I came across this link about the four major music labels filing a suit against XM radio over at Thomas Hawk.
Now the thing about the post (he gets the information from the EFF) is that it points out how out of control and insane the music industry and RIAA are (and by connection, anyone who supports their current path!).
Here is a quick analysis from the EFF that says it all:
â????As I’ve pointed out before, a big part of the chilling effect on innovation created by copyright law stems from the thermonuclear effect that statutory damages has in cases involving recording devices. For example, the RIAA is seeking $150,000 in damages for each song recorded by any XM subscriber. The complaint further alleges that XM automatically infringes every song on every channel to which an Inno user is tuned (because the Inno records a live radio buffer, much like TiVo’s 30 minute cache, and the RIAA argues that the buffer is an infringing copy). XM broadcasts 160,000 different songs each month. Assuming 20% of the songs each month are different from the last, that works out to roughly 500,000 different songs each year. Assuming Inno users are tuned in to at least half of those songs, that would mean statutory damages of $37.5 billion! This number obviously bears no relationship to the harm suffered by the recording industry (whose entire gross US revenues are less than $13 billion).â??
Along with the protests of citizens like me (and those who support the EFF and like organizations), I hope actions like this wake up our elected officials to the outright insanity of these actions of the music industry. The level of greed is appalling and while I suppose that greed by itself is not evil, the unchecked greed exhibited by this industry that is harming creativity, innovation, and fair (common sense) use is definitely evil.