Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Home Recording Rights Coalition Accuses RIAA of Betrayal

The Home Recording Rights Coalition ("HRRC") has accused the RIAA of going back on its word, and contradicting the representations it has made to Congress and to the United States Supreme Court, in its suit against XM Satellite Radio.

According to the HRRC, it chairman Gary Shapiro accuses the labels, and the entertainment industry as a whole, of abusing the assurances given to the courts, the Congress and the public at large when the industry pursued its Grokster lawsuit. "Then, entertainment industry representatives insisted that they did not by any means intend to threaten the sort of in-home, private, noncommercial recording that yesterday, they alleged violates the copyright law." Shapiro stated:

"The lawyer that signed the complaint against XM is the same lawyer who told the Supreme Court that ripping a CD to a PC and then to a handheld device (without paying any royalty) is lawful. He represents the same industry that, in seeking 'inducement' legislation, promised that it would never be applied against devices such as a TiVo personal video recorder. But yesterday the complaint against XM claimed that consumers who use their devices in such ways are violating the copyright laws, and that XM is therefore guilty of inducement."


HRRC Press Release

Complaint in Atlantic v. XM (RIAA's case against XM Satellite Radio)

Analysis by Electronic Frontier Foundation of Atlantic v. XM

Keywords: copyright download upload peer to peer p2p file sharing filesharing music movies indie label freeculture creative commons pop/rock artists riaa independent mp3 cd favorite songs

2 comments:

CodeWarrior said...

The RIAA going back on its word?

Say it a'int so...

That's like saying the sun occasionally shines....

BasicTek said...

It's great to see that by using lawyers any rich powerful corporation can attempt to build a business forcing it's customers to have to buy a product multiple times merely to extend their profits...

Imagine if car manufacturers got ahold of this mentality. They could force consumers to have to buy a new car if they want to drive it in another state.

It's bad enough we have to replace TV's, media players, and media everytime a new format comes out. So lets add buying a new copyright to the same material if you want to play it on that media...