back to article Recording lawsuit targets Ford, GM in-car CD recorders

The recording industry has spotted another potential target of tax-by-lawsuit: the auto industry, for in-car media players. In a complaint available at Scribd, the Alliance of Artists and Recording Companies (AARC) names General Motors, Ford, and component suppliers Denso and Clarion as supplying recorders that don't comply …

  1. Ole Juul

    AARC

    Just another acronym on the long list of music industry thugs.

  2. dan1980

    Can't these people go do something useful like play in traffic?

    1. msknight

      ...where I am sure a Ford vehicle will happily do the honours.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    They are the 21st century equivalent of the British trade unions in the 1970s.

    1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

      Trade Unions represent workers, which are human beings.

      AARC represent soulless corporations which are not people.

      There is a world of difference.

      1. dan1980

        No, no, no Trevor - they represent artists: music creators; humans with souls and families to feed; people who have poured their life into creating their art and they deserve to be compensated. Otherwise your'e just stealing.

        Oh wait, no, you're right.

        1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

          No, the companies that the AARC represent theoretically represent artists. (If you believe that a for-profit organization can and will do such a thing in a fair and honourable manner.)

          The AARC represents companies which claim to represent artists. Totally different thing.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "Trade Unions represent workers, which are human beings."

        Sorry Trevor. I agree with your general sentiment but you didn't live through the mess that was the UK in the 1970s.

        The Trade Unions, or rather their leaders, got way too powerful and really did hold the country hostage.

        Three day weeks, power cuts, no ambulance service, no rubbish collections or funerals. No buses to get to work with.

        It was pretty dire.

        1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

          "Sorry Trevor. I agree with your general sentiment but you didn't live through the mess that was the UK in the 1970s."

          You're right, I didn't. But trade unions still represent people directly. They are the equivalent of a music label, not of an association that represents music labels. The AARC is the equivalent of an organisation that represents a group of trade unions. Not the equivalent of trade unions themselves.

          There is a difference. Good or bad, the trade union directly represents it's members. They are directly responsible for what happens. But the AARC doesn't answer to the artists at all. That's what makes it dangerous. They are far enough removed that they have lots of power and no restraints.

          As for "how horrible your trade union strife was", I probably will understand. I live in a province that puts huge amounts of time and effort into union busting, so all I see is that there are damned good reasons for unions to exist, and that people in power always try to grind down individuals who seek to use collective bargaining to not end up becoming a slave class.

          I'm a socialist. I believe in the right to collective bargaining. I believe in quality of opportunity and that we should strive towards equality of outcome...but that there need to be wiggle room in the outcome, because some humans are naturally far more greedy than others. If they don't have the ability to lord it over others, bad things happen.

          In my view of the world we all contribute as we are able to society and we all benefit together. I have no time for those who don't want to contribute and I have even less time for those who want all the benefit and damned be those who will themselves giving their contribution.

          So maybe the UK went through a bad time. That isn't going to either convince me unions are evil or that an organization that represents companies which then represent people is somehow the same as an organization that represents people directly (and whose leadership is elected by those it represents, which is still very unlike record labels!)

          And I believe that difference is important.

        2. Da Weezil

          You seem confused about how unions work. The leaders do not dictate policy, that comes through the membership and the reps, sadly the fallacy that unions are run by and policy directed by the leadership is likely to lead to new laws in the UK that will effectively remove the ultimate action from the working man allowing companies to once again ride roughshod over the ordinary working man.

          Its the same sort of ignorance we see with the "nothing to hide nothing to fear" mob, Governement and big business do not always know best and frequently will screw the little man to further their own ends regardless of how that im;pacts those further down. The same is true of the music dinosaurs. I work today - I must work again tomorrow to live, not keep claiming payment for stuff I did 20 years ago - or things my late relatives did.The only thing the music mafiaa are protecting is themselves, thier bloated organisations and their over indulged lifestyles.

  4. Richard Jones 1
    FAIL

    Hard Time Make Them Envious of Hard Disks?

    Now be fair, how else is the industry going to afford its drugs bill otherwise. The basis of the claim is otherwise so stupid as to be laughed at in normal life.

    Mind you I have a CD slot in my car but have never used it as much as once in 8 years and have no idea if it even works, the radio gives me traffic and roads status reports, a CD does not. Neither would a hard drive even if it would store 'The Wounded Bulls Greatest Squawks.

    No doubt the 'recording industry' would like to sue me for not buying something to use in the player.

    1. WonkoTheSane

      Re: Hard Time Make Them Envious of Hard Disks?

      "No doubt the 'recording industry' would like to sue me for not buying something to use in the player."

      Give it time...

      1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

        Re: Hard Time Make Them Envious of Hard Disks?

        Shhh !

        Stop giving them ideas !

    2. DiViDeD

      Re: Hard Time Make Them Envious of Hard Disks?

      "the radio gives me traffic and roads status reports, a CD does no"

      Ah, you gots the wrong CD player there. Over 10 years ago my (then) state of the art VW Golf would be continually pausing my CD to switch me to a station warning me of a traffic jam 100 miles away, or broken traffic lights in a town I'd never heard of, before seamlessly returning me to the wrong track of the CD I was trying to listen to.

      Oh, and if you had the temerity to override the RDS pings, it would bloody record all the bulletins and play them back to you as soon as you parked the car and took the key out.

