Data from the portal have proved what many had suspected: thatthe decades-old practice of releasing music to radio weeks before putting it on sale feeds piracy and saps sales.
It was financed by assessments on adjoining property owners for the "improvements" of paved streets and utilities, a practicethat met with violent resistance but proved profitable in the end.
But it wasn't until 1747, when an English physicist named Benjamin Robins provedthat "rifled" barrels performed better, thatthepractice really took off.