When does cooperation become collusion? When does collusion become anti-competitive? Investigators at the US Justice Department have begun asking such questions in regard to plans by major music labels to make their wares available on the Internet.
As Larry Greenhill states in his review of the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//loudspeakerreviews/390/">MartinLogan Prodigy loudspeaker</A>, "Electrostatic speakers are my passion." But Greenhill's heard a lot of great 'stats in his time, so he was "both excited and uneasy" when a review pair of MartinLogan's latest arrived in his listening room. He needn't have worried.
Summer is traditionally the slowest time of the year for electronics retailers. July 2001 confirmed the pattern, with sales figures down significantly from previous months.
Last week, <A HREF="http://www.InterTrust.com/">InterTrust Technologies</A>, which creates Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology, and format developer <A HREF="http://www.dataplay.com">DataPlay</A> announced a partnership intended to create a portable media distribution platform for protected content such as music. Universal Music Group, EMI Recorded Music, and BMG Entertainment have all announced that they are planning to release prerecorded music on the resultant DataPlay digital format for use in a variety of consumer electronic devices.
The Music Online Competition Act (MOCA) has won the imprimatur of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), according to an announcement made August 8. The recently-introduced <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/11107/">bipartisan bill</A> crafted by Congressmen Chris Cannon (R-Utah) and Rick Boucher (D-Virginia) intends to insure competition in the delivery of online music—and to preserve music lovers' rights to copy their own recordings for private use.
While Napster was thriving a few short months ago, the music business was noisily seething and quietly plotting. How could they put the digital audio genie back into the content-control bottle? Although Napster has since been gutted, the labels have identified the unprotected CD as the source of their woes, and now it's payback time.
The occasion was the 1999 Consumer Electronics Show, and I had sought out the Sony suite at Bally's—the word in the Las Vegas bars where audio journalists hung out was that Sony was demonstrating the production version of their <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//digitalsourcereviews/180/">SCD-1 Super Audio CD player</A>. I was glad I'd made the trek along the Strip: As I reported in the May 1999 <I>Stereophile</I>, the sound of a DMP recording—of unaccompanied choral music recorded and mixed in DSD by Tom Jung—was breathtaking, I felt, with an exquisite sense of space. It was definitely the best sound at the CES.
<B>JANE MONHEIT: <I>Come Dream With Me</I></B><BR>N-Coded Music NC-4219-2 (CD) 2001. Joel Dorn, prod.; Carl Griffin exec. prod.; Todd Parker, eng.; Steve Mazur, asst. eng.; Gene Paul, sonic supervision. AAD? TT: 52:49<BR>Performance<B>****</B><BR>Sonics<B>*****</B>