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The world's two largest and most active music clubs may become one if preliminary talks between their parent companies bear fruit. Time">http://www.timewarner.com/">Time Warner Inc. and Germany's Bertelsmann">http://www.bertelsmann.de">Bertelsmann AG have conducted discussions with that outcome in mind, according to several reports appearing in late April.

The numbers are looking better for MP3.comhttp://www.mp3.com/">MP3.com;, the music-archiving site under attackhttp://www.stereophile.com/news/10657/">attack; by the Recording Industries Association of America and its allieshttp://www.stereophile.com/news/10708/">allies;. Despite the legal pressure, MP3.com has seen its revenues surge as the popularity of downloadable music continues to grow. On April 20, the San Diego–based company reported that its revenue increased to $17.5 million for the first quarter of 2000 compared to $666,000 for the same period a year earlier. MP3.com now has 10 million registered users, according to CEO Michael Robertson.

They may sing about death and destruction, releasing albums with titles such as 1983's Kill 'em All, but underneath the menacing exteriors, Metallicahttp://www.metallica.com">Metallica; is really just a group of sensitive artists.

It's not uncommon for bootleggers to record live performances of favorite artists and then send copies of the tapes around the world. But in an interesting twist that could add a whole new dimension to concert merchandising, the Virgin Entertainment Group and Liquid Audio recently teamed up to record a live performance by the Joshua Redman Quartet at the Virgin Megastore in San Francisco. The recording was then immediately digitized and burned onto CD.

Congress has blocked a controversial plan that might have launched approximately 1000 low-power community radio stations. On Thursday, April 14, the US House of Representatives voted 274-110 in favor of a bill that would effectively kill development of about 80% of the stations. The vote was a blow to Federal Communications Commission chairman William Kennard, who has been a staunch supporter of the community radio movement, and a gift to the National Association of Broadcasters, which has long opposed low-power radio.

For lifelike audio presentation in your living room, what could be better than the real thing? When it comes to putting the sound of a piano in your home, nothing comes close to, well, a real piano. For more than a century, several companies have marketed player pianos, first using rolls of punched paper, and most recently sophisticated MIDI programs. But if a real piano represents the ultimate audio performance in your living room, who has the ultimate real piano?

Last year, Internet commerce schemes were the darlings of venture capitalists and small investors alike. For months, it seemed that almost any business plan, no matter how half-baked, could attract millions of dollars with the simple mention of "online retail sales"—otherwise known as "e-commerce" or "e-tailing."