XM Radio settles last time-shifting lawsuit over Inno
By John Timmer | Published: June 10, 2008 - 02:00PM CT
XM Satellite Radio has announced the settlement of a lawsuit filed by EMI Records in 2006 in response to the company's offering of Pioneer's Inno receiver. The device's digital recording capabilities spawned a host of lawsuits from all the major labels, and XM has been settling them one by one. With EMI dropping its suit, the company now appears to be in the clear.
The focus of the labels' ire is manufactured by Pioneer, but offered to XM subscribers. The key feature, from the record industry's perspective, is its ability to record up to 50 hours of digital content, either at the press of a button or through scheduling. From consumers' and XM's perspective, this is the sort of time-shifting that TiVo offers, letting users catch programs they would have otherwise missed. Form the labels' perspective, these digital copies are an invitation to piracy—even though there was no mechanism for extracting the recordings from the Inno.
At the time these lawsuits were announced, we speculated that there might be something to the recording industry's concerns, as various forms of DRM have been a magnet for hackers. A web search for hacks, however, finds a few links describing modifying the device's FM transmitter capabilities, but then quickly degenerates into various disgruntled listeners describing equally varied XM content as being produced by hacks. Apparently, the 50 hours of recording were a resistible lure, despite the device's convenient USB port.
As with the past Inno settlements, the terms of the latest were not disclosed. Based on past events, it's safe to assume XM will be sending EMI checks in return for offering this feature. Sirius, which offers a similar device, negotiated similar payments before marketing it, and has avoided the court system entirely.
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