Don't let Congress shackle digital music

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a disturbing bit of news about a bill introduced by my senator, Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.:

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 here.

EFF's summary of the bill's implications.

This is not only a terrible misuse of government power but also poor public policy, potentially pushing legions of digital-savvy users into the Darknet.