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It has been another tough week for the Recording">http://www.riaa.org">Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) as it continues to grapple with a waning CD market, and attempts to further rein in the forces of a brave new digital audio world. It didn't help that its website was heckled until it went offline, either.

Sharp">http://www.sharp-usa.com">Sharp Electronics has come a long way from the household appliances and modest home entertainment products it has long been famous for. (The company's name derives from its first product, a retracting pencil.) Sharp is making a serious, prolonged push into upscale audio and video, as evidenced by the array of new models on display at a dealer and media conference held in late August at the Hilton La Jolla Torrey Pines, a hotel/golf resort north of San Diego.

Less than a week after launching major copyright-infringement litigationhttp://www.stereophile.com/news/11422/">litigation; against several large Internet service providers (ISPs), member companies of the Recording">http://www.riaa.com">Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) abruptly withdrew their lawsuit because an offending offshore music site had even more abruptly gone dark.