John Gruber, of Daring Fireball, envisions Universal Music Group’s meeting with Steve Jobs in which they’ll attempt to convince Jobs to give them $1 for every iPod sold.
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Open source, procurement, and gov tech.
John Gruber, of Daring Fireball, envisions Universal Music Group’s meeting with Steve Jobs in which they’ll attempt to convince Jobs to give them $1 for every iPod sold.
Comments are closed.
I’m not surprised Universal is considering something like this. It mirror’s how they collect royalties from television (and other media) products performed/distributed overseas.
Via the Motion Picture Association of America (the film industry’s lobbying group)- they encourage countries to pass a law called “private copy levy” or something like that- and a tax is placed on blank “recording media” sold (videotapes when that was the thing). That tax is then collected from the government by the MPAA and via some arcane formula redistributed as royalties to the studios and then eventually the artists.
My iPod has only legal music on it. Some of it I buy digitally, some I record off of CDs I own. Some I record off of the radio in a legal manner.
Unlike the old Napster, iPods do not exist primarily to play stolen music. It is a safe bet that a large percentage of iPod users only play legal music in part because it is less effort to buy music than it is to steal it.
Universal has a right to sell its content on a per unit basis if it wishes. However, Universal has no right to sue if Apple refuses to pay on that basis. There is no apparent crime or violation of contract law here by either Apple or most of its customers.