Dr. Feelgood: So tell me, how are you feeling today, S.R.?

Satellite Radio: A little mixed up. I should be elated that my two halves -- XM and Sirius -- will be united into one amazing whole, a service that will please, entertain and excite radio listeners everywhere.... But, there's also this weird empty feeling in the pit of my stomach...

Dr. Feelgood: Are you worried that the marriage won't be all that it could be?

Satellite Radio: There are people who don't want to see us together. The FCC, the broadcasting industry...

Dr. Feelgood: ...People who don't want to pay more for their service? Let's go back in time, S.R. Back to a time when you were just two little kids fighting for the attention of the American public... Look at my watch as I swing it back and forth... You are getting sleepy, sleepy, sleepy... Now. When you were much younger, what was your business plan?

Satellite Radio: Well, we spent billions of dollars to launch satellites into space to give people commercial-free radio with more variety. The idea was that they would pay us a monthly subscription fee and we would get millions upon millions of people to drop free radio for pay radio.

Dr. Feelgood: Yes, that is good. What happened after that?

Satellite Radio: We spent our billions and vowed to compete fairly as XM and Sirius, in the hopes that fair competition would help keep prices low and keep those subscribers coming. But...

Dr. Feelgood: I feel a dark aura hovering over your head.

Satellite Radio: Yes, well, many people liked our service but didn't want to pay for a new radio, or pay a monthly fee for commercial-free radio. They also have free Internet radio and free podcasts so we were starting to lose momentum. That's when the Las Vegas Effect kicked in.

Dr. Feelgood: The Las Vegas Effect?

Satellite Radio: We decided to bet the whole she-bang on expensive content deals such as Howard Stern for $500 million and Major League Baseball for $650 million.

Dr. Feelgood: Did the bet pay off?

Satellite Radio: In the short term, yes, we started getting millions of people to subscribe, but not enough to make the whole thing profitable.

Dr. Feelgood: [snaps fingers] You can wake up to the present now, S.R. So you've proven you have a pretty good technology here, and you have something that millions of people want -- but not enough millions to make it profitable. So why will this merger help?

Satellite Radio: We will save money by combining forces, just as in any other merger. We cannot raise the price of the service or people will leave us. We compete with many other services such as podcasts, online radio, free broadcast radio. All we are asking is for the FCC to lift their rule, to approve the merger and let us get on with the business of creating the most amazing merged service ever!

Dr. Feelgood: Ah yes, but then what will you be? One huge service with more channels, more content, a bit less overhead, but the same big money contracts as a result of the Las Vegas Effect? And you think you can charge the same amount for this mega-service?

Satellite Radio: I know, it all sounds a bit crazy. (And you should know crazy.) But remember, we have to listen to our shareholders, and they listen to market analysts, who have been trying to get us together for a long time.

Dr. Feelgood: Now we are getting somewhere. So you are listening to analysts? Do they really care about what the people -- your customers -- will get from this deal? Do they really care about you, or do they just want a higher stock so they can sell out?

Satellite Radio: That is the source of the trouble here. We do want to please our customers, we do want to make Wall Street happy, and we do want to stop bleeding money. But we don't want to disappear forever. We don't want to have "Transitional Technology" on our tombstone just yet, like our old friends 8-Track Tape and VCR.

Dr. Feelgood: So the FCC, by allowing this marriage, would help you to help yourself, basically save you from yourself and your high spending and poor business plan?

Satellite Radio: Yes, that's all that we want for inner peace. Let us live our lives together in harmony and may all the people be served with commercial-free audio forever (as long as they can spare the $12.95 per month).

What do you think? Is this merger a good idea, and will it bring a better satellite service at the same price? Or should the FCC block the deal as bad for consumers and competition? If you use either service, please tell us why you like it and what your fears are with a merger.

What I'd really like is a simplistic interface, an easy way to get my audio and channels set up on a next-generation auto media center (AMC). I know that many car manufacturers and consumer electronics companies are trying to deliver this Holy Grail to me. And if I had $70,000 lying around, I would have some of what I want in the 2007 Lexus LS 460L. That luxury car got a perfect 10 rating from CNET Car Tech, and offers voice-activated audio, lets you rip CDs to an internal hard drive, gives live traffic reports in its navigation system, and will even parallel park for you. Not to mention 19 (!) speakers.

But I'm more concerned with the media element of the driving experience, especially the audio, and I want more, more, more! than what Lexus is offering currently. So as this is holiday time, I'm going to write up my wish list for Santa Motors Ltd., in the hopes that some of my auto dreams will come true one day.

The Perfect Auto Media Center

> No one accesses the AMC without a retinal eye scan first. It would only work for my eyes only, or the eyes of people I approve. One of the worst parts of owning a car stereo, especially in urban areas, is theft. This would dissuade that.

> The AMC has a hard drive with enough storage space to hold my entire music library. I can remove the drive easily and connect it to my Windows or Mac computers.

> The AMC also has inputs for all types of portable music and MP3 players, and can play all types of media -- CDs, cassettes, and just for the heck of it, 8-track tapes.

> Cellular or WiFi uploads of music or podcasts. When I am in my car, stopped, I would like the ability to buy music on the fly through an internal cell connection or WiFi connection to the Internet. The interface must be simple and upload speeds quick.

> The AMC will have all XM and Sirius satellite channels built in, as well as HD Radio for the new digital over-the-air broadcasts.

> All functions of the AMC will be voice-activated so I can go through music libaries, audio channels, and uploads with ease -- while driving.

> Full cell phone integration into the AMC, so that if I am listening to music cranked up, a built-in computer voice tells me, "Mark, your mom is calling. Do you want to take the call?" I then choose to switch to cell or let it go to voicemail. (For the record, I would never do that to you, mom!).

