The Wall Street Journal today fronts an article about new devices designed to store music from satellite radio services, and the record companies are none too happy. The piece, written by Sarah McBride, talks about portable music players, such as the Sirius’s S50, which retails for about $330, which can store up to 750 songs much the way an iPod can. XM Satellite Radio will come out with a comparable device, called the Nexus, next year.
Unfortunately for the record companies, which charge lower licensing fees to satellite radio than other media, the law isn’t on their side, allowing recording of radio music for personal purposes and permitting time-shifting of media content. Still, the record companies don’t like what they see and a fight is no doubt in the works.
To the music industry, the devices blur the lines between radios and recorders. “It’s a morphing of radio into something they’re not,” says Mitch Bainwol, chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of America, the industry trade group. “The presumption you can turn radio into a Napster-To-Go subscription service under the old terms is not accurate,” he adds, referring to a service that allows consumers access to all the music they want for a flat monthly fee.
Cynthia Brumfield at 8:43 AM|Comments(0)
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