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The last week of July was a busy one for music industry attorneys, and by some measure a sucessful one. As almost everyone in the world is aware, on Wednesday, July 26, the Recording">http://www.riaa.com/">Recording Industry Association of America won a round in its fight against Napsterhttp://www.napster.com/">Napster;, a San Mateo, CA-based software company that enables the sharing of MP3 music files over the Internet. On that day, in a US Federal court in San Francisco, Judge Marilyn Patel decreed that the widespread sharing of music using Napster was a form of wholesale copyright violation, and ordered the service shut down effective Friday, July 28 at midnight. Napster appealed and won a stay of Judge Patel's injunction that will enable it to remain online and in business until at least mid-September.

Tempted to just cut'n'paste his earlier Arcam integrated amplifier review into his rundown of the Arcam">http://www.stereophile.com//digitalsourcereviews/251/">Arcam FMJ CD23 CD player, Lonnie Brownell explains that, "after all, it's the same story: British manufacturer gives highly praised product a slick new case to entice those who find their Alpha line too downscale in appearance, adds a few internal tweaks to make it a bit more interesting, and kicks the price up by $400." Instead, he does the right thing in a complete review that even answers the vital question: Should this Arcam be your last CD player?

For the millions of fans who search the Internet for their favorite music, one thing always required is the name of the artist or song sought. But what if you don't know exactly what you want to hear, and would rather search for the kind of music that suits your mood?

It's bad enough for stores competing with each other for consumer loyalty—imagine how retailers must feel when the largest consumer-electronics company in the world decides to compete with you as well. This grim reality came true for dealers around the world last week, when Sony Electronics outlined its plans for SonyStyle.comhttp://www.sonystyle.com">SonyStyle.com;, which the company describes as "an information-rich e-commerce website." The site is scheduled to be launched this fall.

Sometimes a product can take a while to reach its potential. As Jonathan Scull writes, "First, the Accuphase">http://www.stereophile.com//digitalsourcereviews/249/">Accuphase DP-75V CD player took a full two weeks to warm up and pull its act together. If anything, it was too polite, warm, and over-the-top bloomy when I first lit it up. The '75 requires a long warm-up period. But wait . . . just wait for it." When the wait was over, J-10 filed his observations in detail.

The Recording">http://www.riaa.com/">Recording Industry Association of America's lawsuit against Napsterhttp://www.napster.com/">Napster; may be an attack on one of its best friends, if results of a recent study by research organization Jupiter">http://www.jupiter.com/">Jupiter Communications can be believed.

A merger announced Wednesday, July 12 by Columbia, Maryland–based USA">http://www.usadr.com/">USA Digital Radio and Lucent">http://www.lucentdigitalradio.com/">Lucent Digital Radio of Warren, New Jersey may hasten the creation of a unified US standard for terrestrial digital radio, according to industry analysts. The merger was approved by the National Radio Systems Committee, which is in charge of developing a set of digital radio specifications for the US. It was also backed by 15 companies involved in the rollout of digital radio, including Viacom Inc.'s Infinity Broadcasting Corp. and Clear Channel Communications, Inc.