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"You'd be hard-pressed to find a company more protective of its reputation than Krell," says Wes Phillips, as he heads off to evaluate the Krell">http://www.stereophile.com//digitalsourcereviews/638/">Krell KAV-300cd CD player. WP ponders whether that reputation is still intact as the company tries to save its customers some money.

Issues surrounding the music industry are heating up, and most stories revolve around the record labels, musicians, congress, consumers, and music pirates. Often lost in the noise is the importance of another major player in the business: the technical folks who make recorded music happen.

The US Copyright Office is being pulled in opposite directions over a recent decree establishing royalty rates for music played by webcasters. On one side are radio stations and Internet-only music sites, which claim that the rates are too high. On the other side is the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which claims that the rates are too low. Both sides have filed separate appeals in US federal court.

The music industry's ongoing copyright and royalty battle took a refreshing turn Wednesday, August 7, when EMI Group PLC filed suit against AOL Time Warner, Inc. over the unpaid use of songs from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer movies. Filed in US Court for the Southern District of New York, the suit seeks unspecified monetary damages and an injunction barring AOL Time Warner from playing songs from MGM classics such as Singin' in the Rain and The Wizard of Oz.

The Super Audio CD is gaining serious momentum.

In apparent response to proposed federal legislation that would permit copyright holders to launch technological strikes against privately-owned computers, hackers launched an attack of their own over the weekend of July 27–28, rendering the website of the Recording">http://www.riaa.com">Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) unusable.

Late July was a volatile period for the music industry. On the 29th, Bertelsmann CEO Thomas Middelhoff announced his resignation. The "young lion" who ushered the German media conglomerate into the Internet age—and into an ill-advised $100 million investment in now-forgotten Napster—apparently had a very different vision for the future of the company than does the Mohn family, which controls 75% of Bertelsmann stock. "Shareholders had mid- and long-term development prospects that were different from mine," Middelhoff told reporters. "In this context, I had no choice but to resign." Bertelsmann is parent company of BMG, the music giant.