Barry Willis

Never content to rest on its laurels, Texas Instruments continues to push the boundaries of chip performance, not only in the digital and video realms, but in the analog audio domain as well.

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 Senator Kevin Murray (D-Culver City), a longtime advocate for accounting reform in the recording industry.

Circuit City turnaround: After a long slump, the Richmond, VA–based retail chain is finally on an upswing. The company reported a 7% increase in sales for the first fiscal quarter, ended May 31—a total of $2.1 billion. Same-store sales rose 6.4%. The total included $21.5 million in revenue from InterTan, a group of Canadian stores acquired by Circuit City on May 12. Circuit City's strongest product categories were flat-panel TVs, digital cameras, computer gear, and portable audio players.

RIAA lawsuits continue: Each month the recording industry launches a few hundred more lawsuits against suspected file-swappers, with such tedious regularity that we could simply re-run the previous month's news with a new figure inserted. This time around, the Recording Industry Association of America announced May 24 that it had filed suit against 493 more people believed to have illegally shared music over the Internet. Known only by their screen names and IP addresses, the unnamed defendants are subscribers with Internet service providers in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, New Jersey, New York, Minnesota, Missouri, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, and Texas. Unlike recent suits, none of the current crop involves college students or university networks. To date approximately 3000 people have been sued by the music industry; 486 have settled, paying damages that averaged $3000 each.