XM is taking a bullet for you, the music consumer.
Because their Pioneer Inno is inherently changing the name of the game (in that it can not only receive satellite radio but record hours of it for playback later), there’s a big bad bullseye on XM and the RIAA’s guns are a-blazing.
Folks, it is inevitable that the functions of listening to radio, recording that radio, and playing back that radio are central to what listeners want. As technology enables that process on a song-by-song basis the labels get naturally skittish. And XM rightly argues that this is no different from the listening to and recording of radio that has been legal for generations.
How many years and how many misdirected and frutiless lawsuits will it take the RIAA and the labels it represents to understand that they can either figure out how technology can work for them or they can populate the courts with nonsense that alters their strategic trajectory not at all and only serves to attract the hostility of their customers.