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Universal Wants a Slice of Apple's iPod Pie
vought writes "According to a Reuters report, Universal is now taking the precendent set by Microsoft's Zune and moving to force Apple to include a royalty payment with each iPod.
In the words of Universal Music's Doug Morris, 'These devices are just repositories for stolen music, and they all know it. So it's time to get paid for it.' Does Microsoft's precedent mean the start of a slippery slope that will add a 'pirate tax' to every piece of hardware that touches digital music?"
This is like requiring shoppers at Walmart to pay a fee for stolen merchandise.
Uh, shoppers do pay for stolen merchandise. It is part of the retail markup. Like returns and warranty work, the accountants probably have an account for losses due to theft, a percentage of sales based on historical averages goes into the account, actual losses are charged against the account, and there are probably tax deductions. So shoplifters are not stealing from the CEOs pockets, they are stealing from the taxpayers who partially subsidize the losses via tax deductions and the shoppers who pay slightly inflated prices.
There is an interesting argument here that even Universal's artists might not get a cut from that money - namely, if their contract with the label doesn't explicitly stipulate a cut from licensing electronic devices, they're all fucked over. At least if the current behavior (i.e. iTunes licensing splits) are something to judge by.
The quote is not from the article but something Doug Morris has been quoted as saying.
It seems to have come from a Nov 10 Billboard piece:s p?vnu_content_id=1003380831
http://billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.j
"Looking good Vern."
"These devices are just repositories for stolen music, and they all know it,. So it's time to get paid for it," is not from the Reuters press release. I think it originally appeared in the Billboard article announcing the Zune launch, unless it comes from an earlier interview with Doug Morris.
The difference here is that the license fee they are charging here is explicitly to reimburse the RIAA for music which is pirated by iPod users.
Being Canadian and all, I have read about this law for the "media tax" and so on, basically they compared downloading music to going to the library and making a photocopy of a book or its pages and so on. But what they explicitly said was wrong was "advertising" your shares. Or basically saying openly "Hey I have music, come download from me!". That is illegal.
So basically, you can download but you can't share.
That comment was standard NYCL paranoia. He accuses anyone who disagrees with him and presents a case he can't easily dismiss of being an RIAA plant. I'm on his foes list, and I've been here since long before we were talking about the RIAA.
I got onto his foes list by calling him on his bullshit statements. He claimed that the RIAA is a global company. It's not (hint, one of the A's stands for America). He claimed that the RIAA had 4 members when they have hundreds. Pointing out that he was wrong on those two comments got me accused of being an RIAA shill and onto his foes list.
In light of that, maybe you should take his comments about RIAA shills with a little salt... an ocean or two ought to do it.