Fair Use, Fare Thee Well
XM radio just got sued for a new recording feature that it's offering on some of its radios. The new Inno radio from XM is able to search for music by name and record up to 50 hours of tunes.
The lawsuit by a coalition of the recording industry alleges what you think that it might--that XM is assisting in piracy.
I have two words for the recording industry: "grow" + "up".
The lame claim that artists are not being paid for their work falls on deaf ears, especially when I'm in Los Angeles and see fat recording executives driving in sports cars, sporting more bling on their fingers than Paris Hilton. Sure, the artists should get paid for their efforts. Who says that they aren't?
The right solution is to change the compensation model and cut back on the slice of pie going to the middleman--the vocal and litigiously challenged recording industry.
I empathize with XM (Sirius made an accomodation and wasn't named in the suit). But the one that I really feel bad for is me. What ever happened to the Fair Use Doctrine?
The music industry (and the movie people) are cutting back on our right to copy digital material that we've bought. Hey, I buy most of my music and I always buy or rent my movies. The problem is that today's digital world wants to swap the material between devices. It's made for that. If I buy a Neil Young CD and play it at home, I have to copy it to use it on my ipod. Newer car radios make me copy it to a hard drive there. I don't want to carry a CD around with me anymore, that's why I went to digital.
Somebody needs to stand up to the bullies of the entertainment industry. Who will champion the rights of consumers now that Ralph Nader is clearly crazy? it's a shame that we can't count on Congress. I guess that we're have to turn to the consumer advocates of the new millenia--the hackers.
Posted on May 17, 2006
