SDMI Watermarking Effort Rankles Engineers
The Secure">http://www.sdmi.org/">Secure Digital Music Initiative's move to establish a copy-prevention technology for commercial recordings has rankled audio engineers, who claim that the audible watermarking technique chosen by the organization could mar high-resolution recordings. Of particular concern are SDMI's testing methods and its rush to get a standard in place without commentary from engineers or the music-buying public.
SDMI Watermarks Tested In Nashville
Last year the music industry was jolted from its complacency by the rise of MP3, a scheme for the quick and easy transfer of digital audio files over the Internet. Legal attempts to block the format as a form of copyright violation failed, and the industry began scrambling to find a way to prevent the wholesale piracy of higher-resolution formats to come. The Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI), an alliance of more than 240 hardware, software, and music-publishing companies, has been working overtime trying to develop an unobtrusive technique for preventing unauthorized copying—something that digital technology is making easier than ever.
Seagram Buys PolyGram
In a move that establishes its leadership in the entertainment business, Seagram">http://www.seagram.com/">Seagram Company has purchased PolyGram">http://www.polygram.com">PolyGram NV from Philips">http://www.sv.philips.com/">Philips Electronics NV of Holland. The deal was valued at $10.6 billion.
SEAS Introduces High-Sensitivity, Full-Range Driver
The world of loudspeaker aficionados has at one end most of us, who use multi-way box speakers of one kind of another; in the center are the lovers of panels, electrostatic, planar magnetics—it doesn't matter as much as the fact there is no box—and at the extreme other end are the lovers of high-sensitivity designs, where massive amounts of art, artifice, and loving care are applied to wrest full-range sound from a single drive-unit. Overcoming the daunting problems of getting a single drive-unit to work from 20Hz to 20kHz is, by those, felt to be outweighed by the benefits of not having a crossover circuit.
Second Thoughts about Web Radio Reprieve?
That harmonious accord between SoundExchange and the Digital Media Association (DiMA) on webcasting that we reportedhttp://stereophile.com/news/071607internet/">reported; last week? Apparently not so harmonious—and possibly not even an accord.
Secrets To Success
Audio retailing has been a tough business in recent years, but two just-released surveys are suggesting that with the right combination of economic factors and dealer preparedness, things could turn around for smart retailers over the coming holiday season.
Secure Digital Music Initiative Formally Announced by the RIAA
As expected, the Recording">http://www.riaa.org">Recording Industry Association of America held a press conference last week to announce the formation of the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI), with which they hope to develop Internet downloading technologies for music. The move comes after a rough year for the music business, which has seen thousands of unauthorized websites offer copyrighted material for free using the MP3 audio format.
Seismic shifts at MBL, Audio Research
Two major figures in high end audio have quietly moved on from long-held positions.
Senate OKs PIRATE Act
The US Senate has gotten serious about going after file sharers. On Friday, June 25, senators approved legislation that would allow the Justice Department to impose heavy civil penalties on people found to have shared and/or downloaded copyrighted material over the Internet.
Sennheiser Turns 60
Last June, Sennheiser, a multinational manufacturer of microphones, headphones, and wireless technology products, celebrated its 60th anniversary. The company was founded as Wennebostel Laboratories (Labor W) in 1945 by Dr. Fritz Sennheiser and seven other employees of the Institute for Radio Frequency Engineering and Electroacoustics at Hanover Technical University. At the time, as Dr. Sennheiser explained when I visited the company's Wennebostel facility 10 years ago, German radio engineers were prohibited by the occupying Allied forces from constructing communications equipment, so he and his crew needed to find something else they could do. In addition, supply shortages severely restricted the scope of what they might manufacture. Sennheiser determined that they could build test instruments such as millivolt meters from the parts they were able to recover from the Institute and the Allies. Seimens' Hanover branch bought the first samples and the startup company began to supply that firm with more and more complex products.