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Last year was terrible for the recorded-music majors. The next few years are likely to be even worse. IN 2006 EMI, the world's fourth-biggest recorded-music company, invited some teenagers into its headquarters in London to talk to its top managers about their listening habits. At the end of the session the EMI bosses thanked them for their comments and told them to help themselves to a big pile of CDs sitting on a table. But none of the teens took any of the CDs, even though they were free. “That was the moment we realised the game was completely up,”...

EINDHOVEN, Netherlands - It was Aug. 17, 1982, and row upon row of palm-sized plates with a rainbow sheen began rolling off an assembly line near Hanover, Germany. ADVERTISEMENT An engineering marvel at the time, today they are instantly recognizable as Compact Discs, a product that turns 25 years old on Friday — and whose future is increasingly in doubt in an age of iPods and digital downloads. The recording industry thrived in the 1990s as music fans replaced their aging cassettes and vinyl LPs with compact discs, eventually making CDs the most popular album format. The CD still accounts...

In an indication of what the Wall Street Journal calls a "seismic shift" in the way people now acquire music, CD sales for Q1 2007 are 20% below what they were last year. Digital song sales, which were expected to salvage the industry, have risen 54% in 2007 from last year to 173.4 million, but that is not nearly enough to compensate for the 20% drop in CD sales to 81.5 million units. Overall music sales, both digital and physical, are down 10% this year. Adding insult to injury, one billion songs a month are traded on pirate networks....

ANKARA, Turkey - Police detained 10 suspected al-Qaida militants, including a lawyer who identified himself as the group's leader in Turkey, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported Saturday. The 10 were detained in simultaneous raids in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir, the agency reported. It did not say when the operations took place. The group was under surveillance for more than a year and the raids were ordered after authorities determined the group had obtained materials to make bombs, the report said. Police seized bomb-making material, including what the agency called a "CD bomb" — a minuscule explosive device placed on...

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish police have detained a lawyer who admitted he was the leader of al Qaeda in Turkey, Anatolian News Agency reported on Saturday. Nine other suspects were also held. Police seized bomb-making material and a compact disc set to explode when inserted into a computer -- the first time Turkish police had got hold of such a device -- the state-run agency said. They also found maps of an oil refinery owned by the Tupras group in the house, the agency said. Police could not confirm the report. CNN Turk said the leader was a 25-year-old lawyer...

A few weeks ago, I posted "What Are You Reading Right Now?". Got a great cross-section of responses from Freepers. In another month or two, I'll repeat the question. But now, I have another question. What is favorite CD, album or cassette of all time? It can be country, blues, 80's-style rock, etc. Anything. I'll start. My two favorites are: "World Falling Down" (1992) by Peter Cetera. Not as sappy as you might think. An album written at a down-time in his life. "Rebel Yell" (1982) Billy Idol. A great collection of rock songs. Some of his best songs (on...

2 hours, 8 minutes ago Add Technology - AFP to My Yahoo! FRANKFURT (AFP) - DVDs will be obsolete in 10 years at the latest, Microsoft boss and founder Bill Gates (news - web sites) predicted. Stuck on Tape? The ultimate guide to digital camcorders, HDTV cameras, and super-portable video cell phones. Asked what home entertainment would like in the future, Gates said that DVD technology would be "obsolete in 10 years at the latest. If you consider that nowadays we have to carry around film and music on little silver discs and stick them in the computer, it's ridiculous,"...

The recording industry is testing technology that would prevent consumers from making copies of CD "burns," a piracy defense that could put some significant new restrictions on legally purchased music. Tools under review by the major labels would limit the number of backups that could be made from ordinary compact discs and prevent copied, or "burned," versions from being used to create further copies, according to Macrovision and SunnComm International, rivals that are developing competing versions of the digital rights management (DRM) software. SunnComm said a version of its new "secure burning" technology is already being tested by BMG Music...

The way the music dies Tanyia Johnson and Steven Neuman Illustrators CD rot renders compact discs unreadable, causing users to lose data permanently By Steven Neuman News Reporter May 21, 2004 They were supposed to last for 100 years. They were supposed to become family heirlooms, allowing home movies and pictures to literally defy time and keep memories as fresh as the day they were made. But the compact disc, as it turns out, may not exactly last forever. In fact, some CDs undergo "CD rot," the slow, gradual destruction of the data they contain. In manufactured CDs, the...