“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.]