The Recording Industry Association of America is suing XM radio for alleged copyright infringment with the new Pioneer Inno.  The RIAA believes that giving subscribers the ability to record the music is grounds enough for copyright infringement.  Prior to now, subscribers using devices such as the XM2Go were only able to schedule recordings to be done at a future time.  But, with the Inno, subscribers are able to record a song as it’s playing.  With a 10minute buffer, subscribers can wait until the song is nearly over to record it.

XM responded by saying that the Inno allows subscribers to listen and record radio, just as they have always been able to with other radio broadcast formats.  I tend to agree with XM on this point.  What is the Inno allowing subscribers to do that they can’t do with ordinary radio?  With the coming about of Digital Radio for regular FM transmissions, the quality of the music is comparable.  With AM/FM, you’ve also got a wide variety of choices to record from.

I believe this is just a display of one of the RIAA’s new tactics for obtaining revenue.  Rather than putting out better music and better music services (e.g. iTunes, Napster, etc.), they’d prefer to just sue companies. Especially one’s such as XM that provide more features to the consumer.  Why put the effort into promoting your own holdings when you could just try to take away the holdings of other successful companies?

If anything, the news of this lawsuit has made me want to buy an Inno even more.  Until now I hadn’t even heard of the device, but it does have some impressive features such as:

• Live Recording
• Scheduled Recording
• Storage of up to 25hrs of MP3s/WMAs (1Gb of storage)
• Storage of up to 50hrs of Live Music (25hrs if you split the space with MP3s)
• 10 Minute Buffer
• Color Display Screen
• Easy to use menu
• Improved antenna over XM2Go

Plus, you’ve gotta love XM’s marketing for it:
“It’s not a Pod. It’s the mothership.“

Sources:
Yahoo News
Amazon.com
Pioneer Inno

*Also, Samsung makes a similiar device for XM called the Helix.  Check it out here.

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Since the Civil War, the number of military operations taking place on U.S. soil has been declining.  As such, the Third Amendment is more commonly viewed as a means of protecting the privacy of citizens.  However, this was not the case prior to the American Revolution when the British frequently housed it’s soldiers within colonial homes by means of the Quartering Act.

Yet, the Third Amendment doesn’t expressly prohibit soldiers from being quartered in your home during a time of ware (i.e. Now).  As long as it’s within legal procedure (whatever that means), then they can quartered in your home.

On another topic, I previously mentioned a little bit about a court case and how it affected surfing the internet at work.  As it turns out, it hasn’t really affected anything at all. You can still be canned for surfing the internet while at work.  Although, in this court case the judge had recommended that the employee only receive a reprimand since using the internet is equivalent to using a telephone or reading a newspaper at work.

For surfing at work, he got turfed.

Sources:
Black’s Law Dictionary
Wikipedia