Washington, October 26, 1998 -- A federal district court judge today
denied a preliminary injunction requested by the Recording Industry
Association of America and the Alliance of Artists and Recording
Companies against the distribution of Diamond Multimedia's Rio
portable MP3 recording device.
Judge Audrey B. Collins accepted most of the legal arguments made by
plaintiffs and concluded that the Rio is likely to be covered by the
Audio Home Recording Act. That is, it is likely to be found to be a
"digital audio recording device" within the meaning of the statute,
and not just a "player." Accordingly, the device would therefore be
subject to the requirements of the AHRA relating to the payment of
royalties.
With respect to the requirement that the device incorporate serial
copying management technology, however, the judge found that it was
likely that the Secretary of Commerce would conclude that the Rio
adequately "prohibit[s] unauthorized serial copying" under his
statutory authority to do so because many of the MP3 files being
transferred to the Rio would not contain the codes necessary for such
technology to operate in any event.
She therefore concluded that, whether or not the Rio had serial copying
management technology, "a Rio user could still use the device to record
unauthorized MP3 files posted to the Internet" and "the Rio would still
contribute to the traffic in illegal MP3 files."