RIAA wants to restrict recording of digital radio with some 'small' rules

September 18, 2005

According to the EFF, the RIAA is at it again. The organisation that represents the artists of the USA wants to restrict the recording of digital radio. Digital radio is an upcoming technology that will bring digital radio over existing analogue air frequencies bringing more possibilities for radio stations. But also for consumers who can use the meta data of the streams to build playlists, skip radio commercials, like a TiVo for radio. However the RIAA sees this as potential loss of income and has come with some rules, to make sure you dirty pirates are not going to steal from them!

According to the RIAA, you should be able to record off the radio, but only subject to their "usage rules":

recordings must be for no less than 30 minutes;

recordings cannot be divided into individual songs, nor will you be allowed to jump between songs;

recordings must be encrypted and locked to the individual recording device (no transfers to your iPod!);

recordings can only be triggered by a human pressing a "record" button or by pre-programmed date-and-time (like your old VCR!), which means no smart metadata driven features like TiVo's "Wishlist."