p2p news / p2pnet:- Organized Music thinks it’s figured out another way to make even more cash from online music sales.

In a bizarre marketing scheme under which it tries to force music lovers into buying `product` by threatening them with court actions if they don`t, it’s widely advertised p2p file sharing, introducing it to millions of people who would otherwise never have thought of downloading.

Having inadvertently encouraged its adoption, it today claims the practice is costing it billions in lost sales, an assertion it`s never even come close to substantiating.

Meanwhile, EMI, Universal, Warner and Sony BMG, aka Organized Music, wholesales tracks to Apple’s iTunes, the self-funding iPod promo vehicle which is, effectively, the only viable corporate music ’service’ around. Apple in turn sells the tracks for $1 and a lot more, depending on where you are, and the labels want to see even that hiked to $1.50 when licensing agreements have to be re-negotiated next spring.

Now, the cartel members are demanding that the Japanese government adds a royalty fee to the retail price of portable digital music players.

Money earned from the fee, which will be probably be 2 to 5 percent of the retail price, would go to recording companies, songwriters and artists as compensation for revenue lost from home copying,” says the New York Times, going on, It is a familiar story of vested interests feeling threatened by new technologies. Like their counterparts in the United States, Japanese recording companies are struggling to catch up with the Internet and the advances in digital recording technology that are transforming their industry.

But in Japan, the proposed fee has also touched off an unusual public battle over the influence that industry groups here still wield over the government and economy, the NYT continues, failing to point out that they exercise exactly the same influence in the US and elsewhere.

The new fee would apply to portable digital players that store data on internal hard-disk drives and flash memory computer chips, says the story, going on:

The current fight in Japan has particular political significance because it is taking place in a government advisory committee, which helps the powerful bureaucracies set policy. These committees are usually tame panels that reflect vested interests because they are packed with insiders from the industries being regulated.

The committee, under the Agency for Cultural Affairs, is split over the issue of whether royalties included in the price of music at online stores allow users to copy songs to portable players.”

But Organized Music says the royalties only cover transmission to the listener’s PC, not for copying from there to a player. However, “Opponents counter that consumers copying to a player for their personal use should not be forced to pay twice to get a song, adds the NYT.

There`s a common misconception that the consumer electronics industry benefits from recording industry products and that there should be a levy against the electronics industry to subsidize the recording industry, writes p2pnet contributing editor Russell McOrmond.

But, I simply don’t understand the logic, he says. Since the recording industry owes its very existence to technologies that allow for the recording, distribution and playback of music, in a just society we`d be seeing a levy on the recording industry to help promote innovation in the electronics industry.

But in our backward world, we have Japan’s recording industry asking for a levy on iPods.

When will see some sanity, such as a suggestion that a percentage of the revenues from major labels is funnelled into a pool to promote innovation in the technology behind recording, distribution and playback of audio that the recording industry depends on?

Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net

See:-
New York Times – Japan’s Music Industry Wants Fee on Sales of Latest Digital Players, October 10, 2005
Netcraft – VeriSign Acquires Weblogs.com, Declares War on ‘Splogs’, October 7, 2005

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 11th, 2005 at 4:07 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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