News

In the heated debate over new digital technologies and their impact upon the traditional recording distribution system, we've grown used to intemperate dialog, but an organization now charges that "mechanical royalties currently are out of whack with historical and international rates."

The Internet is having a startling effect on radio, as evidenced by a new report released by The">http://www.arbitron.com">The Arbitron Company, entitled "Arbitron Internet Listening Study: Radio in the New Media World." Arbitron concludes "that Internet broadcasting is a fast-growing medium which presents both challenges and opportunities for radio broadcasters."

Slim Devices, the company best known for the Squeezeboxhttp://www.stereophile.com/images/newsletter/306Bstph.html">Squeezebox<…;, has announced what it is billing as "the most advanced networked audio system available." At Stereophile, we hear this claim all the time, and it usually means that a computer peripheral company has added another USB port to a product aimed at the MP3 crowd.

ArkivMusichttp://www.arkivmusic.com">ArkivMusic;, one of the Web's leading sources for classical music recordings, has struck a deal that enables them to release on their own reissue label, ArkivCD, out-of-print titles from the extensive catalogues of EMI Classics, Virgin Classics, and Angel Records. The reissues are available "on demand," copied from actual out-of-print CD releases (not master tapes) without compression or enhancement, and are often accompanied by copies of the original liner notes.

ArkivMusic.com has just signed a deal with Warner Classics to reissue, on demand, out-of-print recordings from Teldec, Erato, and Warner Classics. The site's first 300 offerings from the Warner USA catalog, available at the end of October, will join the more than 4000 other out-of-print titles from EMI, Sony/BMG, Universal Music Group, and two dozen independent classical music labels now available on demand from ArkivMusic on ArkivCD. An additional 1000 ArkivCD reissue titles should become available by the end of 2007.

Tuesday, May 6, 2003 could be a turning point in the contentious history of recording artists and record labels. On that day, hundreds of American musicians will converge on Albany, NY in support of the Artistic Freedom Act of 2003. If passed, the bill would give artists unprecedented freedom in negotiating and terminating recording contracts.

Vivendi Universal's Universal">www.umusic.com">Universal Music Group will establish a settlement fund of approximately $4.75 million to pay royalties to as many as 300 artists and their heirs. The fund is the result of a lawsuit brought by torch singer Peggy Lee, who had accused the music giant of accounting improprieties reaching back as far as the 1940s.