Tue, 28 Nov 2006 19:12:00
ENOUGH. The record companies are too powerful.
Universal Music Group Chief Executive Doug Morris said on Tuesday he may try to fashion an iPod royalty fee with Apple Computer Inc. in the next round of negotiations in early 2007.
Universal, the world’s largest music company, owned by French media giant Vivendi, was the first major record label to strike an agreement with Microsoft Corp. to receive a fee for every Zune digital media player sold.
“It would be a nice idea. We have a negotiation coming up not too far. I don’t see why we wouldn’t do that… but maybe not in the same way,” he told the Reuters Media Summit, when asked if Universal would negotiate a royalty fee for the iPod that would be similar to Microsoft’s Zune.
If this happens industry-wide, you will see a huge backlash. Other nations already tax blank CDs, DVDs and digital music players and force the public to subsidize the record companies. The very same record companies that are, while allegedly losing sales, managing to reap obscene levels of profit while paying artists mere pennies on each dollar earned.
That shit ain’t gonna fly here. You think people pirate music now? Wait until the cost of every MP3 player goes up just to line the wallets of CEOs like Doug Morris.
If they gave us cheap digital files in formats of our choosing with no DRM, most people with expensive MP3 players would be glad to buy music. Instead they keep screwing up our computers with root kits, selling CDs that don’t play in standard players and loading restrictions on digital files that result in only the technologically inclined being able to manage a music collection.
AllOfMP3.com is the proof of this theory. They sell a LOT of music, and the record companies could be in on this if they weren’t so stupid. Hell, charge three times what AllOfMP3 charges and it’s still totally marketable, even to today’s “music pirates”.
Posted by JimK at 07:12 PM on November 28, 2006
Permalink | Trackbacks (0) | Email to a friend |
Categories: Entertainment, Music
Tags:
Technorati: RIAA Universal Music Group music piracy
Comments:
#2 Posted by Rann Aridorn 
on 11/28 at 09:18 PM -
They just keep digging that hole deeper and deeper…
#3 Posted by Sean Galbraith 
on 11/29 at 12:19 AM -
If this happens industry-wide, you will see a huge backlash. Other nations already tax blank CDs, DVDs and digital music players and force the public to subsidize the record companies.
The tax on blank media (we don’t have one on players) in Canada is part of the same law that legalized downloading of music from the file trading networks.
#4 Posted by Drumwaster on 11/29 at 12:29 AM -
Just out of curiosity, what is the average profit margin for the record industry? If it is in excess of what the oil companies are making (on a percentage basis, not dollar amount), why aren’t the politicians looking for a windfall profit tax against the record companies?
#5 Posted by Sean Galbraith on 11/29 at 12:31 AM -
Could the record industry be in any way considered an essential service? The argument is easily made for oil companies.
#6 Posted by Drumwaster on 11/29 at 02:11 AM -
Food is an even more essential resource, and many of the larger farming conglomerates make a higher percentage profit margin than any of the oil companies do.
In fact, the largest single part of the cost of gasoline at the pump is federal and state gas taxes.
But we were talking about the record companies.
And it also seems to me that if a company is NOT essential, that there should be a lower financial incentive to supply those unnecessary luxuries - even if that incentive has to be lowered by government fiat. And just think of all of the tax dollars that could be made by putting a 10% surtax on any movie making (say) $1 million or more. (Why should any of those movie companies be allowed to make more money than your average citizen?)
I mean, it’s not like the entertainment industry can’t afford to pay more in taxes. Just cut a few of those self-congratulatory glitzes and think of the money that would be sent to DC!
We want to be “fair”, don’t we?
#7 Posted by Sean Galbraith on 11/29 at 08:35 AM -
Another typical Drumwaster tangent that has nothing to do with the topic at hand.
#8 Posted by Drumwaster on 11/29 at 09:30 PM -
I’m sorry, Sean, did you not bother to actually READ what I wrote? I specifically mentioned the record company’s profit margin, and that of the entertainment industry as a whole.
Another typical liberal, avoiding the argument when there is no answer that they can give to an “inconvenient truth”.
Color me just shocked.
RSS (Subscribe)
Tip jars (Donate today!)
God lord, what the hell? I personally don’t own an MP3 player and don’t want one. They are cute gadgets, but I don;t like walking around with headphones on. If they pull this off then no iPod for me, no Zune. I buy my cd’s and they get their money then, that’s enough.