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Ring-Tone Barons? Japanese Record Companies Raided
PuceBaboon writes "
The Asahi Shimbun is reporting that officers from the Fair Trade
Commission raided several major record companies in Japan, including
Sony Music Entertainment, Toshiba EMI and Avex, on suspicion of
creating a monopoly for the purpose of maintaining artificially high
prices on... telephone ring-tone tunes."
or are almost all telephone ringtones *overpriced*. I mean, come on, they are selling crappy midi files for outrageous (comparatively) prices. Perhaps its all just good business, but I get irritated at such extreme profit turns.
Collusion among Japanese companies?
I'm shocked! Shocked!!
The GOJ raids probably 2-3 major industries each year on average. Collusion is bound to happen when:
1. almost every major company has its HQ in one city (Tokyo)
2. everyone knows each other
3. if/when a manager changes teams, it is assumed he will take the Db and any other data he can obtain on his way out the door
4. "gentlemanly cooperation" is seen as a way to maintain safe sales levels for everyone, while going for the jugular on external (overseas) sales
davejenkins.com |
Or you preserve global public sanity by just having a ringtone that rings instead of abusing cell phone rining as some sort of individualised message to the world. Bah. It's not like I have anything against mobiles, but heck, the vibration alarm is really all you need in public.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
Full song on iTunes: $.99
30 second clip of "similar" song made with high pitched tones: $3+
Getting raped by your cellular provider: Priceless.