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With the growth of Satellite radio (XM and Sirius now have nearly 10 million subscribers between them), a new dilemma has appeared: is it legal to record songs directly from XM or Sirius?

This article over at the NY Times talks about the issues. The technology is here, that's for sure:

Midway through a song on one of the satellite radio channels, a listener can press a button and record it in its entirety; it is automatically sorted by artist. (The Sirius machine even has a clever little heart graphic that pops up on its screen when you do so, signifying the devotion you have just shown.) And you can even prerecord blocks of programming from your favorite channel -- and later fast-forward through the songs and cherry-pick the ones to keep. In the same spirit, you can download MP3 files of songs onto these machines from a computer.

In other words, if the devices work as well as they're supposed to, they represent an intriguing alternative to pay-per-download services like Apple's iTunes and its omnipotent iPod. For executives in the satellite radio industry, of course, this sounds like a no-brainer: they are merely mirroring the evolution of the cable model. To some music industry executives who regard this as yet another way for people to circumvent paying the full price for their songs, it looks like another potential doomsday device.

Read the entire article and gear up for the next big battle...

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