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Where does "fair use" end and piracy begin? Can consumers have open access to digital information and entertainment while respecting the rights of the creators of such content? Is there an inevitable collision between consumers and the rights of intellectual property owners? Can a happy balance be found in a world of high technology?

A few weeks ago, we ran an itemhttp://www.stereophile.com/news/10957/">item; concerning drummer Billy Higgins' declining health and rapidly growing medical expenses. Apparently, his fans have come through generously, because we just received the following:

Who says classical music is having trouble finding a contemporary audience? According to the latest Arbitronhttp://www.arbitron.com/">Arbitron; webcast ratings, for December, 2000, classical music and internet-only webcaster Beethoven.comhttp://www.beethoven.com">Beethoven.com; ranked number one with the most aggregate tuning hours (ATH) for the month. ATH describes the sum total of all hours that listeners tune to a given channel.

It's well known that women have better high-frequency hearing than men do, as well as a lower threshold of sensitivity. What's loud to most men is louder to most women.

Is there really a benefit to those pointy feet you have? Jonathan Scull has been surfing the Internet for cone-footer tweaks and theories and reveals his latest haul of hot finds in Fine">http://www.stereophile.com//finetunes/319/">Fine Tunes #32.

Last week, Philips">http://www.philips.com">Philips Electronics and Marantz Japan jointly announced that Marantz Japan intends to buy the Marantz trademark, as well as the European and American sales organizations, from Philips. The companies say that the transaction is due to take effect in the coming months. In addition, Philips says it intends to sell shares equal to 1.5% of all shares held in Marantz Japan, effectively reducing its ownership percentage from 50.5% to 49%.

Forget the Serial Copy Management System, music fans. http://www.macrovision.com/"> Macrovision Corporation is taking CD copy prevention to the next level. The folks who made it impossible to loop your DVD player through your VCR want to make sure you can't copy new music either. On February 27, Sunnyvale, CA-based Macrovision announced that it will begin beta-testing its "Safeaudio Toolkit," a CD-audio copy-protection technology. One major record label has already completed its own testing, according to an official statement. Macrovision announced its intentionhttp://www.stereophile.com/news/10623/">intention; to go forward with the technology late last year.