On September 30, five of the largest American distributors of recorded music—Bertelsmann Music Group, EMI Music Distribution, Warner-Elektra-Atlantic Corporation, Sony Music Entertainment, and Universal Music Group—and three large music retailers (Trans World Entertainment, Tower Records, and Musicland Stores, a unit of Best Buy Co., Inc.) agreed to settle a long-running price-fixing case,…
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A "victory for consumers" may be a windfall for class-action attorneys and 41 states participating in a price-fixing case against the music industry. Some schools and public libraries may also benefit.
If you're an audiophile, the words "hearing loss" are bound to strike terror into your heart. Of course, many of us aren't preternaturally acute—and all of us lose some high-frequency sensitivity as we age—but there's no excuse for not taking care of what you've got. When it comes to hearing, more is always better.
The big thing to guard against is repeated and prolonged exposure to loud noises. Your ears and tympanic membranes make no distinction between a lawn mower and Wilco, so this includes amplified music, headphone listening, club going, and chain sawing—or even listening to Mozart,…
It's a brave new audio world: Coinciding with last week's release of Medeski, Martin & Wood's latest work, The Dropper, to retailers' shelves as a polycarbonate-and-aluminum CD, Liquid Audio announced that the title was simultaneously being made available as a full-album digital download. Liquid reports that this is the first time a Blue Note title has been released in a digital format at the same time as its physical release.
Liquid says that fans with access to the Internet can purchase The Dropper online for $15.99 by visiting any of the 900 participating retail Web sites in the…
Last year, Internet commerce schemes were the darlings of venture capitalists and small investors alike. For months, it seemed that almost any business plan, no matter how half-baked, could attract millions of dollars with the simple mention of "online retail sales"—otherwise known as "e-commerce" or "e-tailing."
The mood began to change late last fall when e-commerce startups discovered it was becoming increasingly difficult to secure financing for their sometimes ill-conceived ventures, which offered everything from groceries and auto parts to sporting goods and electronics for sale at…
Artists' audit rights: The California Assembly is scheduled to vote Tuesday, June 15 on a revised bill that would give recording artists the right to audit companies to ensure proper royalty payments. The bill would also give them the right to hire auditors on a contingency fee basis, and to initiate group audits, a provision that could make audits a class action issue. The proposed legislation is the result of talks between the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), and several state legislators, in particular State…
During the first week of February, major record labels quietly launched small-scale test marketing of a new hybrid disc that combines a standard CD on one side with a DVD on the other.
The labels are testing consumer acceptance of the format with about a dozen music titles placed in record stores in Seattle and Boston. Priced at $18.99 each—more than most CDs but less than most DVDs—the aptly-named "DualDiscs" feature standard Red Book 44.1kHz/16-bit two-channel audio on the CD side and a variety of DVD content on the other, including "graphics, song lyrics, web links, photos, DVD-video,…
Ibrahim Ferrer, one of the best-known practitioners of the Cuban vocal music known as son, died in Havana on August 6 of multiple organ failure. He had returned, ill, from a European tour several days previously, and then been hospitalized.
Ferrer was born at a dance in a Santiago social club in 1927, when his mother unexpectedly went into early labor. He began singing professionally at 14. In the 1950s, he was a popular singer, fronting several well-known Cuban bands, such as that of Benny More and Orquestra de Chepin. After the Revolution, however, traditional Cuban music was not promoted…
In an effort to make computers more useful as audio systems, MusicMatch and Xing Technology recently announced MusicMatch Jukebox, a digital audio management software program for the consumer market.
According to the companies, MusicMatch Jukebox ($29.99) allows users to build collections of "CD-quality" digital music on their PCs, consisting of music downloaded over the Internet and tracks recorded from music CDs. Customers can use the program to organize the files into a digital audio database on their PC, and use it to create customized play lists. The Jukebox music can be played…
Despite the best efforts of Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan to extend an unprecedented economic boom, the nation's economy is slowing. The slowdown is causing negative repercussions in many sectors—including the music retailing business and consumer electronics manufacturing.
Almost coincident with inventory and workforce cutbacks initiated by Amazon.com, the Internet's most prominent sales site, music retailer CDnow announced that it will eliminate 55 jobs in its advertising sales force, a 12% reduction. The belt-tightening is part of a general restructuring by the music…
Recorded music was a $14.3 billion business in the United States last year, according to the newly published 2000 Consumer Profile from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Released March 13, the report details who music buyers are, what they are buying, and how much they are spending.
Rock still dominates the market, according to the report, with more than 25% of music buyers identifying themselves as rock fans. The genre has long been the industry's top seller, but the rap/hip hop genre has made big gains recently, overtaking Country music as second in popularity. A…