News More copyright conflict - RIAA sues XM Radio

[WilHarris]

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/05..._riaa_lawsuit/

[Enak]

Unfortunately you guys have a swear filter on the forum... so I can't really comment much here.

[Paradigm Shifter]

I'm at a loss for words...

They're all doing just as much damage as the 'despicable pirates'...

[DriftCarl]

I think the RIAA are in the wrong business, the music business is clearly for musicians. the RIAA should be in the debt collecting business where I think they will be happy

[Zidane]

*sigh*..... personaly, i've reached the point of apathy with the riaa. if they want to sue everyone in america, let them go right ahead. i'm in the UK, they can kiss my rosy red bell end.

one thought does occur.... how long until they sue Microsoft for making 'technology which can be used to record music from teh intarweb".... (wmp, souncard mix as input, sound recorder. not feasable, but do-able), or aol for the same (winamp, diskwriter output).... funny how they keep going after the smaller peeps, instead of the big names.

and forgive my typing, shaky hands with new meds, cant seem to type today.

[Lo Pan]

The R I A A just want more and more MUHNEY!
They continue to alienate customers and, well just about everyone else with their strong-arm Nazi tactics. The funny part is that they claim to represent the "songwriters" but I'll bet they never see 70% of their sales money.

[merlin 65]

i read an artical way back and it said record sales actually went up went illegal downloading settled down reason being ppl had access to music that normally they would not have bought due to funds etc but beacuse they had listened to it and liked it they went out and bought the original , dont know how true it is but i can see the method in the madness

[perplekks45]

Originally Posted by Zidane

... one thought does occur.... how long until they sue Microsoft for making 'technology which can be used to record music from teh intarweb".... (wmp, souncard mix as input, sound recorder. not feasable, but do-able), or aol for the same (winamp, diskwriter output)....

Erm... they already tried to get all of us:
Read this.
And this.
And this too.

[eddtox]

"integrity of the digital music marketplace" !? Enough said.
-ed out

[Spaced_invader]

The use of the XM device is actually explicitly legal under the provisions of the Audio Home Recording Act which the record labels themselves approved back in the 90s.

If this is true then i'd like to see how far it goes, whether it get's to court or thrown out.
If it was up to them, we'd be paying 50c everytime we listened to the track, mounts up to a tidy $10 an hour for 3 minute tracks.. maybe i shouldn't give them any ideas lol

[leviathan18]

Originally Posted by merlin 65

i read an artical way back and it said record sales actually went up went illegal downloading settled down reason being ppl had access to music that normally they would not have bought due to funds etc but beacuse they had listened to it and liked it they went out and bought the original , dont know how true it is but i can see the method in the madness

i do it i download a cd first and see if the whole cd is good no just the single everyone listen in the radio and if the cd is good i go and buy i hate to pay 20$ for a music cd that is C**P.

i would love to see ppl stop buying cds to see the riaa falling and changing their methods

[Faulk_Wulf]

I did that with Bruce Springsteen. I couldn't figure out which album I wanted so I downloaded a sampling. Once I figured it out, I cleared the songs. (I also did that with Seegar Sessions, I had downloaded the whole album, honostly felt bad because I respeced Springsteen and bought the album. Depends on the artist, but I've done that more then once. Other than that I rarely get more then two songs by a given artist from a given album, otherwise I buy the album.)

*sigh*..... personaly, i've reached the point of apathy with the riaa. if they want to sue everyone in america, let them go right ahead. i'm in the UK, they can kiss my rosy red bell end.

So does that mean its legal to download music in the UK?

[specofdust]

I think this is perfectly acceptable. Regardless of whether its legal or not, if people can have an "all you can eat" music player for $12 a month then they're not going to buy music in the shops, and that's bad not just for the industry, but the the musicians and artists that the industry supports.

The RIAA has a duty to try and maintain a healthy and productive environment for musicians across the US and that's not going to happen if the musicians aren't getting paid.

XM radio have obviously realised that regardless of whether the law is on their side here or not, any judge who looks at this is going to realise the potential damage it could do to an emerging industry(online digital downloads) and shut them down big time, otherwise they wouldn't have offered $18 for every player. People should stop whining about the RIAA and be greatfull that they're around to maintain what is a very fragile and volitle industry, when left to its own devices.

So does that mean its legal to download music in the UK?

Of course it's legal to download music in the UK. So long as the music isn't copyrighted, or if it is, you pay for it. As for Zidanes comment, he was really referring to the complete lack of power that the RIAA have in the UK, not the legality of downloads here. However, thankfully here in the UK we have the BPI to watch over and maintain our thriving music market.

[Zidane]

Originally Posted by Faulk_Wulf

So does that mean its legal to download music in the UK?

i'm sure someone is more qualified than me to give the legal rundown, but sufficeth to say, no, downloading is not legal in the UK.

the RIAA dont make downloading illeagal, they just prosecute under the existing laws (admittedly twisting them beyond beleif). whilst they have pushed certain laws through (via lobbying and poking polititians until they squeal), they are not the police, or the lawmakers, just a bunch of money-grubbing execs with an army of lawyers.

once again, they can kiss my rosy red bell end. they cant touch me in the UK, we have sensible laws.

