Ears On

The Recording Industry Association of America, better known as the antichrist, is suing XM Satellite Radio for "massive copyright infringement." XM plays 160,000 different songs a month for its 6.5 million subscribers and the RIAA wants $150,000 for each song copied. In the background is the real story: The music industry has been in negotiations with both major satellite operators over payment of royalties, and while Sirius has cut a deal, XM has not. In its defense, XM says it's already the single biggest payer of royalties to the labels. The Consumer Electronics Association has issued a definitive rebuttal to the suit. Another source of heat is Senate bill 2644, a.k.a. the Perform Act, which would prohibit satellite services from allowing programmed downloading of individual songs, even though songs currently are not digitally transferable from the devices that record them (and any analog output from any device can be recorded anyhow). According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Perform Act would also require webcasters to substitute DRM streaming technology for the MP3 streaming many of them use.

Postscript: XM has issued its own rebuttal to the suit, The XM Nation.