A minor point of law

Is a cassette recorder the same thing (in principle) as a digital recorder? No according to U.S. District Judge Deborah A. Batts... From the Seattle Times:

Judge rules in favor of record companies
A lawsuit in which record companies allege XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. is cheating them by letting consumers store songs can proceed toward trial, a judge ruled Friday after finding merit to the companies' claims.

U.S. District Judge Deborah A. Batts made the finding in a case brought by Atlantic Recording Corp., BMG Music, Capitol Records Inc. and other music distribution companies against the licensed satellite radio broadcaster.

In a lawsuit last year, the companies said XM directly infringes on their exclusive distribution rights by letting consumers record songs onto special receivers marketed as "XM + MP3" players.

XM has argued it is protected from infringement lawsuits by the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992, which permits individuals to record music off the radio for private use. The judge said she did not believe the company was protected in this instance by the act.

The decision:

Although XM argued in court papers that an XM + MP3 player is much like a traditional radio-cassette player, the judge said "it is not."

"It is manifestly apparent that the use of a radio-cassette player to record songs played over free radio does not threaten the market for copyrighted works as does the use of a recorder which stores songs from private radio broadcasts on a subscription fee basis," she said.

This Judge either needs to recuse herself or to get a clue. The signal coming over satellite radio is highly compressed and if anyone was looking at distributing music for resale, they would go to the parent source -- buy one copy of the CD, rip it and sell the MP3 files from that, not from a satellite system. People who listen to this non-commercial radio may wish to save particular programs and mixes and this (IMNSHO) is perfectly just. Another example of the dinosaur media thrashing around while trying to recoup the "glory years" when it owned everything. Looking here we see that Judge Batts was a Clinton appointee -- figures... Judge Batts' Wiki entry is here.