of old world craftsmanship and high technology. The gambit is particularly common in the business of selling loudspeakers, where ad copy pushes the sonic advantages of the latest ultra-stiff, indestructible, and nearly weightless cone materials such as Kevlar, carbon-fiber, anodized aluminum, or platinum-plated titanium.
Here in Marin County, California, the quest for better sound takes a more organic approach. Under the unofficial direction of charismatic loudspeaker guru John Harrison, a growing group of musicians is…
Over the past year, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has made significant headway in its multi-front war against commercial piracy, according to a detailed report issued by the trade group October 21.
Among the biggest successes were efforts to shut down illicit commercial disc replicators. In the first six months of 2003, authorities seized approximately 2.5 million counterfeit discs or pirated CD-Rs, up 18.1% from the 2.1 million seizures reported at mid-year 2002. According to the New York Police Department, it seized 125,000 counterfeit discs in the first six…
The US Senate has gotten serious about going after file sharers. On Friday, June 25, senators approved legislation that would allow the Justice Department to impose heavy civil penalties on people found to have shared and/or downloaded copyrighted material over the Internet.
The PIRATE Act (Protecting Intellectual Rights Against Theft and Expropriation Act) passed on a unanimous voice vote, according to reports from Washington. If approved by both houses of Congress and signed into law by President Bush, the legislation would move the legal battle against file sharing from criminal to civil…
Both Macrovision and Sunncomm have been releasing technologies aimed at restricting how consumers can use their legally purchased music and movies. Add Dynamic Media Solutions to the pack.
The Israeli company announced last week that it has developed a "novel technology" that, it claims, will provide a "far-reaching copy protection solution for current and next-generation optical media, which include CD/DVD, CD/DVD recordable, and DVD-Video media." DMS says its approach is "fully compatible with today's CD/DVD players and drivers, and is extremely cost effective." The company also says that…
Tube fans might want to get their passports in order. We've received word that the European Triode Festival 2004 (ETF.04) will take place in Langenargen, Germany in December. The festival, which describes itself as "a gathering of tube audio hobbyists and professionals," says it will host participants from all over the world.
The European Triode Festival (formerly Århus Triode Festival) claims to be Europe's leading event for do-it-yourselfers in audio, and notes that last year's show saw participants from around the planet, including Germany, Switzerland, Austria, France, Poland, the…
And then there were four: Sony's music division and German media company Bertelsmann, parent of the BMG record label, have decided that they've got a better chance under one roof. Last week, the two companies revealed that they will merge their music divisions into a new company called Sony BMG.
The merger follows the resignation last month of Bertelsmann board chairman Gerd Schulte-Hillen, who opposed the deal. The Sony BMG announcement also comes nine days after Edgar M. Bronfman and his son Edgar Bronfman, Jr. officially resigned from Vivendi Universal's board of directors following an…
Blaming a falloff in CD sales on the popularity of CD burners, BMG Germany recently issued approximately 100,000 copy-protected discs in an attempt to thwart the problem—and had to take a substantial portion of them back because consumers said the discs wouldn't perform in car players and in some home audio systems.
The discs were put out for sale in German music stores the last week of January, and about 4% of them bounced back almost immediately, with complaints from customers. "The consumers started getting back saying it doesn't play on car CD players and several types of normal…