Tension Between Record Labels And Digital Radio

An anonymous reader writes "Now that digtial radio devices are allowing recording of shows, you knew it wouldn't be long before music executives started raising a fuss. They're worried that users will prefer to record the high-quality audio (for free) to buying a download or CD." From the article: "For now, the Recording Industry Association of America is in negotiations with satellite radio companies and is opening discussions with radio broadcasters over specific products. But over the long term, the music industry says, Congress should find a way to regulate these new digital radio networks so labels can get paid when consumers keep copies of songs, as is the case with iTunes."

Comments

Uh...

[doormat]

Congress should find a way to regulate these new digital radio networks so labels can get paid when consumers keep copies of songs, as is the case with iTunes.

Last I checked it was legal to record off the radio. The AHRA covers this...

The act failed to define "noncommercial use by a consumer" however " In short, the reported legislation [Section 1008] would clearly establish that consumers cannot be sued for making analog or digital audio copies for private noncommercial use." (House Report No. 102-780(I), August 4, 1992) .

Although now that I think about it, technically the music industry is getting around this part of the legislation by not going after consumers recording digital media off the radio, but in fact threating to pull out of agreements with digital radio broadcasters if they don't implement this system. This is the kind of shit that gets them investigated by Elliot Spitzer.

Re:Fair use?

[denissmith]

All uses that are not explicitly covered by copyright law are "fair use" under the 9th Amendment. Wherein the rights NOT explicitly given to Congress or the President are reserved to the People themselves. No explicit grant is required.

Re:Fair use?

[Kosmatos]

Fair use or not, the Slashdot article says:

"They're worried that users will prefer to record the high-quality audio (for free) to buying a download or CD."

And on Wikipedia, for XM satellite radio, the only one I checked, it says:

"Due to lack of bandwidth and too many channels, the maximum bitrate XM broadcast from its satellite per music channel is limited to 64kbs."

Therefore, this is all B.S. since 64 kbps is not generally considered to be high-quality.