News

The Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association (CEDIA) Expo 2007 officially opens its exhibition halls Thursday September 6, and Stereophile's Kal Rubinson and Wes Phillips will be there to report the highs, the lows, the in-betweens—everything, in fact, except the bunions.

On August 31, Apple announcedhttp://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/08/31itunes.html">announced; that the iTunes store would stop selling NBC television episodes for the upcoming season. The press release stated: "The move follows NBC's decision to not renew its agreement with iTunes after Apple declined to pay more than double the wholesale price for each NBC TV episode, which would have resulted in the retail price to consumers increasing to $4.99 per episode from the current $1.99. ABC, CBS, Fox and The CW, along with more than 50 cable networks, are signed up to sell TV shows from their upcoming season on iTunes at $1.99 per episode."

Digital Music Association (DiMA) and Sound Exchange (SX) announced on August 23 that they had reached an agreement to "cap the Internet radio '$500 per channel minimum royalty' at $50,000 per service, signaling the start of productive negotiations and bringing resolutions to three important music industry issues," according to DiMA's press release.

On August 15, Sonos announced the release of Sonos System Software v2.3, which adds Sirius Internet Radio connectivity to the company's line of digital music systems. Sirius subscribers who own Sonos systems can add that system to their coverage for an additional $2.99/month. Sonos system owners who do not already subscribe to Sirius can purchase Sirius Internet Radio subscriptions for $12.95/month.

The Harvey acquisition of MyerEmco announced in Mayhttp://www.stereophile.com/news/051407harvey/">May; has been called off. The merger—which was supposed to have closed by June 7, later extended to the end of July, and then pushed back to August 10—called for Harvey to pay $10 million in cash and assume MyerEmco's debt.

Universal Music Group CEO Doug Morris isn't exactly a fan of portable digital players—in November 2006, he referred to them as "just repositories for stolen music." Yet, on August 9, UMG announced that it would offer at least some of its artists' music as MP3 files without digital rights management (DRM) on RealNetworks, Wal-Mart, Amazon, Rhapsody, PureTracks, Transworld, and artists' own websites. Everywhere, that is, except on Apple's iTunes Store, where UMG files will have Apple's FairPlay DRM installed.

At CES 2007, Bill Gates announced that Microsoft was developing a Windows&#174">http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver">…; Home Server, saying, "As computers and digital media become more and more central to family life, we need better ways to organize, share, and protect digital content and information at home. Windows Home Server makes it easy for families to save, protect and access digital memories and experiences, so they can focus on using technology to organize their day-to-day lives, explore their interests, and share their memories with the people they care about."