“The copyright protection arm of the U.S. music industry is suing Ford and GM because the companies sold cars with CD players that can rip music to the vehicle’s hard drive,” Lucas Mearian reports for Computerworld.
“The Alliance of Artists and Recording Companies (AARC), a non-profit group representing more then 300,000 artists, filed the suit against the car companies and their infotainment system tech suppliers, Denso and Clarion,” Mearian reports. “The lawsuit calls out a feature in Ford vehicles called Jukebox, which records songs from CDs to the infotainment system’s hard drive. The Jukebox function has been available on Ford vehicles since at least the 2011 model year.”
“The lawsuit also cites GM’s Hard Drive Device, made by Denso, which can rip music and has been available on numerous models since at least 2011,” Mearian reports. “The suit seeks millions of dollars to be paid by each of the companies for violating the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992. The Act protects against distributing digital audio recording devices whose primary purpose is to rip copyrighted material. For example, a CD-R player in a personal computer is not considered a violation under the Act because the computer was not marketed as a musical recording device.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: GM calls it a “Hard Drive Device?” Now that’s funny!
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Edward W.” for the heads up.]
My 2009 Acura TL could rip CDs to the internal hard drive as well. Actually, it did it automatically as soon as you inserted a CD even if you didn’t want it to.
Absolutely ridiculous lawsuit – seeing as how the technology retains the content within the ownership (and rights to copy) of the owner of the material.
ie the technology can’t be used for widespread distribution or dissemination of the music content.
As such, this entire lawsuit is ripe to be thrown out during the discovery phase, if it even comes to that.
… Though crazier things have happened.
Must be sad to be part of an industry, like patent trolls, where total and complete lack of foresight has caused it to constrict, and now hand-wringing is all that’s being done. 🙁
Because your friend hops in your car and inserts his CD and you rip to your car then you can play the music anytime you want.. that is stealing..
That’s a curious argument. Does that mean if my friend brings his own CD to play, then it’s stealing if I hear it?
Conversely, if I have music on the car’s hard drive and I sell the car, am I required to clear the drive first? Or is that piracy? Would the new buyer be liable?
If you copied his CD it would be stealing. Legally you should wipe all copyrighted material from a device before transferring ownership.
The friend bringing the CD to listen to it is fine. You listening to it after he takes it back home is not, but how can that be managed?
Selling the car is a clear “Yes, you should clear the drive.” But I doubt it is even an option. That could just be where the AARC has grounds to go through with this. But I still doubt it.
And then how are you supposed to get those rips off the internal hard drive? They are locked, aren’t they?
Locked by Microsoft Sync. NO ONE can access the tracks, not even for playback.
Ever since Amazon patented making a purchase with one click instead of many, I’ve not been surprised about the stupidity of patent law.
*face palm*
How are you ‘distributing’ copyrighted music when you are just ripping it into your own car for personal use?
More to the point, why didn’t the legal departments of GM & Ford advise their respective CEO’s of this as a potential problem before putting them at risk? I swear lazy corporate legal departments are more reactive than proactive.
Ummm. Maybe they did. Maybe Ford and GM’s legal people were fully aware of the issue but think the AARC is wrong and thus senior management went ahead with installing the technology anyway.
Sounds like a Samsung sly approach. Possibly.
More like a Ballmer type of move.
Maybe even they, lawyers themselves, couldn’t imagine lawyers being this vile.
You know, of course, why sharks will not eat lawyers? – Professional courtesy.
I’m not entirely serious here, but the law is called ” the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992″. Your car is not your home.
Also, loosely defined, the word “distribute” means going from one place to another. That IS what cars do.
But seriously, these two platforms probably do something with the data that crosses a line, unlike other similar devices, which may enable multiple copies of the music to be distributed.
Ford and GM, it is time to go with Apple’s CarPlay in every car and stop screwing around. Do it now or do it later.
The suit isn’t for millions it is for BILLIONS of dollars.
$2,500 per unit. Ford and GM sell millions of cars.
GM alone sold 2.8 million cars in the US in 2013.
2.5 million of which were recalled in 2014.
You’d think they would go after a smaller car company. Oh….
I think some of the readers forget that you can sell your car, thus distribute copyrighted material without license, thus commit a crime.
You can sell your computer as well.
Legally all copyrighted material must be removed. Frankly, selling a computer without securely wiping the hard drive and reinstalling the original software is stupid. I’d rather not leave one iota of personal information on any computing device when it leaves my possession.
Absolutely Absurd
I thought we already settled this back in the 70s with Sony vs. Film Industry?
“For example, a CD-R player in a personal computer is not considered a violation under the Act because the computer was not marketed as a musical recording device.”
Replace “personal computer” with “Ford or GM vehicle”.
That’s funny! I’ve never seen a Ford or GM ad promoting their products as music copying devices.
So what happens when your mistress puts a CD in your GM or Ford, it rips the disc and then your wife finds the alien music on the “hard drive”?
I have a mistress?
Imagine if you had a cubicle job working for the Recording Industry’s lawsuit division, and your boss was rewarded for coming up with “creative” lawsuits . . . “OK Bob, I got it. Cars have thousands of songs, GM and Ford sell millions of cars– One thousand times 1 million is = . . . . “We’re talking Billions of Dollars! The man upstairs is gonna love this idea !” . . . while you’re sitting in your cubicle rolling your eyes, thinking “Is this lifetime employment or a prison sentence?”
Some background on the AARC:
The AARC is a smaller and little known collection society. It was created solely to collect fees from the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA), one of the many (many) laws that the RIAA foisted upon the world in fear over the rise of digital music. It was designed as something of a “compromise” between the RIAA and the computing and consumer electronics industry. The focus was supposedly to better enable personal, non-commercial home copies of music, while putting royalties on devices used to make serial (repeated) copies.
https://www.techdirt.com/blog/?company=aarc
Therefore, from my meagre understanding of the AHRA, this suit is unwarranted and will FAIL. A car is not advertised as a ‘recording device’ and any copying of media to the car’s hard drive is OBVIOUSLY only for personal use, NOT for mass reproduction and distribution. Throw the case out of court.
I’ll also point out, as usual, that the RIAA and pals are expert at destroying their own reputations by way of abusing their customers. And what’s the knee-jerk instinctive response to abuse? Retribution. And what retribution is inevitable in abusive situations such as this? Piracy.
IOW: These clowns end up encouraging piracy through their own abusive behavior. The only way the recording industry is going to get the clue is through the gradual replacement of the decrepit old guard with a new generation of 21st century savvy leadership. So we wait…
Couldn’t agree more. The RIAA is really the worst enemy of a successful music industry. They are stuck in a vinyl coated past.
Or have judge Cote assigned. She loves personnel power so much she might just like this case.
Just saying.
Not even Cote would sully the name of ObamaMotors. Would she?
Who cares who they sue? The case has no merit.
BTW- in my neighborhood rip means fart.
The recording industry will only be happy when technology allows them to collect a royalty every time a song is played for each person listening to it; its greed knows no bounds. The argument is that an artist is performing and he (more accurately, his recording label) should be paid for that performance. The argument breaks down in that it is only one performance: the artist is not performing each time we listen. Unfortunately, there is big money and judges respond, like every other human, to big money.