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RIAA Sues XM Satellite Radio
skayell writes "The RIAA is suing XM Satellite radio contending that the ability to store songs in memory makes it similar to an iPod, but with no income involved for the RIAA." From the article: "XM said it will vigorously defend this lawsuit on behalf of consumers and also called the lawsuit a bargaining tactic. [...] The labels are currently in talks with XM and its rival Sirius Satellite Radio, to renegotiate digital royalty contracts for broadcasts."
this makes me laugh... way to go riaa, sue a legitimate radio service
?giS
So why aren't they suing every radio station in the country, and why haven't they been doing this for decades?
Digital = terrorist?
i am a soviet space shuttle
... a worthy opponent against the RIAA.
I hope XM tears em a new one.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
...but we don't get to make extra money off it (note: the artists / label were already paid for the song being aired, and recording off-air for personal use is covered by fair use law).
Wah! It isn't fair that we don't get to make more money, so it must be illegal.
Or does a picture of a snake eating its tail come to mind?
Here is a choice quote:
"...Because XM makes available vast catalogues of music in every genre, XM subscribers will have little need ever again to buy legitimate copies of plaintiffs' sound recordings,"
I can store songs in my memory and play them back at will fairly accurately. Am I at risk of being sued by the RIAA?
I think the one broken leg that RIAA has is songs are recorded in the memory, so it's not a traditional radio broadcast.
I wonder if RIAA won this case, would it affect MP3 players which allow recording of radio?
Please stop entering code 2,2,7,6,6,4
Hide all those songs you've got stored illegally in your head.
People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
"XM subscribers will have little need ever again to buy legitimate copies of plaintiffs' sound recordings" - I don't think the music industry needs any help persuading people never again to buy their music - they're already doing such a fine job of that by themselves.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
"Everything is changing and the industry is petrified"
That just about sums it up.
It's time someone declared a monopoly lawsuit against the RIAA. They have been pushing their weight around with impunity because they're the only major recording industry, and they get nearly 100% of the profits made on almost, if not every major label in North America. They have no competition, no will to provide a better service to its customers or its labels/musicians, and they seem to have gone insane with the power this has granted them. That seems like enough of a case to me.
Screw the rules, I have green hair!
Variations on wavelengths, amplified and broadcast, take approximately 3 seconds from source audio to the listener. This cumilatively creates a 'storage medium' where anyone with a reciever can illegally intercept music. This of course can be resolved by renegotiated royalty payments.
Infinity is overrated, Infinity+1, now that's cool!
It used to be RIAA members giving Ratio station producers and DJ's gifts, holidays and other fancy toys to promote and play their music.
Now everythings on digital it seems the RIAA is doing all it can to prevent anyone getting access to their artist products.
Its a strange world we live in.
This is plain silly. First off, they aren't upset at XM Service. They are upset at hardware that works like a radio-Tivo. However, TV companies aren't suing Tivo. They're adapting advertising to Tivo.
The RIAA is barking up the wrong tree, and pretty soon everyone and I mean everyone will turn on the RIAA. Many artists in the industry hate their tactics. Having a portion of the radio recorded Tivo like is not the same as illegally downloading music from the internet.
And last time I checked, people were doing recordings from radio for ages.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Everyone burn your cassette recorders and cd writers!!! No radio in teh country should be allowed to do this illegal timeshifting nonsense!!! Recordings of our recordings are piracy, theft, and treason!!! /end sarcasm
/me out
The reaction of the RIAA and MPAA to technology should be in the mode of adaptation. The business model of these industries was founded on the difficulty of end users to effectively make use of their fair rights provided for by copyright law. No one treats books like the RIAA and MPAA treat music and movies, yet the publishing industry still does well. We are even seeing online publishing become more and more profitable (as the industry is adapting to the times).
The RIAA and MPAA only exisit because it used to be difficult to create the media used to distribute copyrighted works of music or film. They dumped money into media creation and distribution and rightfully got a good chunk of the pie when consumers purchased their products. But creation and distribution of any type of copyrighted work is no longer a factor. The RIAA and MPAA serve no real purpose anymore.
They are afraid and are kicking and screaming their way to bank. Why? because they have so much money for lobbyists and lawyers.
Bastards.
I've got to stop or there will be pages and pages of text about how screwed up the recording industry is.
