The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has sued XM Satellite Radio.

For those who don't know, XM Sattelite Radio is basically like you're regular radio but sent from a sattelite directly to the player.
Consumers buy a player and pay a month subscription fee to receive the broadcast.

Recently XM released a player that could also record a particular song and save it on the device for later playback.
The recorded song is protected and infact can't even be removed from the device, but the RIAA still didn't like this.

So lets recap…

The RIAA is suing a satellite radio company, that already pays them loads of money to play the music, because people can now record the music off the radio, just like they have been doing for decades off regular radio.
To add the icing to the cake, the RIAA want US$150,000 in damages for every song copied by XM customers using the device.

XM's response after the break…

Statement to XM Subscribers – The XM Nation

Everything we’ve done at XM since our first minute on the air is about giving you more choices. We provide more channels and music programming than any other network. We play all the music you want to hear including the artists you want to hear but can’t find on traditional FM radio. And we offer the best radios with the features you want for your cars, homes, and all places in between.

We’ve developed new radios — the Inno, Helix and NeXus — that take innovation to the next level in a totally legal way. Like TiVo, these devices give you the ability to enjoy the sports, talk and music programming whenever you want. And because they are portable, you can enjoy XM wherever you want.

The music industry wants to stop your ability to choose when and where you can listen. Their lawyers have filed a meritless lawsuit to try and stop you from enjoying these radios.

They don’t get it. These devices are clearly legal. Consumers have enjoyed the right to tape off the air for their personal use for decades, from reel-to-reel and the cassette to the VCR and TiVo.

Our new radios complement download services, they don’t replace them. If you want a copy of a song to transfer to other players or burn onto CDs, we make it easy for you to buy them through XM + Napster.

Satellite radio subscribers like you are law-abiding music consumers; a portion of your subscriber fee pays royalties directly to artists. Instead of going after pirates who don’t pay a cent, the record labels are attacking the radios used for the enjoyment of music by consumers like you. It’s misguided and wrong.

We will vigorously defend these radios and your right to enjoy them in court and before Congress, and we expect to win.

Thank you for your support.

Good on them.

[Via iBloggedThis]