Components
CEA urges recording industry not to cry wolf over digital technologies
MUMBAI: Don’t get burned up over CD burning! That is the basic message that US organisation Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) is trying to convey to America’s recording industry.
CEA president and CEO Gary Shapiro issued a statement in response to recent media reports noting the recording industry’s heightened focus on music copied onto blank recordable CDs.
“There they go again – The recent news that the recording industry now considers casual, non-commercial CD burning as a threat to be stopped comes as no surprise. Even with their recent victory in MGM v. Grokster, the recording industry continues efforts to chip away at established home recording and fair use rights.
“We are concerned that the record industry is targeting consumer place shifting and CD burning, even as they admit that it is legal conduct. While arguing the MGM v. Grokster case before the US Supreme Court, Donald Verrilli, an attorney representing the record companies stated, ‘My clients, have said, for some time now, and it’s been on their Website for some time now, that it’s perfectly lawful to take a CD that you’ve purchased, upload it onto your computer, put it onto your iPod. There is a very, very significant lawful commercial use for that device, going forward.’”
The US Supreme Court earlier this year had ruled that the owners of a site like Grokster are accountable for file sharing that occurs through their peer 2 peer networks. Earlier these sites used to contend that they could not do anything if their sites were being used by file sharers to distribute pirated music.
Shapiro states that the fact is that making a backup or mix CD for personal use is not copyright infringement, and Americans who enjoy personal CD burning are not lawbreakers. Consumers have the right to make backup copies and to move (place-shift) their lawfully acquired music, movies and other material from device to device. Home recording and piracy must not be confused.
“Rather than focussing on real commercial piracy, recording companies have chosen to alienate their customers by limiting CD recordability and making CDs incompatible with iPODs or other products. Now they have an obligation to label their products accordingly. Americans have a right to know what they are buying, and should be informed if the CD cannot meet their normal and customary expectations.
“It is ironic that the recording industry continues to cry wolf when so many opportunities exist for the industry to leverage technology for future growth. For example, CEA forecasts sales of MP3 players to grow by more than 45 per cent this year. Online music sales continue to increase. Now that Grokster has been resolved in their favour, it is time for the music industry to finally get serious about building digital business models. Content creators should focus their considerable resources and marketing prowess on finding and expanding new business models rather than constricting consumers’ rights and strangling new technologies.”
SEOUL: In the eternal battle between gamers demanding lightning-fast refresh rates and professionals craving pixel-perfect clarity, LG Display reckons it has found détente. The South Korean display titan is unveiling the world’s first 27-inch 4K OLED monitor panel that marries an RGB stripe structure with a blistering 240Hz refresh rate—a combination previously thought incompatible, like oil and water or fashion and function.
The breakthrough lies in how the pixels are arranged. RGB stripe structure lines up red, green and blue subpixels in neat rows, banishing the colour bleeding and fringing that plague lesser screens when you park your nose close to the display. It is the difference between reading crisp text and squinting at a rainbow-tinged mess. OLED panels using this method existed before, but they topped out at a sluggish 60Hz—fine for spreadsheets, useless for fragging opponents in first-person shooters.
LG Display’s engineering wizardry changes the game. By cranking the refresh rate to 240Hz whilst maintaining that pristine RGB stripe layout, the company has produced a panel that works equally well for colour-critical design work and twitchy gaming sessions. Better still, the panel incorporates Dynamic Frequency & Resolution technology, letting users toggle between ultra-high-definition at 240Hz and full-HD at a frankly ludicrous 480Hz. That is fast enough to make your eyeballs sweat.
The specs are suitably impressive: 160 pixels per inch for exceptional detail, optimised performance for Windows and font-rendering engines, and colour accuracy that should please the Photoshop brigade. LG Display achieved this by boosting the aperture ratio—the percentage of each pixel that actually emits light—and applying what it coyly describes as “various new technologies.” Translation: years of R&D and probably some sleepless nights.
Existing high-end gaming OLED monitors have relied on RGWB structures (which add a white subpixel) or triangular RGB arrangements. Both work, but neither delivers the sharpness that professionals demand. LG Display’s new stripe pattern is tailored specifically for monitor use, a recognition that staring at a screen from two feet away demands different engineering than watching telly from across the room.
The company is betting big on this technology, targeting the high-end monitor market where it already commands roughly 30 per cent of global OLED panel production. Among gaming OLED panels in mass production, LG Display claims world-leading specs across refresh rate, response time and resolution—a trifecta that sounds like marketing bluster until you check the numbers.
“Technology is the foundation of leadership in the rapidly growing OLED monitor market,” says LG Display head of the large display business unit Lee Hyun-woo. He promises to keep pushing “differentiated technologies compared to competitors”—corporate-speak for staying ahead of Chinese rivals snapping at LG’s heels.
The new panel will debut at CES 2026 in Las Vegas, where LG Display plans to woo customers and expand its lineup. Initial rollout targets high-end gaming and professional monitors, the sweet spot where people actually pay premiums for superior screens rather than settling for whatever came with their laptop.
Whether this technology reshapes the monitor market or remains a niche luxury depends on two things: pricing and production scale. But for now, LG Display has pulled off something rare—a genuine technical leap that solves a real problem. Gamers get their speed, designers get their clarity, and LG gets bragging rights. In the cutthroat world of display tech, that counts as a win.
