XM Settles With Sony BMG Over Inno

By Joseph Palenchar -- TWICE, 2/1/2008

Washington — XM Satellite Radio has settled with a third major music company over the recording capabilities of its Pioneer Inno headset satellite radio.

The settlement with Sony BMG leaves only one of the four major music companies, EMI, as a party to a copyright lawsuit filed by the music industry against XM in May 2006.

XM claimed the settlement resolves the dispute with Sony BMG but would not disclose terms, such as whether XM will eliminate the controversial capability of the Inno to record live XM music programming and then “disaggregate” the recorded songs so they can be searched by artist, title and genre.

In December 2007, XM settled with Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group.