July 8 - 10:45am EDT   The American music industry may be pressuring Dell and other computer manufacturers to disable stereo recording support in an artificial attempt to discourage piracy, say accounts from users. Users of Dell systems with SigmaTel chips in particular claim to be only allowed single-channel recording out of the box and are told that an official solution that restores stereo input will cost $99; Gateway and (in Europe) Packard Bell systems with the audio hardware are also said to be affected. [full story]

May 15 - 1:30pm EDT   The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) will have to pay $107,834 in legal fees as a result of a failed lawsuit, a US federal judge has ruled. For two years, running until June 2007, the RIAA pursued a case against Tanya Andersen, accusing her of illegal file sharing; that case was dismissed with prejudice however, and Andersen and one of her lawyers were allowed to seek compensation for their defense. At points in the case, as many as six attorneys for Andersen were present in court. [full story]

May 8 - 4:50pm EDT   Regardless of the movement towards permanent unprotected downloads in online music, digital rights management (DRM) is likely to persist and may also thrive in the near future, the Recording Industry Association of America said today at a Los Angeles media conference. The music organization's technology head David Hughes observes that nearly all strategies for offering paid music still require some form of copy protection to enforce the license agreements, which are often dependent on set times or play counts. [full story]

January 11 - 3:20pm EST   Major label EMI may be leaving the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), reports say. Its executives are further said to be engaged in talks with Warner, Universal and Sony BMG, in an attempt to alter the priorities and structure are several trade groups, including the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). EMI sent a letter to IFPI officials for that very reason, claiming that it would abandon its membership unless the organization conformed to EMI's interests. Funding to the IFPI could be cut off by March 31st. [full story]

December 21 - 3:25pm EST   The Recording Industry Association of America may be turning to artificial news segments to drive Internet users away from file sharing and other bootleg copies, says a tip provided to Ars Technica. The group, which primarily represents major music labels, is said to have produced a fake news clip -- known in the industry as a video news release -- that it hopes TV stations will use to fill gaps in the networks' news shows and effectively promote its own agenda. [full story]

December 17 - 4:35pm EST   Universal Music and XM Radio have settled a lawsuit over a piece of third-party hardware, reports say. The item of contention was Pioneer's Inno player, which is able to record XM broadcasts in addition to playing MP3s; the problem is that it can naturally record Universal artists without permission, something the record label objected to. Under the terms of the settlement, Universal will be the first company signed to a multi-year agreement covering all XM radios with "advanced recording functionality," potentially opening the door to safe recording on many other devices. [full story]

December 11 - 2:00pm EST   Converting music CDs to audio files on a computer is unapproved and therefore illegal, the Recording Industry Association of America has said (PDF) in a brief ahead of a crucial Arizona lawsuit. Hoping to support the arguments from group member Atlantic Records in its complaint against the Howell family, the RIAA contends that ripping CDs leads to "viral" copyright infringement; a single disc can result in millions of copies if shared through a peer-to-peer service, the brief claims. [full story]

December 4 - 4:50pm EST   The Department of Justice has come out in support of damages awarded to the RIAA, a brief from the government body suggests. Jammie Thomas, a single mother who was successfully sued by the RIAA for sharing music on Kazaa, and was initially fined $9,250 per song for a total of $220,000. As a part of her appeal though, she challenged the constitutionality of the judgment, noting that the Copyright Act only allows statutory damages between $750 and $150,000. This, Thomas claimed, meant her punishment violated the Due Process clause of the Constitution, particularly since record labels only earn an average of 70¢ on the dollar for each track. [full story]

December 4 - 3:00pm EST   A lawsuit filed by the owners of the LimeWire file-sharing service has been thrown out of a New York court, writes the Associated Press. The Lime Group had earlier entered a case against a group of major record labels, charging that they were harming Lime through unfair business practices. Specifically, said Lime's lawyers, the labels were refusing to license out music, which Lime had hoped to implement into an above-board pay service. Instead the labels would only deal with Lime if it used an approved filtering system, or if it struck an agreement with the industry-sanctioned iMesh service. [full story]

November 29 - 11:40am EST   Music label EMI could weaken the anti-piracy campaigns of both the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in the near future by reducing its financial help with both organizations, claims an anonymous insider speaking to Reuters. A recent acquisition of EMI by the private equity firm Terra Firma is known to have triggered a financial review that would reduce the millions of dollars that the label supplies to both groups. [full story]