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Quote:Buried in the bill, however, is a provision that would effectively require music webcasters to use DRM-laden streaming formats, rather than the MP3 streaming format used by Live365, Shoutcast, and many smaller webcasters (like Santa Monica's KCRW and Seattle's KEXP). The streaming radio stations included in iTunes also rely on MP3 streams (since Apple isn't about to license the Real or Microsoft streaming codecs)....

What constitutes "reasonable recording," you ask? Well, reasonable recording is basically the feature set offered by analog cassette decks in the 1970s...

If the PERFORM Act becomes law, webcasters who use the statutory SoundExchange licenses to play music would have to give up MP3 streaming in favor of a DRM-restricted, proprietary formats that impose restrictions on any recordings made. So much for great time-shifting technologies like Streamripper and RadioLover...

Quote:"The birth of the digital music place has been a boon for businesses and consumers. However, these new technologies and business models have become so advanced that the clear lines between a listening service and a distribution service have been blurred," Feinstein said. "I believe that the PERFORM Act would help strike a balance between fostering the development of new technologies and ensuring that songwriters and performers continue to be fairly compensated for their works."

Quote:update Satellite and Internet radio services would be required to restrict listeners' ability to record and play back individual songs, under new legislation introduced this week in the U.S. Senate.

The rules are embedded in a copyright bill called the Platform Equality and Remedies for Rights Holders in Music Act, or Perform Act, which was reintroduced Thursday by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Joseph Biden (D-Del.) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.). They have pitched the proposal, which first emerged in an earlier version last spring, as a means to level the playing field among "radio-like services" available via cable, satellite and the Internet.

By their description, that means requiring all such services to pay "fair market value" for the use of copyright music libraries. The bill's sponsors argue the existing regime must change because it applies different royalty rates, depending on what medium transmits the music...