Robert Levine

Robert Levine knows all the stories. The gray-haired man talking with his wife over in the corner is a mob lawyer from the Midwest. The stout, mustachioed gentleman opposite him is a Mexican drug lord holding court with his extended family, complete with mournful wife, bored-looking daughter and solicitous son-in-law. Scattered about elsewhere in the linoleum-tiled waiting room on visiting day in the U.S.

Robert Levine, 41, a former executive editor of Billboard, sounds the alarm on Internet piracy and technology companies' economic war on the music, movies, television, book publishing and newspaper industries in "Free Ride: How Digital Parasites Are Destroying the Culture Business, and How the Culture Business Can Fight Back" (Doubleday). What made you decide this book needed to be written? The decision was gradual. When Napster came out I thought it was the greatest thing ever, like a lot of people did. I thought the Internet would give artists a way to reach fans directly and do business with them, and labels would have to compete and offer better deals.

The Cover: Illustration by Cameron Eagle. News Editor: Frank Farrar Contributors: Mike Boehm, Rodney Bosch, Daniel Cariaga, Cathy Curtis, Chuck Crisafulli, Glenn Doggrell, Jim Fowler, Julie Green, Lynne Heffley, Jan Herman, Barbara Isenberg, Dennis Hunt, Robert Levine, Sue Martin, Jon Matsumoto, Sylvia Oliande, Christopher Pasles, Cherie Saunders, Laurie Schenden, Lewis Segal, Shauna Snow, Zan Stewart.

Your story about Angelenos returning from exile ["The Road Back to L.A. Can Throw a Few Curves," Dec. 17] reminds me of the occasion when a colleague, a midlevel operations analyst, decided to go back to his roots and went to work in Texas. He lasted about eight months before coming back, and when his daughter, re-registering at her old high school in the Valley, came to the question on her father's occupation, she dutifully wrote in "migrant laborer." ROBERT LEVINE Los Angeles

Your story about Angelenos returning from exile ["The Road Back to L.A. Can Throw a Few Curves," Dec. 17] reminds me of the occasion when a colleague, a midlevel operations analyst, decided to go back to his roots and went to work in Texas. He lasted about eight months before coming back, and when his daughter, re-registering at her old high school in the Valley, came to the question on her father's occupation, she dutifully wrote in "migrant laborer." ROBERT LEVINE Los Angeles

Robert Levine, 41, a former executive editor of Billboard, sounds the alarm on Internet piracy and technology companies' economic war on the music, movies, television, book publishing and newspaper industries in "Free Ride: How Digital Parasites Are Destroying the Culture Business, and How the Culture Business Can Fight Back" (Doubleday). What made you decide this book needed to be written? The decision was gradual. When Napster came out I thought it was the greatest thing ever, like a lot of people did. I thought the Internet would give artists a way to reach fans directly and do business with them, and labels would have to compete and offer better deals.

Outbreaks like measles and rabies are standard worries for a public health officer, but as Dr. Robert M. Levin began his first day as Ventura County's top doctor, he was planning ways to combat a new and more dangerous health threat: terrorism. "I'm afraid atomic, biological and chemical terrorism is now an issue we have to prepare ourselves for," Levin said. "There are health and disease problems that would result with any of these attacks, and the public needs to know about the danger."

Inside his colonial duplex on a leafy street in Harvard Square, Mozart scholar, concert pianist and Harvard professor Robert Levin is lecturing to a class of one. Nearly 6 feet tall and dressed in two shades of his favorite color (royal purple shirt and plum-colored socks), he uses any one of six nearby keyboard instruments to illustrate his main point: the importance not just of reproducing Mozart's music but making it live.

A Ventura County jury has awarded $486,158 to a former teacher who sued administrators for firing him after he complained about staffing at a county-run school. Robert LeVine, 50, filed a wrongful termination lawsuit three years ago after he was dismissed for not showing up to work for several days. The lawsuit accuses the Ventura County Superintendent of Schools Office and four administrators, including Supt.

Outbreaks like measles and rabies are standard worries for a public health officer, but as Dr. Robert M. Levin began his first day as Ventura County's top doctor, he was planning ways to combat a new and more dangerous health threat: terrorism. "I'm afraid atomic, biological and chemical terrorism is now an issue we have to prepare ourselves for," Levin said. "There are health and disease problems that would result with any of these attacks, and the public needs to know about the danger."

Inside his colonial duplex on a leafy street in Harvard Square, Mozart scholar, concert pianist and Harvard professor Robert Levin is lecturing to a class of one. Nearly 6 feet tall and dressed in two shades of his favorite color (royal purple shirt and plum-colored socks), he uses any one of six nearby keyboard instruments to illustrate his main point: the importance not just of reproducing Mozart's music but making it live.

Robert Levine knows all the stories. The gray-haired man talking with his wife over in the corner is a mob lawyer from the Midwest. The stout, mustachioed gentleman opposite him is a Mexican drug lord holding court with his extended family, complete with mournful wife, bored-looking daughter and solicitous son-in-law. Scattered about elsewhere in the linoleum-tiled waiting room on visiting day in the U.S.

Magazines will continue to woo Generation Xers and baby boomers--and now that publishers have discovered that the former have money, they want to offer help managing it. Starting this spring, P.O.V., a young men's lifestyle magazine, will give industrious twentysomethings career and financial advice, and Money will publish a test issue of a companion magazine aimed at twenty- and thirtysomethings. And as baby boomers settle down to home and hearth, magazines are doing the same.

A Ventura County jury has awarded $486,158 to a former teacher who sued administrators for firing him after he complained about staffing at a county-run school. Robert LeVine, 50, filed a wrongful termination lawsuit three years ago after he was dismissed for not showing up to work for several days. The lawsuit accuses the Ventura County Superintendent of Schools Office and four administrators, including Supt.

Magazines will continue to woo Generation Xers and baby boomers--and now that publishers have discovered that the former have money, they want to offer help managing it. Starting this spring, P.O.V., a young men's lifestyle magazine, will give industrious twentysomethings career and financial advice, and Money will publish a test issue of a companion magazine aimed at twenty- and thirtysomethings. And as baby boomers settle down to home and hearth, magazines are doing the same.

The Cover: Illustration by Cameron Eagle. News Editor: Frank Farrar Contributors: Mike Boehm, Rodney Bosch, Daniel Cariaga, Cathy Curtis, Chuck Crisafulli, Glenn Doggrell, Jim Fowler, Julie Green, Lynne Heffley, Jan Herman, Barbara Isenberg, Dennis Hunt, Robert Levine, Sue Martin, Jon Matsumoto, Sylvia Oliande, Christopher Pasles, Cherie Saunders, Laurie Schenden, Lewis Segal, Shauna Snow, Zan Stewart.