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Artists' groups are celebrating what they hope will be more than a symbolic victory over the recording industry in the wake of legislation signed by President Clinton the last week of October. Known as "The Works Made for Hire and Copyright Corrections Act," the repeal negates a provision that was inserted into last year's "Satellite Home Viewer Act" at the insistence of the Recording">http://www.riaa.com/">Recording Industry Association of America, designating musical recordings as "works for hire." Such a designation catergorizes a musical recording as a commodity that can be purchased at a fixed price, such as a table built by a furniture craftsman, rather than as a performance subject to syndication and royalty fees.

The Recording">http://www.riaa.com">Recording Industry Association of America has recently been getting press ink by the bucketful for its defense of the music business against the perils of the Internet. But the Future">http://www.futureofmusic.org">Future of Music Coalition is urging the US Copyright Office to be wary of efforts by the RIAA to establish itself as the sole and exclusive collection agent for digital performance royalties for sound recordings. Instead, the Coalition has proposed that an independent body would be a more appropriate vehicle to collect and distribute these and other monies, including Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 royalties.

The online music world has been hit by one jolt after another as the record labels go after anyone they can slap with the "music pirate" label. In response, the e-sharks smell blood and are circling. Internet music-distribution company EMusichttp://www.EMusic.com">EMusic; sent out a press release recently making the assertion that "now that Napster and MP3.com are both on shaky legal ground, many downloadable-music fans are going to be looking for compelling, 'legitimate' alternatives."

Widely assumed to be at death's door, streaming-audio site MP3.comhttp://www.mp3.com/">MP3.com; may be on the rebound after reaching a preliminary agreement October 19 to license more than one million songs from the National">http://www.nmpa.org/">National Music Publishers' Association, Inc. (NMPA) and the organization's primary subsidiary, the Harry Fox Agency, Inc. (HFA). Individual music publishers represented by the Fox Agency must approve the agreement before it can take effect.

John Atkinson shuffles his feet a little and finally mutters, " . . . Convergence." He laments, "I swore I wasn't going to use the 'C' word, but when you're faced with writing about a product that smashes the boundaries between component categories as completely as the CardDeluxe does, you have little choice." JA reviews the Digital">http://www.stereophile.com//digitalsourcereviews/280/">Digital Audio Labs CardDeluxe PC soundcard and answers the pointed question: "But it's only a PC soundcard. What's the big deal?"

Kalman Rubinson gives a long listen to the 1998 Stereophile Editor's Choice winner, the Z-Systems">http://www.stereophile.com//amplificationreviews/278/">Z-Systems rdp-1 digital preamplifier. Like many audiophiles, Kal eschewed tone controls in favor of the purist approach—until he met the rdp-1. As he puts it: "Now, the time has come for DSP to give the audiophile some powerful tools to tailor frequency response and to correct faults in the recording."

Last night I saw him on the stair—
the little man who wasn't there.
I saw him there again today;
oh, how I wish he'd go away.