House Committee Pushes Replay on XM Gadget Debate
The House Commerce, Trade & Consumer Protection Subcommittee on Wed. replayed concerns raised a week earlier at a Senate hearing on digital radio content (CD April 27 p8). The debate centered again on XM’s new portable gadgets, which can record and store digital copies of songs from XM’s live satellite radio stream. Billed as a broad look at digital rights management, the discussion narrowed to whether XM’s new toys overstep copyright boundaries.
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“At last week’s Senate hearing, witnesses were asked if XM’s new services go beyond the law -- allowing users to cherry-pick songs and keep them in a library,” said Rep. Blackburn (R-Tenn.), whose introductory remarks tilted in favor the Nashville songwriters she represents and against XM and Sirius’s new technology: “This new device used by the satellite industry isn’t there just to play music, but to distribute music.”
XM Chmn. Gary Parsons again found himself arguing in defense of consumer rights under the Audio Home Recording Act, and saying XM pays the music industry more in performance royalties than any other company. Parsons said the recording functionality of XM’s new devices are “like TiVo,” allowing subscribers to record the debut of Bob Dylan’s show or a late night West Coast baseball game to listen to later, for example: “In the analog era we did it with cassette tapes… In the digital age, we can use new technologies to do it more conveniently.”
XM’s arguments weren’t well received by Blackburn or Rep. Bono (R-Cal.), though Bono said she recently bought cars equipped with XM for herself and her son. “Isn’t it that you're building your business model on the back of the songwriter,” Bono asked Parsons? “If we need to define distribution, and we need Congress to define distribution, then we'll do that,” she said, calling the XM devices “a master copy” for music.
“Let’s be clear about what this device does not do,” Parsons said, reminding the committee that songs can’t be removed from the devices. “Congress has set a web of protection for the music industry and songwriters,” on which XM designed its business, he said: “We pay under all of these structures.”