The RIAA has lost their minds
Permalink | May 19th, 2006
The music industry has just filed another in a long line of stupid lawsuits. This time it’s against Pioneer’s Inno XM radio. The RIAA claims the Inno, which gives users the ability to record XM radio broadcasts in a similar fashion to TiVo, violates (drumroll please) copyright.
The music industry wants to stop your ability to choose when and where you can listen. Their lawyers have filed a meritless lawsuit to try and stop you from enjoying these radios.
They don’t get it. These devices are clearly legal. Consumers have enjoyed the right to tape off the air for their personal use for decades, from reel-to-reel and the cassette to the VCR and TiVo.
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Satellite radio subscribers like you are law-abiding music consumers; a portion of your subscriber fee pays royalties directly to artists. Instead of going after pirates who don’t pay a cent, the record labels are attacking the radios used for the enjoyment of music by consumers like you. It’s misguided and wrong.
Unless the RIAA does something, and quickly, they will eventually be made extinct by the very thing they should be working in conjunction with — technology. They need to change, and the change needs to be at the core of their business model. Filing lawsuits against people, companies, technologies, and ideas, and hiding behind copyright just isn’t going to cut it, at least not any more.