$150.000 per song, 160.000 distinct song offered per month... That $24.000.000.000 in potential damages. I think this day can be mark as the day when the RIAA finally lost it.
I'd like to see how this holds up. From my understanding the RIAA has only been suing people it knows can't afford to go to court offering them "settlements" of large fines, though reduced from what they'd have to pay if they lost. Every time someone has stood up to them they've just tried to get the case dismissed.
If they're finally suing someone with an equal amount of lawyers and money, it should be an interesting legal precedent.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
The war between sheet music publishers and piano roll makers, all over again...
Unless someone invented some sort of new way of compressing and storing broadcasts, by my quick math, figuring an average of 4 minutes per song, a user would need 214 Inno's to record the "vast catalog" and never have to buy music again. And this doesn't include any new music that comes out from this day forward.
Only in RIAA-world do the suits think the average consumer has $77,000+ (for 214 Inno's at $360 each) to plunk down right now, plus 63+ weeks to spend 24/7, recording entire catalogs of music.
It's a limited storage device with even more restrictions on moving content than cassette/CD have now, and they're already proven legal in piles of court cases. You almost have to wonder if RIAA has any income stream, given how hard they're trying to make money through the legal system.
This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U
So why aren't they suing every radio station in the country, and why haven't they been doing this for decades?
The last thing the RIAA wants is a level playing field, because if one existed, their leverage would disappear. With radio, they can still engage in payola practices. With XM and Sirius, they're dealing with entities that would rather control their own destinies, rather than suck on the RIAA's teat. It's not that XM and Sirius are digital, but that they are nation-wide and multi-channel. The RIAA can bully individual stations with impunity, and even the big guys like Clear Channel play along because they've essentially bought into the cartel. But XM and Sirius aren't part of the cartel, so the RIAA is giving them a shot across the bow. The message is: "Join the club, or we'll take you down."
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
However, when we were all kids we were taught right from wrong. If you're telling me that downloading music from the internet that you didn't pay for isn't stealing, then I don't know what to say. I can't say I haven't done it. Sure, I've stolen music. And I also make the decision to purchase CDs from certain labels and artists. I consider it a willing decision to support certain companies, and to screw the music industry on the whole when I do decide to steal. I don't understand those who are for some reason in denial that this is stealing.
Ideally, artists should provide a few tracks online just like they release singles for radio stations. We can sample their music and decide if we want to buy it. But quick searches on P2P networks and BitTorrents will show you that fairly often people are sharing full movies, full albums, hell, full collections. The spirit there is not to promote by samples, but to steal and circumvent the companies that want to sell these things to you.
People break laws all the time. They jaywalk, litter, speed, etc. Downloading music is stealing. As much as I hate the RIAA, that doesn't change the fact that stealing remains stealing.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Despite frequent anti-lawyer postings on Slashdot (I confess, I do it too) lawyers are better than guns; they destroy greenbacks and leave people standing. Paradoxically, the RIAA is an example of why we actually need lawyers. Or would you prefer Apple HQ to be taken out by the RIAA's Somali IP department? Or downloaders to be taken out in drive-by shootings.
The business of lawyers is to be cheap enough that "businessmen" go to them rather than to hit-men, and expensive enough that "businessmen" have to be at least partly selective about who they sue.
Pining for the fjords
Coming from an XM Subscriber, I wouldn't WANT to record the content from the service, as it is far from CD Quality. In fact, FM sounds better in a lot of scenerios... and I've been able to tape from FM for as long as I can remember.
Despite its quality issues, I like the XM service and am sorry to hear about this. XM is in enough financial trouble, so I've read in recent articles, and I don't think they need this. I doubt the RIAA will make them go under, but this certainly can't be good for the service.
As far as the RIAA, I'm wondering what's next. I'm thinking they're going to sue Amazon for those 30-second 32kbps sample clips they have from CDs. And I wouldn't be at all surprised if some smart-ass exec at RIAA is reading this right now, and just yelped "BRILLIANT!" at the top of his lungs.
So, the RIAA is angry at people producing hardware to record XM radio, right? Isn't it impossible to get rid of this hardware? I mean, the radio has to have a speaker of some kind, right? So can't you always just cut the wires going to the speaker, wire them to an audio jack, and plug that into your sound card? Theres always a way.
