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Universal Wants a Slice of Apple's iPod Pie

Posted by samzenpus on from the pay-to-play dept.

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?"

3 of 555 comments (clear)

  1. Certainly - as soon as you give me a license by Skippy_kangaroo · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I'll gladly pay a royalty/tax on my iPod in exchange for a license allowing me to legally put Universal Music Group music on my iPod - however obtained.

    If you just want more money from me without giving me anything in return then I'm sorry, I think you are SOL.

    Have a nice life.

  2. Out of touch by HeadachesAbound · · Score: 0, Redundant

    As many have already said before...Does this mean that any and all stolen (as if) music that is found to be on my ipod (note, I don't have one yet) would then be considered legit?

    Or is this just yet another example of some suit who doesn't understand the reality of the digital world?

    Just this last week I went out and purchased a CD (My first in many, many, many years) which I inspected before I ever walked away from the rack with it to ensure that there was no DRM. Why? Because I know how I listen to music...XM or MP3. The first thing I did when I got home was to plop the CD into the drive on my linux box and rip it to mp3. The CD, I'm not even sure where it is at the moment. The mp3 files are on the external 250GB Hard Drive in my laptop bag and on the external 250GB Hard Drive attached to the desktop computer. I won't touch the CD ever unless I have a complete drive melt-down and need to rebuild my music collection.

    The point being that I didn't steal them and everyone who I know that owns an ipod paid for the music that they have.

  3. Troll submission? by Kevinb · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Maybe I'm missing something, but in reading the linked article (which is quite short) I don't see the inflammatory quote the submitter attributed to Doug Morris. All he says in that article is, we struck a deal with Microsoft for the Zune, it'd be nice if we could do the same with Apple for the iPod. Unless someone else points out something I missed, I'm writing the submitter off as a troll (and apparently a successful one).