EconBall looks at the RIAA/XM lawsuit, and sympathizes mostly with the RIAA. But it is wrong in one respect; when it suggests:

Certainly, if the recording companies prevail, that will be the end of these devices, as XM is not going to negotiate separate licenses for all the songs it plays and thus limit the catalog of songs it can play for its largely radio-only customers.

Not so: Licenses are worked out through SoundExchange, and they will be worked out. Just as Clausewitz called war "the continuation of politics by other means," this litigation is the continuation of negotiations by other means.

Obviously, as EconBall notes, each side has some good points in this dispute. As RIAA says, a radio that records 50 hours and catalogues the play list can indeed substitute for a small storage device, and is not the same as a a pure radio, where the experience is necessarily ephemeral. As XM says, such a device is not the same as a multi-gig iPod, and it is further limited in that it cannot transfer music to any other device; the listener cannot augment his CD or computer music collection.

Confusing the issue is the Audio Home Recording Act, designed to allow recording from the radio by the antique technologies of 15 years ago, which had built-in technological limitations that also limited the damage to music sales. The statutory cagegories no longer reflect the realities of the technologies, which means that all parties are uncertain about the scope of their property rights, and thus uncertain as to what these rights might be worth.

So what is needed is a device that will let them negotiate fees and conditions that recognize all of these complicated facts. And such a device exists in the form of the market bargaining. So, since they need each other, they wll get there. And, eventually, the definitions of rights will solidify, and future negotiations will solidify.

The sky, and the satellites, are not going to fall. (And thank heavens, because even as this is written I am using XM to listen to glorious opera music made available through record industry licenses, which, I hope, earn a good living for the great Renee Fleming.)