The Recording Industry Association of America is suing US satellite radio company XM over its Inno device which allows listeners to their radio channels to capture and store individual tracks. The system, the record labels argue, is not covered by the traditional blanket licences used by radio stations and, therefore, by offering the service XM are guilty of copyright violation.
As previously reported, XM's rival satellite radio network Sirius, whose S50 device offers a similar track capture facility, have reached separate licence agreements with a number of major record companies regarding the new service, and remain in negotiation with other labels and the main music publishers. XM have also been in talks with rights holders regarding the service, but those have seemingly broken down, hence the lawsuit.
The negotiations between the labels and the radio companies regarding these kind of services centre on the debate as to when an interactive radio service actually becomes a download platform, and therefore when radio companies can no longer rely on existing radio licences to distribute music. The record labels argue that the Inno device has crossed the line and XM are now in the same territory as iTunes et al. XM argue that, because the tracks captured on an Inno device cannot be transferred to another player, and because they can only be accessed while a consumer is subscribing to XM, they are merely operating an interactive extension of their existing radio services.
Should it go to court the record companies' lawsuit is seeking $150,000 in damages for every song copied by XM customers to an Inno device, which seems pretty ambitious.