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50 Independent Music Labels Endorse Liquid Audio

More than 50 independent music labels ("indies") have signed on with Liquid Audio, the leading provider of music downloads over the Internet. The announcement was made March 19 at South by Southwest (SXSW), an annual music and media conference in Austin, Texas.

Labels that have committed to Liquid Audio's technology include 911 Entertainment, Aegean Records, Art & Soul, Ark 21, PopMafia, Dedicated Records, Rounder Records, Twin/Tone Records, Razor & Tie Entertainment, and STV Sessions. All are participants in Liquid Audio's Indie 1000 program, which was begun last year.

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Revel Reveals All to <I>Stereophile</I> Scribes

Three-dimensional modeling, 4-pi anechoic chambers, and laser inteferometry were but a few of the industrial marvels revealed in early March to a group of Stereophile and Stereophile Guide to Home Theater scribes. The group convened Tuesday, March 7, at Revel headquarters in the massive Harman International complex in Northridge, California, for an inside view of the company's research, development, and manufacturing operations, organized and led by Madrigal president Mark Glazier. Madrigal is Harman's Middletown, Connecticut-based high-end operation, with the Proceed, Mark Levinson, and…

The Corporate Music Threat

Start policing your employees' use of file sharing networks or we sue you. That was the threat from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to Fortune 1000 companies last week as the organizations announced the publication and distribution of a guide "to assist US companies in preventing copyright abuse on their computers and networks."

While some feel that online file trading is the only thing keeping the music business afloat, because it exposes listeners to new music, the RIAA clearly disagrees. The guide, titled A Corporate…

Audio Divx for the Internet?

MP3-formatted audio files are considered to be the most popular streaming technology on the Internet, but the major record labels have so far shunned the format, which doesn't offer as much security and pay-per-download options as they'd like. Several announcements last week coincided with the WebNoize conference in Los Angeles and revealed what a few of the labels are thinking.

Capitol Records and broadcast.com announced that they are joining forces to create a new, co-branded Capitol Records/broadcast.com music channel. The new channel will be hosted on the broadcast.com website and…

BMG Joins the Digital Download Club

Last week, BMG Entertainment, the music and entertainment division of Bertelsmann AG, revealed that it will join several other major labels (see previous stories EMI and Universal) by bringing its own digital downloads to the Internet this September. The company says that it will start with approximately 50 songs and 50 complete albums, to be made available via several retail Web outlets at prices ranging from $1.98 to $3.49 per song and from $9.98 to $16.98 per album.

Of the big five music companys—BMG, EMI, Universal, Sony, and Warner Bros.—only Warner has not announced an online…

Protecting the Consumer

The record companies have declared war on their customers when it comes to the fair use rights of purchased music, and it would appear that they want the government to enlist in their crusade. Previous weeks have seen South Carolina senator Ernest Hollings propose draconian copyright legislation as well as recent pro-Hollywood remarks from California's senator Diane Feinstein.

Is there anybody in government who cares about the consumer instead of corporate interests? Representative Rick Boucher (D-VA) may be one of the few on Jane Q. Public's side. Last week he said, "The RIAA's response…

Robert Moog Treated for Tumor

We were saddened to learn (via the website Boing-boing) that Dr. Robert A. Moog, inventor of the world's first real-time reconfigurable music synthesizer, is being treated for a brain tumor (glioblastoma multiforme or GBM), for which he is receiving radiation treatment and chemotherapy.

Moog is probably best known to audiophiles for the Wendy Carlos albums Switched On Bach (1968) and The Well-Tempered Synthesizer (1969), which were not the first albums to feature his Moog synthesizers, but may have been the first that exploited the instrument's potential for musical expression rather than…

<I>The Abso!ute Sound</I>'s Ann Turner passes away

We are saddened to learn of the passing, on December 13, of audio writer Ann Turner. Ann, who was diagnosed earlier in the year as suffering from clear cell carcinoma, was a stalwart of high-end audio magazine The Abso!ute Sound---Editor Harry Pearson tells me he used to refer to her as "the Aquarian War God," a phrase she liked. She was also the inspiration and the driving force behind that publication's web site, The Abso!ute Sound.

Ann's most recent writing for TAS was her review of the Audio Synthesis Passion line stage in Issue 111, entitled "Passionately Passive: a Life Style." Ann…

Audio Kudzu

In addition to fostering the exchange of audio files, peer-to-peer websites may be sharing the problems of increased legal liabilities and bandwidth drains for businesses which allow employees to access file-sharing sites from corporate networks.

This is the conclusion reached in a recent report from Internet consultant Websense. Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing was brought to the public's attention last year with the rise and fall of Napster and is generally defined as individuals' use of the Internet to share resources such as hard drives and processing cycles among their computers and other…

Cello Electronics on Comeback Trail, Says Former VP

Cello, one of high-end audio's most prestigious names, is being revived by one of its former executives. Jim McCullough, who served as the brand's last vice president of international business development, has formed a new company, Matthew James LLC, which will make and market Cello electronics.

The manufacture and marketing of Cello products was halted in April 2000, after principals of parent company Cello Technologies, Inc. decided they could no longer operate at an acceptable level of profitability. The previous year, the company had made an ambitious expansion with seven Cello…