XM Slapped on the Wrist by Another Music Police Group

Authored by Scott Goldberg on March 22, 2007 - 9:59pm.

Official Trend Watch! 2007 is the year when men in suits sitting on boards or associations that most people have never heard of get together to grab headlines by scolding so-called copyright infringers. This time it’s the National Music Publisher’s Association (NMPA), and a complaint it filed in New York federal court yesterday against XM’s “XM + MP3” service that allows customers to record music to a Pioneer Inno player.

The other notable groups are the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB). The RIAA is making news with its Campus Invasion ’06-’07 project – not to be confused with MTV’s Spring Break. No, it more closely resembles your father showing up at your dorm room while you’re getting lucky and not only failing to knock or apologize, but informing you that college is now on you because you failed to use a condom.

And how Web 2.0 of the RIAA! There’s even a site where kids can pay their law suit settlements at a reduced cost. Gee, thanks, RIAA. Guess I better get another job this summer. You guys are awesome!

The CRB is no popular flock either. They’ve waged war on internet radio by charging royalty fees on each song a station plays to each listener…a brilliant (some would even say ingenious) move. Ingenious as an airline leaving people on the runway for 8 hours.

Agree or not with the lawsuits that music industry policemen are throwing around, the NMPA’s seems the worst. Recording songs played over the radio has gone on for what seems like an eternity. I’m okay with the New York court hearing the case, but on one condition: I’d like to know how many NMPA execs have at one time or another made a mix tape dubbed from their favorite radio stations. I’m curious why so many organizations are so bent on taking the fun out of things. When we were kids dubbing tapes of each other’s albums, or leaving a blank in the deck and hitting record when a great song played, we didn’t worry about law suits and all that crap. Why is everyone going so crazy now? I’m sincere in asking that question and would love an intelligent answer.

It seems the CRB and NMPA were tired of the RIAA having all the fun. After all, they thought, we have expensive suits and angry lawyers that talk like over-caffeinated talent agents too! Who cares that there are more music fans today than any time in history and we might have to actually use our (gulp) …creative skills…to come up with ways to capitalize on it. How many businesses would kill to have a demand as intense as the music industry’s?

Scott Goldberg