Russia has a new organization that will promote a legitimate music industry and fight industrial piracy, according to mid-May reports from the <A HREF="http://www.ifpi.org">International Federation of Phonographic Industries</A>.
<A HREF="http://www.napster.com">Napster</A> has been saved from what appeared to be certain death. A last-minute deal struck by German media conglomerate <A HREF="http://www.bertelsmann.de">Bertelsmann AG</A> will revive the company, which was reportedly near bankruptcy. It's the end of a long-running soap opera and the beginning of a new era for the company that began the audio file-sharing phenomenon.
Internet audio file-sharing service <A HREF="http://www.kazaa.com">Kazaa</A> is the music industry's pariah—and it wants artists to get paid for their work.
Paul Wilbur Klipsch, legendary inventor and engineer from America's "golden age of audio," died May 5. The founder of <A HREF="http://www.klipsch.com">Klipsch Audio Technologies</A> was 98.
Otis Blackwell, the prolific songwriter who helped propel the careers of Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis, died Wednesday, May 9 in Nashville. The cause of death was an apparent heart attack, according to a spokesman for St. Thomas Hospital. Blackwell was 70.
The <A HREF="http://www.riaa.com">Recording Industry Association of America</A> (RIAA) has requested increased federal funding for the ongoing struggle against the pirating of recorded music. On Tuesday, April 23, the organization's executives asked the US House of Representatives' Appropriations Committee for more money to pursue pirates. Such allocations come directly from tax revenues, according to reports from Washington.
Where Pogs and Pokemon once ruled, <A HREF="http://www.tigertoys.com/newhitclips/">HitClips</A> have taken over. HitClips are hot. So hot, in fact, that <A HREF="http://www.hasbro.com">Hasbro Incorporated</A>'s Tiger Electronics division has sold more than 20 million of them at $3.99 each. That's $80 million gross on a single product, a figure that probably no high-end audio company has ever reached.
For <A HREF="http://www.vivendi.com">Vivendi Universal SA</A>, when it rains, it pours. Just two weeks after chief executive Jean-Marie Messier ousted Pierre Lescure, the president of France's <A HREF="http://www.canalplus.fr">Canal Plus</A> television company—an event that caused demonstrations in the streets of Paris and paroxysms of nationalistic fervor among France's 18 presidential candidates—a complicated stock deal got vastly more complicated, resulting in a $250 million payment due to A&M Records founders Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss.
<A HREF="http://www.naras.org">National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences</A> (NARAS) president C. Michael Greene has abruptly resigned in the wake of sexual harassment allegations by female executives at the nonprofit organization, which produces the annual Grammy Music Awards show.
By several common measures, the American economy appears to be emerging from its first recession in a decade. On Friday, April 26, the US Commerce Department reported economic growth of 5.8% (annual rate) for the first quarter. Gross domestic product (GDP), generally considered the broadest indicator of the economy's health, was the strongest since the final quarter of 1999. The 5.8% rate is especially encouraging in view of the 1.7% rate during the fourth quarter of 2001. The US Labor Department also reported a decline in first-time applications for unemployment benefits during the last week of April.