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Ford, GM Sued Over Vehicles' Ability To Rip CD Music To Hard Drive
Lucas123 writes: The Alliance of Artists and Recording Companies is suing Ford and General Motors for millions of dollars over alleged copyrights infringement violations because their vehicles' CD players can rip music to infotainment center hard drives. The AARC claims in its filing (PDF) that the CD player's ability to copy music violates the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992. The Act protects against distributing digital audio recording devices whose primary purpose is to rip copyrighted material. For example, Ford's owner's manual explains, "Your mobile media navigation system has a Jukebox which allows you to save desired tracks or CDs to the hard drive for later access. The hard drive can store up to 10GB (164 hours; approximately 2,472 tracks) of music." The AARC wants $2,500 for each digital audio recording device installed in a vehicle, the amount it says should have been paid in royalties.
Time Shifting? Worked for the VCR.
If the royalties they get is over a dollar for every track, I guess we are blessed that digital music stores can sell tracks for under that. The iTunes store is truly benevolent for giving away money...
I'm sure GM and Ford have better lawyers, and I imagine they have more resources to throw at the affair as well. I also imagine that GM and Ford will team up for their defense, and make AARC cry. GM and Ford's lawyers signed off on the system before it was even developed, let alone installed in cars. The AARC is going to waste millions and go home with nothing.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
they already bought the Music CD so the owner of these CD ripping automobiles are not stealing the music, and they are not capable of sharing those ripped CDs on the internet, it is just making it easier and safer for the driver because they can pay more attention to driving and not fumbling around with a CD collection while driving
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Could someone explain this to me with a car analogy?
I can't believe this idiocy is still going on. This seems to be clearly format shifting for personal use which should be entirely legal. I hope this lawsuit gets tossed out of court and the plaintiff is ordered to pay the defendants legal costs.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
I wonder why they didn't sue earlier.
Also only a landlubber would use such a system, a savvy pirate would use something that plays the looted music he already has! Aarrrrr!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I had actually never heard of these trolls. According to wikipedia, "AARC is a non-profit US royalty collective, assembled by the US music industry in conjunction with the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992, that protects the rights of featured artists and recording companies(sound recording copyright owners) both domestically and abroad in the areas of hometaping/private copy royalties and rental royalties"
In other words, lawyer parasites.
And fight this for "fair use" in court and completely and utterly fuck over the RIAA and record labels in their war against the people.
GM is big enough to get this fixed. but I guarantee it will all disappear as soon as they push back.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Lawyers grasping hard again: They are complaining about a small (by weight or cost) part of car that rarely is removed or operated outside of it. The primary purpose of the car is transportation, not to extract digital music. Even if the Jukebox is a paid optional extra, that doesn't change the primary purpose of the car!
Who uses the cloud anymore... it's all about bio-implants... get with the times grandpa.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Neither side wants this to go to court, and both sides know it. The AARC wants a settlement they can point to for high pressure settlement letters to other defendants, and the car companies want a non-revokable license for these devices. I'd give it a 90%+ confidence that this will result in an undisclosed settlement within a year, and while we won't know the number they settle for, I'm guessing it won't be enough to make a blip on the car companies' quarterly reports.
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As an American with an above average grasp of the US legal system thanks to a long time friend who is an attorney, I can tell you that anything can happen if this case goes to court. Should the AARC lose? Yes. But will they? Who knows? Juries aren't made up of people who understand technology. If Ford and GM's lawyers botch the case or the jury has quite a few members who are obsessed with punishing rules breakers, the AARC can win. I agree that it seems likely that an undisclosed settlement will be reached. The AARC probably knows that most likely it won't prevail so getting something is better than losing in court and getting nothing and GM and Ford would prefer not to take the risk that a crazy jury will rule against them and view a limited settlement as the best option available. Even having judges decide cases is no guarantee against craziness. I know of one case where a court was overruled by an appellate court who accused the original court of making up the law out of nothing on the case in question. My attorney friend told me that he agreed with the appellate court ruling but he'd never seen a court use that kind of language before in slapping down another court.
The Act reads:
No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings.
