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We were saddened to learn (via the">http://boingboing.net/">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.

If you find yourself purchasing more new audio gear online each year, you are not alone. A recent study from the Consumer">http://www.ce.org">Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) reveals that online shopping for consumer electronics products is gaining in popularity. The CEA study finds that an average of 5% of all consumer electronics purchases are made online, with portable audio devices in particular selling more than 10% of product through online channels.

On July 4, a Brazilian website apparently posted some tools that allowed users of InterVideo's">http://www.intervideo.com/jsp/Home.jsp">InterVideo's WinDVD to pull copy-protected data off DVD-Audio discs and store it on the user's hard drive rather than simply routing it to a sound card. According to Afterdawnhttp://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/6597.cfm">Afterdawn;, the tools didn't "do the decryption themselves, [but] instead patched WinDVD to output the decrypted stream to disk instead of the sound card."

On June 27, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of Metro-Goldwin-Mayer (MGM), agreeing that peer-to-peer file-sharing services such as StreamCast Networks and Grokster could be held responsible (read: be sued) if they encouraged their users to infringe copyrights. This will return the "MGM vs Grokster" case to a lower court, where it will be determined whether or not the P2P companies encouraged their users to violate copyright laws.

The music industry has been telling us for years that peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing is a bad thing. But a New York company has decided the record labels had it wrong and that it merely needed to harness P2P's power.

Note: this article has been updated at the bottom on July 5, 2005 with a statement from Nagra CEO Gérard Beuchat.

Good Morning America: The war for listeners between XM Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio has seen MLB go to one broadcaster (XM) and Howard Stern to the other. On June 21, Sirius announced an agreement that will put the BBC's popular Radio 1 on a time-shifted broadcast schedule. The time-shift will enable American listeners to hear Radio 1's broadcast day "as it was intended—with Chris Moyles' Breakfast Show in the morning, Scott Mills' show in the afternoon, and kicking off the weekend with Pete Tong's Friday night Essential Selection," according to a press release.