WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Recording Industry Association of America served notice to NASA Thursday that it is responsible for the Mars Spirit Rover falling silent. "We faced Spirit with some of its recent Internet activity," said RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy, "We advised it to discontinue all transmissions until we have met with the rover's attorney." At issue is a particular stream of bytes transmitted by Spirit that very closely resembled four notes from a recent Christina Aguilera song, 'Stripped'. Spirit, through its attorney, has denied any wrongdoing.

"This is completely out of hand," said a frustrated Sean O'Keefe, of NASA. "Spirit is a piece of equipment. Our 'robotic geologist' catch-phrase is more marketing than science, it's much closer to a radio-controlled car than an R2-D2. I can assure the RIAA that it is not sharing music, upload or download."

"We hear this every day," responded Lamy, "No parent can believe that their little darling is violating copyright laws. But there's no arguing with the log files. We're willing to settle this thing, we don't want the little rover to sit quietly until it rusts over, or whatever these things do. Our team will be in touch with the rover's attorney with a settlement offer."

In the interests of time, NASA is expected to cover the settlement out of a slush fund set aside for incidental missions expenses. "We'll have to cancel free coffee in the control room," explained O'Keefe, "but it's worth it to get Spirit talking to us again."
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