Plans to sell new hybrid CD/DVDs have hit legal and licensing snags that threaten to scuttle a mass rollout that the hard-hit music industry had been counting on to aid its recovery, people familiar with the matter said this week Record makers are enjoying a rebound after a three-year sales slump blamed largely on online piracy. Efforts to control piracy and the growth of legal Web music services like Apple Computer Inc."s (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) iTunes have helped.
The labels also have spurred sales by packaging "bonus" DVDs with CDs. In February, several began test marketing the new hybrid discs -- CD on one side and DVD on the other. They see these "DualDiscs" as a next generation product that marries the booming market for DVDs with declining CDs. "It"s not like the coming of the CD, but we did really well with them," said Greg Harrington, manager of Tower Records in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which took part in the test.