According to the article, XM's device does not allow on-demand downloading, nor does it allow content transfers. Sony, a member of RIAA, should remember the results of the Betamax case.
It seems that EMI, Sony-BMG, Universal Music and Warner don't give a shit about the market. The market wants downloadable/streamable quickly selectable music. The market wants to know the music before paying for it. The demand is there, get to work and satisfy it. All this lawsuit-circus is about forcing people to buy CDs. People want no more CDs. Is it so hard to understand?
Now will RIAA sue me?
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Just sue each and every person they can see. I know they can sue me. I have one of these tunes in my head that I can't get rid off it and I know I have not payed for it.
As I apparently am able to store music, I must be sueable under the same rules.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
How many times...
Downloading copyrighted material without the copyright owners permission might, might, be copyright infringement. Copyright is a legal concoction which only exists because it is supposed to enhance the public domain. It is not a right that is comparable to the right to own property. Why? Because the right to own property has a moral basis. We agree collectively that people can own property, things, stuff. Objects you can touch with you hand.
You cant own general relativity. You cant own the designs to you new death ray. You cant own that song you wrote. You can keep them secret if you want. But if you go public with them, then you cant complain when people copy them. You might be granted a limited monopoly in some way to encourage you to produce and release this information, but that is not a moral right you are entitled to, it is just an economic device.
Downloading is not stealing, and copyright legislation needs to take into account again that fact.
XM might have some problems here, but it's not with normal copyright infringement. They may (or may not - I don't know XM's technology well enough) have violated the provisions of the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992, which specifies certain requirements for digital recorders (including royalties) and also specifically grants particular recording privileges to individuals for private noncommercial use.
Unfortunately for the RIAA, they aren't the ones with standing to file such a suit. Various author and artist associations receive (and presumably distribute to their members) royalties enforced and collected by the US Copyright Office, and the RIAA is not among these.
Because the 0.5 million would be just the down payment on a total sum that's much more than any legal expenses would be. The reasoning goes both ways, would the RIAA be willing to spend 10 million in court if all they could get in the end were 0.5 million in re-negotiated royalty fees?
In that environment, I'm no longer buying music as it no longer has high value and has no resale value.
.. I doubt they will cover my iTunes library...
.. but I have bought used CD's and I have given CD's to friends and family after losing interest ..
..
Until recently, I hadn't thought about this point.
I avoid DRM protected music because it forces me to to take backups (CD's don't) and is of far lower quality than CD's. Furthermore, my insurance will cover my CD collection
I've never sold any of the CD's that I've bought
"Resale Value" is definately on the list of reasons not to buy DRMed music
You can only be a bully for so long before someone fights back or someone bigger than you kicks your ass.
First off, they get no money from it? I thought you had to pay for XM. Wouldn't XM have to pay it's dues to RIAA for playing the music? So you're recording a broadcast you are paying for. So that's like DVR-ing pay-per-view?
So RIAA and the MPAA can eventually have a lawsuit that retros pack to the beginning of the VHS/cassette era because, hell, SLP on VHS I could get 3 movies per VHS cassette and I could have an easy 2 hours of music on a music tape. Oh wait, even further back because you could record to vinyl if you had the cash for the machine.
So now it comes to the iPod. I suppose that every device and it's makers can get sued if any of their devices can record. That means the RIAA should target companies such as Sony, Clarion, Kenwood, Philips, Toshiba, Magnavox, and Eclipse (which is family with Toyota). Yeah, good luck with that RIAA. I'm sure Sony or Toyota would give you a reach around when they're done.
One has to think... Are they only targeting XM because XM is in a somewhat battered state right now?
Psssst, RIAA.... XM encourages users of the Inno (and other new XM2Go models) to purchase music that they like through Napster. http://www.xmradio.com/napster/
As a proud Qwest customer, I know the true reason they didn't hand over the records.
Incompetence.
Every time I've had to deal with Qwest they fuck it up hard. Even turning on a phone line doesn't go well. You'd think they'd be good at that.
I suspect the NSA asked for the info, Qwest tried to comply and failed. Then called it integrity.
Man, you really need that seminar!
He did the "take a shit/leave a shit" routine years ago. Can't remember all of it, only:
"I've gotta go take a shit."
"Yeah, well don't take one of mine, I've only got two left and I'm saving them for the weekend!"
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton