COPYCENSE

“Internet shoppers accustomed to tax-free purchases from Apple Computer’s iTunes Music Store soon may be in for an unpleasant surprise.

“State legislatures and tax officials, eager to find new ways to boost government spending and curb budget shortfalls, are eyeing the burgeoning market for digital downloads as a potentially lucrative source of revenue. Digital sales of music tripled from 2004 to 2005, leaping from $400 million to $1.1 billion worldwide, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, a trade association known as IFPI. The U.S. recording industry estimates that domestic sales totaled $503 million last year, but that figure doesn’t include movies, e-books, online video games and other forms of digital media.

“A CNET News.com analysis shows that 15 states and the District of Columbia now tax downloads of music, movies and electronic books. Some high-tax states such as California do not levy the same charge on iTunes downloads, but that could soon change.”

Declan McCullagh and Anne Broache. The Tax Man Cometh After iTunes. News.com. April 13, 2006.

See also:

Arik Hesseldahl. Apple Takes Its Bankroll to Reno. BusinessWeek Online. April 5, 2006.

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.1

“As TV marketers scramble to try and figure out what do to about growing digital video recorder (DVR) usage, broadcasters are becoming concerned that increased DVR usage means that users are skipping ever more ads, and that the ads they do see could be out of date. A remote storage DVR system would allow cable operators like Cablevision to place new ads in video streams as they are watched, rather than replay advertising that’s days old. They could also limit and/or remove users’ abilities to fast forward through all advertising.

“Leaving aside concerns over advertising, the copyright issues are particularly craggy. While a user’s personal right to timeshift is enshrined in law (for now), the remote-storage DVR pushes on this arrangement because ‘personal use’ becomes much more murky when it involves a third party sending or “rebroadcasting” content to that user, on demand. When this third party is making money off of this service, things get cloudier still. When one starts to think about how this could compete against existing on-demand services—the very same services being tapped to monetize hit network TV shows—then the clouds give way to hurricane winds.”

Ars Technica. Remote Storage DVRs Pose “Gigantic Copyright Issues.” April 10, 2006.

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.

“For a 41-year-old investment portfolio manager in Manhattan, the Web site with the whimsical name made perfect sense. Like many Americans, she found herself awash in CD’s, DVD’s and VHS tapes that were seldom if ever played anymore. They just took up valuable space in the Upper West Side apartment where she lives with her husband and two young children.

“Then a friend of a friend told her about Zunafish, a new Web site that matches people with discs and tapes to trade — and video games and paperback books, too. The site, which looks remarkably similar to a prototype Mr. Bloom sketched on notebook paper four years ago with Mr. Elias, trades only one-for-one items within the same category — CD’s, DVD’s, VHS tapes, video games, audio books or paperback books. No item is worth more than any another.

“Traders using the site determine the relative value of an item by choosing to swap or not. No one is ever forced to make a trade.”

Michel Marriott. Read It? Watched It? Swap It. The New York Times. April 13, 2006.

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.