News
October 10th, 2005, 11:13 PM
By Bradley Philbert, GN Editor-in-Chief
Monday, October 10, 2005
New Japanese iPod users may be facing an extra charge on their purchase, if the Japanese music industry gets their way. Japanese music companies are pushing for a royalty that would apply to the sales of all digital music players in the tech-savvy country. This new tax could be as much as 5% of the retail price, and the proceeds would go directly to the music companies and recording artists, supposedly as a repayment for revenue lost due to illegal music copying. The proposal has sparked a fairly vicious public debate in Japan.
In the United States, music companies are looking towards higher fees for downloaded music from popular services like iTunes. That is in sharp contrast to the Japanese solution, which charges the fee up front, and would presumably maintain current prices for downloaded music. Music executives in Japan have been hesitant to negotiate licensing with services like Apple’s iTunes in an effort to slow the influx of online music retailers.
Japanese companies are claiming to have lost over ¥1.5 billion from the popularity of digital music players since 2000.
Monday, October 10, 2005
New Japanese iPod users may be facing an extra charge on their purchase, if the Japanese music industry gets their way. Japanese music companies are pushing for a royalty that would apply to the sales of all digital music players in the tech-savvy country. This new tax could be as much as 5% of the retail price, and the proceeds would go directly to the music companies and recording artists, supposedly as a repayment for revenue lost due to illegal music copying. The proposal has sparked a fairly vicious public debate in Japan.
In the United States, music companies are looking towards higher fees for downloaded music from popular services like iTunes. That is in sharp contrast to the Japanese solution, which charges the fee up front, and would presumably maintain current prices for downloaded music. Music executives in Japan have been hesitant to negotiate licensing with services like Apple’s iTunes in an effort to slow the influx of online music retailers.
Japanese companies are claiming to have lost over ¥1.5 billion from the popularity of digital music players since 2000.