In one corner: UMG/Vivendi, the world's largest music company, said by Billboard to sell one out of every three new CDs sold. In the other corner: Apple's iTunes store, now reckoned to be the third largest music retailer in the US, responsible for a 15% market share.
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The New York Times reported on July 2 that Universal Music Group notified Apple that it will not renew its annual contract to sell music through the iTunes Store, choosing instead to sell music to Apple "at will," meaning it could withdraw its wares with little notice. Executives of both companies declined to comment.
Treasured as much for her bubbling personality and administrative acumen as for her extraordinary voice, coloratura soprano Beverly Sills died of lung cancer on July 2. One of the finest high-flying sopranos of the latter 20th century, she leaves behind a rich legacy of recordings and an opera scene revitalized by her tireless efforts on behalf of American singers.
To lovers of the human voice, there was no one like Sills in her prime. That prime was relatively brief, extending from her assumption of the title role in New York City Opera's production of Douglas Moore's The Ballad…
As we reported last March, Ken Kreisel declared bankruptcy, closing M&K Sound after 34 years of operation. Last week, the Great American Group, which, according to its website, "provides asset management, disposition, and financial services," announced that it would offer M&K's $3 million in assets at auction on July 19.
The auction will be webcast in addition to being live at M&K's 9207 Eaton Avenue address in Chatsworth, CA. On July 18, the premises will be open for inspection. Great American says it will be auctioning over $350,000 in finished merchandise and approximately…
Tweeter Home Entertainment Group, Inc., whch declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy on June 11, accepted a $38 million bid for a "going concern" acquisition from Schultze Asset Management, a firm specializing in "distressed positions."
Tweeter had also received a $10 million bid for its 18.75% share of Tivoli from Whippoorwill Associates, Inc. and Bay Harbour Management on June 26. The Schultze bid includes that stake, as well as all of Tweeter's business operations and assets. In its "going concern" bid, Schultze has agreed to keep all 103 outlets open and is retaining the Tweeter management…
Things looked grim for Internet radio late last week. On July 11, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals declined to delay the increase in digital performance royalties the Copyright Royalty Board imposed last March. The new fees were scheduled to go into effect on July 15, retroactive to the beginning of 2006.
On July 12, SoundExchange, the RIAA's non-profit royalty collecting agency, published a press release celebrating its legal victory. "We are pleased by this decision, which vividly demonstrates that the Copyright Royalty Judges got it right when they set royalty rates and terms for the…
That harmonious accord between SoundExchange and the Digital Media Association (DiMA) on webcasting that we reported last week? Apparently not so harmonious—and possibly not even an accord.
The agreement as we reported it came about in a closed session of the House Commerce Committee's Telecommunications and Internet Subcommittee. It set a cap on royalty payments for small webstreams and required large webcasters to become more compliant in reporting what they have broadcast. That seemed like a reasonable first step, but it seems there was also a poison pill in the form of an additional…
Hollywood Records, part of Walt Disney Co., announced that it will offer a new CD format it calls CDVU+ (CD view plus). In addition to traditional CD content, CDVU+ will offer lyrics, digital magazine articles, band photos, guitar lessons, and other features that will "build loyalty." Hollywood Records senior vice-president Ken Bunt said the company chose an enhanced CD format rather than a file-based format because "we really believe if you're going to give consumers what they want, we should do it in a way they're used to."
"While the CD is still the primary means by which people…
Back in the bad old pioneer days of high fidelity, the 1960s and early 1970s, amplifier manufacturers embarked on a specifications war, claiming ever lower percentages of total harmonic distortion. But, as J. Gordon Holt presciently pointed out in the 1960s, without reference to the spectrum of the distortion harmonics, the actual percentage was not in itself a reliable indicator of an amplifier's sound quality. And as those early low-THD models had distortion spectra that were heavily biased toward the sonically objectionable fifth, seventh, and ninth harmonics, and suffered from other…
Recently we received an SOS from fearless leader John Atkinson. Dolby is staging a press event on an evening I have a schedule conflict, he wrote. Could you attend in my stead? As obligations go, attending an industry dinner is not exactly the most onerous task going—alcohol is frequently served (the best way to guarantee the press shows up) and you get to hang out with your fellow A/V journalists, an admittedly mixed blessing. What is not assured is that there will actually be news.
Nevertheless, I donned the tropic casual attire required for a mid-July trek across Manhattan and showed…
In audio, there's brand loyalty and then there's McIntosh loyalty. Part of that, of course, is that the manufacturer's black glass face panels and glowing blue meters have become audio icons that generations of audiophiles have grown up lusting after, but part of it is undoubtedly because McIntosh is so very good at fostering a sense of community.
A case in point—and for many of us of a certain age, a rite of passage—were McIntosh's legendary "amplifier clinics" (1962–1991), where company technicians (like as not, the late David H. O'Brien) set up shop in hi-fi stores and tested any…