      Happy days

  5. 's water music
    Pirate

    an old message that still carries resonance

    Home Car taping ripping is didn't killing music after all. [logo-->]

    whodathunk?

    Personally I would have sued the drivers. They mostly have less expensive lawyers than the auot makers

    1. DiViDeD

      Re: an old message that still carries resonance

      A bit off topic, I know, but I still have my Dead Kennedys In God We Trust cassette with a message on side B as follows:

      'Home taping is killing record industry profits

      We've left this side blank so you can help'

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I sincerely

    hope that Ford, GM et-al fight this and win.

    It truely is a sad state of affairs when some farty uppity self righteous company proclaims the world is wrong and owes it gazillions of monetary credits...

    1. big_D Silver badge

      Re: I sincerely

      Whilst I agree, the law has been around long enough - and affects every other manufacturer of modern media devices, so they should have known better.

      I wonder that Clarion and Denso hadn't registered the devices and paid the dollar or so per unit...

    2. MrXavia

      Re: I sincerely

      Completely Agree, and I thought that in the good ol US of A it was legal to make a backup of a CD?

      In the UK I can't see this ever winning in court, even if you consider the player is designed to rip CD's. there are NO losses to the studios (people did not buy two copies of a CD before they could rip so they won't now), no losses = no crime & no losses for a civil offence.

      I like our copyright laws mostly, they protect copyright without being overly zealous. (even if we do need a few exceptions added, such as copies for personal use by the purchaser & their family)

  7. razorfishsl

    And Apple with their Itunes and Ipod with integral hard drive that has a facility to store a complete CD in a lossless format from my home collections of CD's are not included in the law suit because?

    1. MrDamage Silver badge

      Because iThings are a status symbols of these type of executards, and if they went after their status symbols, then they'd have to settle for "non-magical" phones like the rest of humanity.

    2. James O'Shea
      Mushroom

      "And Apple with their Itunes and Ipod with integral hard drive that has a facility to store a complete CD in a lossless format from my home collections of CD's are not included in the law suit because?"

      because when last I looked (which was, admittedly, some time ago) Apple accounted for 40% of the music industry's profits and it would be very, very, VERY simple for Timmy-boy to turn the money spigot off.

      And the fact that Apple has mad-dog killer lawyers doesn't hurt.

    3. Adam 1

      >And Apple with their Itunes and Ipod with integral hard drive that has a facility to store a complete CD in a lossless format from my home collections of CD's are not included in the law suit because?

      Simples! Those record companies are just waiting to be sued. Have you not seen the round corners on the typical CD? Has a CD never stopped working because you were holding it wrong? Apple have them over a barrel!

  8. Mark #255
    Coat

    Hmmmm

    I'm wondering how the Audio Home Recording Act applies to cars with internal data storage.

    I mean, a PC (not marketed primarily as a ripping device) doesn't fall under the Act, so a car (similarly not marketed primarily as a ripping device) shouldn't either.

    Also, if your car is regularly in your home, you're an astonishingly bad driver.

    1. Neil Barnes Silver badge

      Re: Hmmmm

      Depends where your garage is...

      1. Ol' Grumpy
        Joke

        Re: Hmmmm

        Definitely couldn't get a car in my garage. Not with the amount of crap my wife keeps putting in there.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Ahh The American Music Way....

    The Land Of The Free......money.

    Don't create, don't innovate...just litigate.

  10. Fihart

    It's for use in the car, stupid !

    Where is the evidence that such devices lead to pirating ?

    Obviously they are designed to copy CDs already owned by the driver.

    So that the music contained can be listened to in the car with more convenience (and at less risk of distraction) than 1) locating the correct CD. 2) extracting CD from case single-handedly.3) posting CD in slot.

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: "Obviously they are designed to copy CDs already owned by the driver."

      Obviously not, they are designed to rip any CD that is placed in the unit.

      That means that you pick up your friend who brought one of his CDs with him, he places it in the unit and bang! copyright piracy takes place.

      Or worse, the nefarious criminal organization buys a car with this functionality, rips out the unit and uses that in a vast underground piracy ring thing like the criminals they are. The American Way (tm) is insulted that that can be even possible, therefor many lawyers must buy new cars with these units in order to verify the claims and devise the lawsuits that can bring back American Freedom, and more cocaine.

      1. Fihart

        Re: "Obviously they are designed to copy CDs already owned by the driver."

        @ pascal

        Obviously your comment is humourous. But how often when offered a lift in a friend's car do you think "must go home first and get a bunch of CD" ?

        1. Neil Barnes Silver badge

          Re: "Obviously they are designed to copy CDs already owned by the driver."

          Yes, but that's because no-one who ever gave me a lift had any musical taste.

          http://store.dieselsweeties.com/products/elitism

        2. Pookietoo

          Re: must go home first and get a bunch of CD

          No need - I have a few here, in the case of my CD Walkman.

  11. dervheid
    Meh

    Presumably they dont have a CDR drive...

    and the only output is via the in-car audio system.

    Seem to be pretty much covered in the copy protection stakes.

    And lets face it, 'everyone' borrows (or at least used to) CD's from their friends.

    Further death-throes of the conventional music industry model

    And another cashfest for the lawyers.

  12. Gergmchairy

    I recently had a hire car for a couple of weeks with one of these devices - came with a free collection of Rock tracks pre-loaded - perfect, thanks !! :-D

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