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…
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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.
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…
Stereophile started publishing its "Recording of the Month" feature in its December 1992 issue, with the late Igor Kipnis's rave review of Keith Jarrett performing Shostakovich's 24 Preludes and Fugues.
Every "Recording of the Month" since December 1992 is available in this website's free archives. However, the magazine has been publishing LP and CD reviews since it was founded, so starting today and continuing the first Monday of every month, I am nominating a review from an early issue of Stereophile as that issue's "Recording of the Month" and posting it in the archives.
Today'…
As it has for the last 11 years, The Cable Company, along with many of its vendors, is dedicating August to help some of "the poorest people in the most ravaged regions of the world."
Each year CARE helps The Cable Company line up an additional matching grant of at least 5:1 (and as much as 10:1 in the past) from a large donor for its total contributions. When The Cable Company contributes 5% of a sale (all sales) in August, and this is matched by one of the participating vendors, this 10% total donation also receives another five times this amount in matching funds.
Therefore,…
At CES 2007, Bill Gates announced that Microsoft was developing a Windows® Home Server, saying, "As computers and digital media become more and more central to family life, we need better ways to organize, share, and protect digital content and information at home. Windows Home Server makes it easy for families to save, protect and access digital memories and experiences, so they can focus on using technology to organize their day-to-day lives, explore their interests, and share their memories with the people they care about."
Gates announced that HP would partner with Microsoft to…
Universal Music Group CEO Doug Morris isn't exactly a fan of portable digital players—in November 2006, he referred to them as "just repositories for stolen music." Yet, on August 9, UMG announced that it would offer at least some of its artists' music as MP3 files without digital rights management (DRM) on RealNetworks, Wal-Mart, Amazon, Rhapsody, PureTracks, Transworld, and artists' own websites. Everywhere, that is, except on Apple's iTunes Store, where UMG files will have Apple's FairPlay DRM installed.
How come? Depends on who you ask. In its announcement, UMG spun the move as a "six…
XM/Sirius: Did we just hear the other shoe drop on the XM Satellite Radio/Sirius Satellite Radio merger? On July 25, XM founder and CEO Hugh Panero announced he would leave the company in August. The company named COO Nate Davis president and interim CEO.
At the time, many industry observers opined that the move signaled that the long-simmering merger between the satellite radio rivals might be approaching reality—especially since the merger included active roles for Davis and Sirius CEO Mel Karmazin, but not Panero. Other experts speculated that XM's lackluster second quarter…