The Act defines a "digital musical recording" as:
(5)(A) A “digital musical recording” is a material object —
(i) in which are fixed, in a digital recording format, only sounds, and material, statements, or instructions incidental to those fixed sounds, if any, and
(ii) from which the sounds and material can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device.
http://www.copyright.gov/title...
That Exemption was specifically to allow for home taping from CD to DAT and Minidisks, so it seems appropriate here.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Maybe they're just being frugal. Maybe they're trying to pass on as much money to the artists they represent as possible.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
but doesn't having 10GB of ripped Justin Beiber songs raise the resale value of a car...
No, I think that would take this from being legal to being a crime.
...they want their dead horse back.
1) buy a used devalued car with this capability
2) load it up with $10,000 worth of music
3) sell it with the added value of the music for $2000 more then I paid
4) PROFIT!
Seriously though, one could do that with a laptop and iTunes and not need to deal with a DMV transaction and a 4000lbs vehicle.
I definitely do for a number of reasons:
1: Music formats used to change, and still do change. In the past it was ripping to whatever the device needed, (ATRAC3, WMA, MP3, AAC.) This is less of an issue now since the industry has standardized on AAC, but if I want FLAC or ALAC, I can always re-rip.
2: I like physical media. A pressed CD isn't going to be affected by malware, barring a clever flash of the firmware in a CD burner. Plus, I don't need much to play it.
3: Not all bands bare their souls to iTunes and other music stores. AC/DC, Tool, and a number of regional/folk bands just don't make much money by singles. Streaming services, the bands make even less. So much less, it isn't even worth bothering with.
4: It makes more money for the band to sell a CD than a single. Even if they only receive a couple dollars from it, it usually is more than what they would receive via an online store.
How the heck is it different from ripping a CD in iTunes or any portable MP3 player?
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
And this is different from itunes in what way? I have an ipod wired into my truck's sound system. (It's a feature of the stereo.) The (older style) ipod has an internal hard drive that contains music ripped from three crates of CDs via itunes. How is this different?
And how is this not fair use? The user is presumably the same person who bought the cd. Does the AARC expect me to buy it twice? (I know, stupid question.)
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Wasn't this already decided by the courts as fair use? Consumers aren't expected to purchase recordings for each playback device. I think it has been decided that it's legal to purchase a CD and make copies for personnal use. That should cover copies to analog tapes and copies to files for mobile devices.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
I participated in a forum with Lessig, having my question selected for somebody from RIAA legal to be answered:
What are we buying when we buy entertainment media? Is it a license to view/listen to the product, or is it just a copy of the title that we have limited rights to? That is, do we own the license to view/listen to the content in any format -- or when we buy a CD, are we just purchasing the format of the content?
Matt Oppenheim responds.
(C) [What are we buying when we buy entertainment media?]
When you buy a CD, you should feel free to consume the music. That means you should listen to that disc, and feel free to make a copy of that disc for your own use so that you can have a copy in your home and your office. You should feel free to copy it onto other formats, such as .mp3, so that you can listen to it on your computer. You should feel free to copy it to cassette.
The only time you run into problems is if you begin to distribute your copies to others.
http://www.murc.ws/showthread....
The original event is no longer online. However, it appears to be archived at the forum I just linked. We get to transcode and backup our media, and we've always been able to do that. Of course, the DMCA makes circumvention an issue, but CD's really don't have that problem as they are essentially an open, raw audio format to begin with. In practical terms, they are not much different from tapes.
So we make mix CD's, we back up our masters, so the heat from the car doesn't ruin albums we might not be able to buy again, we transcode for our portable media player, or frankly the media player we made ourselves! Mix CD's to express our love for somebody else? Yeah, doing that is OK too.
What this means is we've always been able to make copies for friends. The answer above from the RIAA actually doesn't state this, and for obvious reasons, but the reality of things is clear. What that answer does state clearly is that we are just fine making a copy for the car. In fact, this is nicer than the backup CD, in that it's not really portable like a backup CD is.
Here's a notable question for you:
Say you archive your CD collection. Then you give the originals away. Ethics would have you get rid of the backups. But the law? No requirement at all. Doing this is shitty, but not something one is going to jail for.
Hope these clowns choke on a dick.
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