CEA to Music Biz: Enough With the Lawsuits, Already

CEA to Music Biz: Enough With the Lawsuits, Already:

You might have noticed that the Consumer Electronics Association (the folks behind CES) fired a volley at the music industry yesterday. Here’s why: the day before, nine labels filed a 33-page lawsuit against XM Radio for damages because the new XM receivers can — wait for it — record music . This, of course, is bad.

I was going to launch into a whole tirade about how this is just part of the industry’s continuing twin “sue, don’t innovate” and “ignore the existing laws we helped shape” strategies, but Fred von Lohmann did it for me over on the EFF website, which also includes a link to the complaint itself.

I will, however, say this: XM Radio and the satellite radio industry as a whole should take this as a good sign. Pretty much every time the music and movie industries go to court on some new technology (audio cassettes, VCRs, MP3 players) the industries behind that technology make a ton of money. And so, coincidentally, do the music and movie industries. You’d think they’d learn.

[ Emru Townsend, Digital World ]