One for the software jockies

**SteveC** · 09-29-2004, 01:09 AM

My 'other' (better??) half came up with a great idea today for XM radio install.

We were looking at the Timetrax software and as I am a lucky one with an XMPCR installed in the car she asked why couldn't the XM player (we use TouchXM running externally in FrodoPlayer) have a button that would take the current track being played, turn it into an MP3 and automatically store it in the MP3 library.

It would need a TIVO style (always recording and discarding) buffer I guess but how cool would that be. Just hit the button every time you hear a track you like and it gets automatically added as an MP3 into your database.

What are your thoughts?

Steve

**Confused** · 09-29-2004, 05:41 AM

AAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!

It's TimeTrax and people with thoughts like you that have murdered the XM-PCR.

Recording from XM is against the Terms Of Service that you agreed to when subscribing to their service.

I don't think you'll be getting any help here to pirate songs

**jpelzer** · 09-29-2004, 11:33 AM

Originally Posted by Confused

It's TimeTrax and people with thoughts like you that have murdered the XM-PCR.

Recording from XM is against the Terms Of Service that you agreed to when subscribing to their service.

I don't think you'll be getting any help here to pirate songs

He didn't mention pirating songs. He wanted to be able to time-shift ("Tivo-like") which is both legal, and congruent with the XM terms of service.

Terms and Conditions

Everyone here has been reading section 1, paragraph b to mean that they can't record, period. But that sentence, "You may not .... create unauthorized recordings of the programming" does not specifically bar one from making a recording for personal use.

The ability and legality of time shifting programming was determined by the Supreme Court in the case of Sony Corporation v Universal Studio Productions, when Sony argued successfully that the advent of its Betamax (1976) video recorder did not violate the copyright of the owners of shows which it recorded.

In 1979, Universal sued Sony, claiming its timed recording capability amounted to copyright infringement. However, a district court found that noncommercial home use recording was considered fair use and ruled in favor of Sony.

The RIAA doesn't like it, but personal recording of XM radio does not contravene the user agreement, nor is it copyright infringement.

That said, it is doubtful that anyone on these boards will help kill then next pc-controlled XM receiver that comes down the line. Legality issues aside, XM is not on our side, it appears.

**Elderm007** · 09-29-2004, 11:57 AM

Hollywood is Trying to Kill Betamax
The Betamax ruling is the only thing that protects your right to own a VCR, tape recorder, CD-burner, DVD-burner, iPod, or TiVo. It's that important. But new legislation that's being pushed through the Senate by lobbyists for the music and movie industries would override the Betamax decision and create a huge liability for any business that makes products which can copy sound or video. This legislation (formerly known as the INDUCE Act) would essentially give Hollywood veto power over a huge range of new technologies. And if they get this power, they'll definitely use it. Even "compromise" drafts from the Copyright Office could make mp3-playing iPods ancient history; the music and movie industries want to force all content to go through their own restricted channels
http://www.savebetamax.org/

**jpelzer** · 09-29-2004, 12:36 PM

That's a good point, Elderm007.

Actually, today is a scheduled as a call-in day against the INDUCE act. Please sign up here:
http://savebetamax.org/eff/

**judoGTI** · 09-29-2004, 01:15 PM

Is TouchXM skinnable?

**Nav_Attack** · 09-29-2004, 01:33 PM

its a good idea.. i was thinking about doing this for the radio, but couldn't really think of a great way to do it without doing some fairly serious programming. i was thinking a program like total recorder or something like what comes with the SB Audigy 2 ZX to record stuff set up to have like a 20 minute buffer. then i was thinking of using silences to cut the song. problem is, radio doesn't generally have silences. hehe. so i was thinking you hit a button and it saves 3 minutes in either direction... then at some unspecified point later it pulls up the waveform and you cut off the excess on either side.

problem i have is i've never done any windows programming, so i'm not to familiar with VB or .NET or whatever the current software is.. but i would imagine that there have to be some libraries/SDKs/etc that have most (all?) of this functionality.

anyway, let me know what you come up with. i'd be interested to know.

**Gruneun** · 09-29-2004, 01:40 PM

Originally Posted by Confused

It's TimeTrax and people with thoughts like you that have murdered the XM-PCR.

Recording from XM is against the Terms Of Service that you agreed to when subscribing to their service.

I don't think you'll be getting any help here to pirate songs

Members of a website with "mp3" in the domain name are upset about software piracy? Without getting into an ideological debate on the morality of filesharing, refusing to talk about a subject is the equivalent of closing your eyes and saying, "If I can't see them, they can't see me." It's been proven, through years of attempts by the RIAA, that file sharing and music piracy is not going away. The reality is that, if the format and unintended features are that popular, you're not going to kill it by looking the other way. This is no different.

As far as TiVo is concerned, they tried to block file extraction with the new series of boxes, but will now be releasing software to specifically copy the shows to your computer for burning on DVD. They also lobbied the FCC to allow sharing between friends' boxes outside of one household. They realized it was going to happen and it came down to biting the bullet or being pushed out by someone who was a bit more forward-thinking. Being a TiVo addict, there have been more than a few times that I've been annoyed that I couldn't step back a few minutes and catch something I missed on the radio. Grabbing a show or a song isn't much different. Increasing the quality of the recording and automatically adding the info would be the natural progression.

XM-PCR may be dead, but the idea isn't.

**SteveC** · 09-29-2004, 01:41 PM

Wow - I didn't mean to elicit such an aggressive response!

Certainly I record TV shows every day for later review and I even have tapes recorded from 5 years ago that I have kept. I don't sell or trade them.

I simply want to store the song so that I can listen to it again and again.

Timetrax is available today for download and if anything would kill the next XMPCR then it will be that, not some feature built into a car pc application that interests perhaps 0.1% of the 2.2 million XM subscribers. Remember also that 'most' car PCs aren't connected to the Internet so as I drive across the country saving tracks to my database, they aren't accessible to anyone else across the Net.

Another issue is that Timetrax records the ANALOG audio from the XMPCR and unless you have modified your XMPCR with a TOSLINK then it's no different than recording off FM radio in terms of quality. I could understand RIAA getting ****ty if XMPCR was sold with a digital output but it's kinda weird that XM backed down when all that was being recorded was the analog audio signal.

Maybe I'll just pay a software developer to write the code to do this.

Steve