[Arena_08]

all i have to say is **** RIAA.

they need to get some balls and admit they ****ed up missing out on mp3's and are now trying to sue their way back into the game.

[Flibblebot]

Originally Posted by Zidane

they cant touch me in the UK, we have sensible laws.

We do?
I thought we had the European Copyright Directive and its UK counterpart - which, while not quite as draconian as the US DMCA, is still bad for consumers.
And while we have the BPI instead of the RIAA, I seem to recall that the BPI have also tried a few RIAA-style lawsuits in the UK.

[Zidane]

Originally Posted by specofdust

I think this is perfectly acceptable. Regardless of whether its legal or not, if people can have an "all you can eat" music player for $12 a month then they're not going to buy music in the shops, and that's bad not just for the industry, but the the musicians and artists that the industry supports.

ahem

an 'all you can eat' music player, for a one off payment of £23.99

here on amazon

this is what XM have done, provided a machine that can record songs off the radio (be that internet radio or real radio), and then play them back in any order you wish to. which is explicitly allowed under US law. thats why this is in the news, the RIAA are sueing for something that they themselves have agreed is allowed. the only difference being, XM offer a subscription to their internet radio station with a player. a good analogy is the radio1 branded radio/cassette players radio1 used to dole out as prizes.

the device offered by XM is not an 'all you can eat download service', it is just an internet radio player that is capable of recording. this in itself is not illeagal, you cant buy or choose the tunes, you just get to record the XM radio feeds, which as i mentioned before, is explicitly allowed under US law, and was agreed to by the RIAA.

i'm apathetic about this because no matter which way it goes, its just another ridiculous attempt by the RIAA to stifle innovation and grab as much cash for themselves as they can.

Originally Posted by specofdust

The RIAA has a duty to try and maintain a healthy and productive environment for musicians across the US and that's not going to happen if the musicians aren't getting paid.

by doing things like this

Originally Posted by specofdust

XM radio have obviously realised that regardless of whether the law is on their side here or not, any judge who looks at this is going to realise the potential damage it could do to an emerging industry(online digital downloads) and shut them down big time, otherwise they wouldn't have offered $18 for every player. People should stop whining about the RIAA and be greatfull that they're around to maintain what is a very fragile and volitle industry, when left to its own devices.

they made that offer specifically to avoid this kind of sitiuation. the RIAA refused the offer, and is trying to stop this from happenning at all.

personally, i'm not at all gratefull to the RIAA, according to them, i'm an evil theif who should be in prison and i am constantly breaking the law by taking my cd collection and putting it on my computer and my mp3 player.

i'm often thankfull that the only reason i am not an evil theif who remains at large to fund terrorism, lead peadophiles into playgrounds, hand out freebies of crack and heroin to children and assorted other 'piracy helps xxx' claims is that i live in the uk, where we realise that in the end, piracy exists, it has always existed, and we should be working towards stopping it without sueing every person, company, entity and rock on the entire planet.

[Flibblebot]

Or, to provide another, more up-to-date product, this. It's comparable to the US XM offering in that it can record over-the-air digital broadcasts - the difference being that in the UK, digital radio is COMPLETELY FREE!
It is, of course, highly hypocritical that the RIAA go after XM's offering when they haven't had anything against cassette or even minidisk in the past. I'm guessing they just sniffed the scent of money and decided to don their bovver boots and go wading in.

[Spaced_invader]

Originally Posted by Zidane

its just another ridiculous attempt by the RIAA to stifle innovation and grab as much cash for themselves as they can.

nothing very inovative about something that can record radio feed imo.

Originally Posted by Zidane

where we realise that in the end, piracy exists

Yes it does, and it's the crime of robbery of ships or boats on the oceans. I think what your refering to is Copyright infrinigment...

[Zidane]

Originally Posted by Spaced_invader

nothing very inovative about something that can record radio feed imo.
Yes it does, and it's the crime of robbery of ships or boats on the oceans. I think what your refering to is Copyright infrinigment...

yes, if we are being pedantic, then i meant copyright infringement, that thing that 99.9% of the known world refers to as piracy...... coastguards and pedants excepted of course.

the XM device is actually quite an interesting innovation. XM is not your usual radio feed, XM in itself is quite innovative, combining sattelite and internet feeds in a traditional radio format, funded by subscription rather than advertising. i have used their internet feeds in the past (opie & anthony rock!), and must admit, i was quite suprised at the level of technology.

the recorder itself allows you to record their stream (no easy task in itself, its remarkably well protected), and play sections back in any order you wish, on a track by track basis. whilst 'recording the radio' is not an innovation, they have expanded on this to give a much better system, thats the innovation.