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Yet another variation on restricted-use compact discs appeared last week, when Phoenix-based SunnCommhttp://www.sunncomm.com/">SunnComm; announced an agreement with Nashville's Sunbird Records that also includes revenue sharing. Sunbird says it is preparing to release country music singer Len Doolin's Once in a Lifetime on November 1 using SunnComm's new "Expanded Experience CD" (CD3) technology in an effort to restrict use of the disc on computers.

Record stores are devoting a diminishing amount of space to classical music, to the dismay of music lovers. Online distribution may offer hope for the genre, according to an in-depth">http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/21/arts/music/21TOMM.html">in-depth report by Anthony Tommasini in the October 21 edition of the New York Times.

Whenever we run">http://www.stereophile.com/showvote.cgi?168">run a poll asking readers what record companies can do to reduce piracy, one of the most common gripes is that CD prices are too high. Apparently the National">http://www.narm.com/">National Association of Recording Merchandisers (NARM) and major music retailers across the country agree. They also are looking for better-sounding formats to goose sales.

The Recording">http://www.riaa.com">Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is trying to distance itself from an attempt earlier this month to insert language into a broad anti-terrorism bill that would have given the organization's members the right to hack into computers operated by Internet music sites—as well as those owned by private individuals—to find and delete pirated recordings. The wording suggested by the RIAA would have excluded copyright holders from criminal charges for causing damage to computers in the effort to control piracy.

DVD-Audio and SACD are offering record companies a chance to re-release their back-catalogs of "classic" material once again. But the results will not necessarily resemble the CD re-releases of the last two decades. Artists, producers, and labels now have an opportunity to go beyond the standard "re-mastered for (insert new format here)" process when updating an older title for DVD-Audio or SACD. For better or worse, they can entirely remix the master tapes for multi-channel surround sound.

For the entertainment industry, every perceived threat produces an overblown reaction. After a protracted and very public struggle, file-sharing upstart Napster was cowed into submission; MP3.com's "personal music library" was rendered ineffective through a combination of legal pressure and co-option; other Internet music experiments are threatened with lawsuits too costly to contest.

Will the official online music gates finally stream open and flood us with non-pirated tunes? Perhaps. One important step in the process has finally been taken. The National">http://www.nmpa.org">National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA), the Harry Fox Agency (HFA), and the Recording">http://www.riaa.com">Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced last week that they have come to a "breakthrough" agreement on the licensing of musical works for new subscription services on the Internet.