The RIAA and Logic, It’s Like the Brady Campaign and Logic

Apparently the RIAA is lobbying for the mandatory inclusion of FM receivers in all mobile devices. I can’t for the life of me follow whatever passes for logic with these people. How can you justify making a law to mandate the inclusion of FM receivers in mobile devices? Seriously what’s your justification? Please tell me because I my head hurts just trying to figured it out.

Is it to get people to listen to the radio? That probably isn’t going to work and I’ll tell you why. My Evo 4G has an integrated FM receiver (it wasn’t mandated by law but HTC figured if they’re going to throw in the kitchen sink then why not an FM receiver). I assume it works because everything else on the device does but I’ve not actually tried it. In fact I haven’t listened to an FM radio station since… shortly after I graduated high school I believe. That’s about the time I discovered FM transmitters that plug into iPods.

Now with my Evo I have an amazing data connection with Pandora and Last.fm. If I want to listen to a radio station I just punch up one of those two streaming services and listen to a station that doesn’t have advertisements and plays music I like (or at least attempts to). I pair that up with my Motorola T505 which connects to my Evo via Bluetooth and transmits the music I’m playing over a selected FM band. This means while I’m driving around I have my Pandora or Last.fm radio station playing music over my FM radio. Oh and it doubles as a hands free calling device to boot.

Sorry RIAA you’re business model is dead and buried. You can’t salvage it at this point and frankly nobody likes listening to the radio anymore because they play more ads than content. After all you can lobby for a law which forces every mobile device to have an included FM receiver but you can’t force anybody to utilize it.