> All satellite and radio channels would be fully time-shift capable, meaning if I wanted to rewind, replay or save audio for later, I could.

> Built-in web searches. If I'm listening to music, and want to learn more about the artist, I could pause the music, ask the AMC to do a web search on the artist and read me pertinent information. Same goes for talk radio guests or breaking news stories.

Do you have other ideas for the ultimate auto media center? I invite you to share what you'd like to see in your dream auto media center, and I'll update my list with your top ideas. Or if you've build the dream system, share your specs in the comments.

UPDATE: One correspondent, Pam, responded by email with more ideas for a car stereo wishlist. She obviously has more experience checking out seriously high end systems, and her conclusion is that the manufacturers haven't worked out all the kinks yet -- and the costs are still sky high. Here's the report from Pam:

I have been impatiently waiting for years for an ideal car MP3 system. Your list captures the essentials. A few things I would also like to see:
- random play across album, genre, all songs
- ability to browse by genre, then album, then song
- GPS navigation
- touch screen
- works with steering wheel volume, mute, and radio station controls
- fast MP3 navigation
- ability to create playlists in the car
- custom background
- RDS [Radio Data System to get text from radio stations] capability
- automatic volume adjustment based on car's speed

I'd even be willing to pay for a custom built system if I didn't think it would be so expensive! I had the Alpine HDA-5460 installed in my car a few years ago, and I loved it. It had an in-dash 16 GB hard drive that I could slide out and download MP3s from my computer via USB. I could navigate songs by genre, album, etc. It wasn't cheap, but while it was working I thought it was the best thing I ever bought. Unfortunately it was on the market for less than a year due to problems -- mine stopped transferring files after a while.

I've currently got an aux-input for my iPod, but I'm not devoted to my iPod, as long as I can have something with a good size hard drive that's easy to navigate songs. I'm eager to see what new systems show up at the CES show in January. This might be the year to try a new system...I came close to buying a Kenwood MP3/GPS system this summer, but the MP3 navigation was pretty bad. Anyway, I hope the major manufacturers come up with some better solutions than what's out there today.

The installer I've dealt with said some of the current systems such as the Eclipse AVN6600 just weren't reliable and he had a lot of returns and repairs. Others just weren't easy to use such as the Pioneer AVIC-Z1. The Alpine IVA-W200 looked good but it doesn't allow you to browse by genre. The Kenwood PNAV6019 requires you to scroll through one long list of albums, without being able to filter through genres, artist, etc. I also found the MP3 navigation confusing. I'm intrigued by the new Chrysler MyGig and would like to check it out, but I don't want to spend a lot of money on something I won't be happy with. Anyway, I am hoping some better options will come out soon. I know there are a lot of other eager buyers out there as well.

[Photo of car stereo by Michele Finotto.]

Then along came digital technology, and those businesses lost control to technology companies and the people who could now watch what they want and listen to what they want whenever they want. Rather than try to innovate, the music industry and Hollywood have tried to stuff the digital genie back into the bottle.

They've tried laws, they've tried lawsuits, they've tried threats. But at each turn, people rejected them for the technology they craved to control media on their own terms. And there's been a long list of popular technological solutions, from the VCR to the DVR to the MP3 player to satellite radio.

But with each of these solutions, the studios and record companies have fought tooth and nail to stop them. And it's no surprise that the latest shot fired by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) was to sue XM Radio for its new portable satellite radio player, the Pioneer inno (pictured above). The inno lets people record and store up to 50 hours of satellite radio programming, but does not let them transfer the recordings to other devices.

The RIAA and the various big record labels it represents say the inno is breaking copyright laws, and that XM should be paying a separate licensing fee for this record-and-playback function. XM fires back that the labels are using the litigation to force XM to pay more licensing money, as XM has already paid a fee to broadcast the music in the first place.

Whatever the details in this particular case, it's just one in a long line of lawsuits and battles the music industry has waged in fighting against new technology -- a fight it can't possibly win. With each technology it "conquers" -- like the Napster file-trading service -- a hundred more spring up like whack-a-moles that can't all be whacked.

JD Lasica detailed many of these battles in his fascinating book, Darknet: Hollywood's War Against the Digital Generation. Lasica details just how much control the record companies have lost, and how hard they've fought to regain it. Here's one particularly telling passage (keep in mind, the book was published about a year ago):

To date, the record companies have shown a mistrust of the technologies that will either sustain them or undercut their reason for existing. The record labels need to realize that their salvation lies not in devising a fool-proof copy protection scheme or legislating file-sharing networks out of existence. Their future lies in winning the hearts, minds, and wallets of thirteen- to twenty-five-year-old music fans who are immersed in digital culture -- who spend their days swapping instant messages, chatting, sending emails, and mixing, burning, mashing, and manipulating personal media. Sometimes copyrighted media...

What will the future of music look like? We'll likely see a new middle class of musicians emerge, subverting the mass music hit engine and changing the dynamics of the music business. Any new business model must assure that musicians and creative artists are compensated fairly for their work -- a task the labels have generally failed at. One casualty of a reinvented music industry may be the collapse of the superstar system. The increasing number of fans with diverse, eclectic tastes suggests that record companies need to jettison their lowest-common-denominator approach to popular music.

But not every label is putting its head in the sand with new technology. One good sign was that Warner Bros. recently announced it would distribute movies and TV shows via the BitTorrent file-sharing service -- though they will be copy-protected files that Warner will rent or sell. Still, it's a focus on collaborating with a pioneering technology company, rather than trying to win the digital media war with litigation only.

What do you think? Should the RIAA be suing XM over the inno device, or trying to work together with satellite radio over the inevitable record-and-playback features? How do music companies and Hollywood strike a balance between digital rights management and letting people share their personal copies of media? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below.