Sonic Walker

Action Alert from the Electronic Freedom Foundation:

Dianne Feinstein’s “Platform Equality and Remedies for
Rights Holders in Music (PERFORM) Act” would permanently
hobble your ability to record off the radio and force
webcasters to use DRM formats.

If passed, future satellite and digital radio receivers
would be limited by law to what the bill calls “reasonable
recording.” To the RIAA, this means that all consumers will
be banned from choosing and playing back selections based on
song title, artist, or genre. According to the Consumer
Electronics Retailers Coalition, even the transmission of a
recording from room to room inside a house would be
restricted by mandatory blocks and controls.

PERFORM would also mess with streaming Internet radio
stations. Right now, MP3 or open format Internet radio can
take advantage of statutory copyright licensing to
remunerate rights holders and artists. After PERFORM, all
streaming music that uses statutory licensing will be
required to be in a DRM-encumbered format that forbids
interoperability or user-editing. Wave goodbye to MP3
streaming and to moving recorded webcasts to the portable
player of your choice.

PERFORM is yet another petulant scrawl by the RIAA on the
statute books, placing their short term interests over the
freedom to innovate and the future freedoms of America’s
musicians and customers. Tell your representative not to
co-sponsor or vote for PERFORM in the Senate or its
companion bill in the House.

Take action now
Details and full text of the bill
EFF’s summary of the bill’s implications