riaa

RIAA to feds: Make XM-Sirius pay more, restrict listeners' recording

The Recording Industry Association of America has already mounted a court challenge against XM Satellite Radio over gadgets like the Pioneer Inno that allow consumers to trap individual songs originally played on air in alleged violation of copyright.

Now the industry group is urging that issue to be one of the deciding factors for federal regulators weighing the proposed multibillion-dollar union of XM and its sole competitor, Sirius Satellite radio.

In comments filed with the Federal Communications Commission on Monday, the RIAA urged the agency to "make clear that its approval of a merger is conditioned upon the continued … Read more

Internet radio is dead for today; democracy, on the other hand...

In case you've haplessly been attempting to listen to Internet radio streams throughout the day, you might have noticed most are dead. This is by no means a fluke, and on a wider scale, it's a mass protest to the royalty rate increase that passed legislation in early March. The rate increase, which gives the RIAA (whose Web site is coincidentally down today) more money for every track served to listeners, has been the focus of much debate and controversy. The new fees go into effect July 15th.

The new fees don't just affect the smaller broadcasters … Read more

Day of Net radio silence

Tomorrow, some of the most popular and prominent Internet radio stations will go silent to protest the imposition of new fees that many Webcasters claim will drive them out of business.

The protest stems back to a Mar. 2007 decision by the Copyright Royalty Board to impose per-song performance royalties on Web radio, starting at 0.08 cents per song (retroactive to Jan. 1, 2006) and increasing gradually to 0.19 cents per song by 2010. The former rules forced Webcasters to pay a minimum annual fee and 12% of their revenues. (Small Webcasters might be able to abide by these old rules … Read more

YouTube does sound with AudioSwap

It's a common problem: your point-and-shoot camera's microphone picked up nothing but wind while you were at the park shooting a video of people flying kites. The solution? Wipe over the track with music. But putting licensed music over the videos not only requires video editing software, but also the digital rights to publish. YouTube has rolled out a new service called AudioSwap which hopes to quell both of those problems.

To use AudioSwap, just pick a video you've uploaded and browse the provided audio list. You'll get a preview right away, and with the click … Read more

CES preview: Most likely to be sued January 9? Broadclip

To be honest, I'm surprised the good folks at Broadclip haven't already landed in some sort of big-media hot water for their MediaCatcher product. MediaCatcher works like a TiVo for portable devices--you install the software, and it uses your computer's TV tuner card to find and record shows, and then automatically formats those shows for your portable device. Plus, it sends the shows to iTunes or Windows Media Player for easy auto-syncing. Cool, right? No more $1.99 shows! But now, Broadclip is apparently just taunting the dragon: the music industry.

According to a press release I … Read more

Zen without the (FM) harmony

Despite the cheerful existence of VCRs, DVRs, and DVD recorders, apparently the music industry still doesn't buy the whole "recording broadcasts is fair use" argument. And since they tend to have a lot of influence (if not friends), the RIAA has succeeded in getting Creative to disable an advertised feature of the Creative Zen Vision:M--namely, FM recording. The latest firmware update to the Zen Vision:M removes the FM recording feature of the device, and according to some forum users, tech support has responded thusly: "With regards to your enquiry, you may like to know … Read more