Japanese Recording Industry Wants An iPod Tax
from the give-us-money-for-your-innovation dept
While US recording industry execs have been complaining about how they don't get any revenue from iPod sales (a product they didn't have anything to do with creating, and whose predecessors they fought against, claiming they were illegal), the recording execs in Japan are taking a slightly different approach: demanding the government sets up an "iPod tax" to simply hand over some money any time anyone buys one of the devices. This is similar to what's happened in other countries, though, Canada recently shot down such a law. It's pretty hard to see why the recording industry deserves a share of the profits from a device they worked so hard to kill. It would be interesting to see Japanese giant Sony's position on this one, as they have businesses on both sides of the fence... and part of the reason their early attempts at digital music players have failed where the iPod succeeded was that they were too willing to give in to the demands of the execs at Sony Music.
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Have your cake and eat it too...?
Maybe there should be a law that says an industry only gets to play one side of the game - you can't come out against a technology and try to have it killed, then when it becomes hugely successful come back and demand a piece of it.
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Re: Have your cake and eat it too...?
We need less laws not more. We need politicians that believe in fair use, innovation and invention and that will stand up to RIAA and MPAA.
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Soo....
When i buy a new car, do I have to pay a tax to the oil company?
Do the record labels want a cut of walkman profits too?
WTF???
This doesnt even make sence anymore. At least you can see their side with DRM - it is stupid and wrong - but understandable. This is just assinine.
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Re: Japanese Recording Industry Wants An iPod Tax
The music side definitely rules at Sony. For years the music side has successfully demanded that the hardware side prop them up by crippling the capabilities of Sony's hardware. The hardware side, however, has not been able to get the music side to reciprocate by, for example, releasing music only in formats that would require Sony hardware. So if the music side wants a hardware tax, Sony will support it.
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Just like the cable industry
This just sounds like the cable industry trying so had to steal google profits (net neutrality) when if left to them, internet technologies will never have gone past lynx/goher/pine.
This is an industry just as evil as the recording industry ... check this:
When you call on your cell phone --- you get charged
The person you call -- also gets charged
If you charge 1 cent tax for Ipod downloads, everybody will go back to free P2P (Encrypted)
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