COPYCENSE

“In the United States, recording labels want a bigger slice of Apple’s success in digital music by seeking higher prices on downloaded songs. Japan’s music industry has a different idea: putting a fee on iPods.

“The industry has asked the Japanese government to charge a royalty, to be added to the retail price of portable digital music players like Apple’s iPod, which has been explosively popular here. 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.”

Martin Fackler. Japan’s Music Industry Wants Fee on Sales of Latest Digital Players. The New York Times. Oct. 10, 2005.

(Editor’s Note: The Times allows free access to their stories on the Web for seven days before sending the stories to the paper’s fee-based Archive.)

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