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The U.S. Senate now involved in the race to regulate satellite radio

Satellite and Internet radio services may be required to restrict the ability to record and play content due to the Platform Equality and Remedies for Rights Holders in Music Act, legislation recently introduced in the U.S. Senate.  Senators Dianne Feinstein, Joseph Biden, Lindsey Graham and Lamar Alexander previously supported the proposal that was first introduced last spring, specifically to make sure "radio-like services" available through satellite, the Internet and cable remain fair.

The XM Satellite Radio Inno player, for example, allows users to store copies of songs that originally streamed over XM, which has led to critics to say that the current system of copy-protection technology needs to be updated. The copyright bill could effectively "restrict listeners' ability to record and play back individual songs."

The Recording Industry Association of America, the trade group responsible for representing the top record labels, has approved the efforts of the U.S. Senators.  However, an XM Satellite Radio spokesman stated that the legislation would "harm consumers' long-protected recording rights."

In May 2006, the Recording Industry of America sued XM with a claim that XM devices violated publisher copyright. 

In other news related to satellite radio, a consumer advocacy group aimed at fighting against a rumored XM and Sirius merger has been formed by a group of George Washington University law students.  One of the main goals of the Consumer Coalition for Competition in Satellite Radio's (C3SR) is to continue to raise consumer awareness of the impact that a satellite radio merger would have on listeners. 

XM found itself in hot water earlier this year when it was determined that some of its devices violated FCC transmission mandates. 

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what's the point?
By lucyfek on 1/17/2007 1:11:52 AM , Rating: 2
from some of the comments posted by satelite radio users, it appears as if the sound quality was not among the advantages of the system. since one can't stream it faster than it's bradcasted, there is really no issue in recording the "forbidden content" off the analog output, although this may seem somwhat cumbersome (ok, the tags and other bs will be missing).
don't they have better things to do than inventing such a retarded restrictions?




RE: what's the point?
By h0kiez on 1/17/2007 10:54:42 AM , Rating: 2
Sound quality is actually pretty good...at least on the music channels of Sirius. In my humble opinion, most people complaining about sound quality are probably the idiots that set up their Satellite connection with an aftermarket FM-modulated radio instead of a Sirius tuner plugged directly into a Sirius-enabled head unit (same would apply for XM). My father has one of those, and my brother in law had one for about 3 months, at which point he got a new head unit and a dedicated tuner. Decent, non fm-modulated hardware makes a world of difference...that being said, talk channels on Sirius do sound pretty bad.

And no...they don't have better things to do. The government really should have a body of people under 60 years of age from various programming, engineering, and technical backgrounds that helps establish copyright and other laws...not Mr. "series of tubes" and his cohorts. It really scares me sometimes to think that these guys are in control of our future.


RE: what's the point?
By lucyfek on 1/17/2007 11:42:44 AM , Rating: 2
the comments i read were saying something about low bandwidth, static and occasional stutters so these were not due to fm-modulator use. anyhow, the point is that besides low quality one has also waste plenty of time to "listen" to the whole records in order to copy the stuff. this makes no sense as anyone can rip the same stuff from cd faster and with better quality and later share it via internet.
not that i cared about satellite radio with or without copy "privileges", but sure this makes one less reason to buy into this stuff of seriously limited use (unless one lives in the "bunnies" beyond the range of old fashion fm broadcasts).


Reasonable for Sat Radio
By Omega215D on 1/16/2007 5:30:00 PM , Rating: 2
This is reasonable I guess since there are no commercials to sit through (for now) so limiting recording privileges isn't too bad.

Now having regular radio recording taken away is going way too far. Creative has tried to release firmware that takes the capability away from the Zen Vision M and they totally took it out from their newer flash players with FM. Sandisk has made radio and radio recording quality pretty poor on purpose due to the threat of lawsuits from music companies. I know this because I have a Sansa.




"So, I think the same thing of the music industry. They can't say that they're losing money, you know what I'm saying. They just probably don't have the same surplus that they had." -- Wu-Tang Clan founder RZA











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