Universal Wants a Slice of Apple's iPod Pie 555
vought writes "According to a Reuters report, Universal is now taking the precendent set by Microsoft's Zune and moving to force Apple to include a royalty payment with each iPod.
In the words of Universal Music's Doug Morris, 'These devices are just repositories for stolen music, and they all know it. So it's time to get paid for it.' Does Microsoft's precedent mean the start of a slippery slope that will add a 'pirate tax' to every piece of hardware that touches digital music?"
Pirate Tax (Score:4, Interesting)
Sounds good if you legalize file sharing (Score:5, Interesting)
If they charged a fee for each device and let us have free, legal file sharing (since we paid for the content with our device fee) it sounds semi reasonable.
Of course that's not what they are talking about so...
Well ... (Score:3, Interesting)
That's not necessarily a bad thing, as long as I get to download as many songs as I want in exchange for said tax. If you're forcing me to pay you money to legitimize my iPod, then it should also legitimize any illegal music I might have on there.
Also, I resent the implication that my iPod has stolen music on it. It doesn't.
YES! This makes PERFECT sense! (Score:4, Interesting)
Riiiight. So umm... despite the fact that there's absolutely zero proof, a general assumption is being made... which spreads to ALL digital-music listeners... and say that they want money.
So... going by this theory, cable companies should charge everyone who watches TV because they all steal satellite signals?
YES! Everyone on earth is a digital thief, so let's make a profit off of it!
So nay container that can hold illegal goods ..... (Score:4, Interesting)
Bite me (Score:3, Interesting)
teach them a lesson (Score:2, Interesting)
direct quote from wikipedia - "As of September 2006, the Store has sold more than 1.5 billion songs"...
Re:Sounds good if you legalize file sharing (Score:5, Interesting)
What happened in Canada is exactly what could happen here.
They started charging a pirate tax on media, so some clever people figured out that as long as they were paying the tax and being branded a pirate, that gave them a legal right to download. The courts apparently agreed.
Amazing that the idiot proposing this doesn't know it.
Re:Sounds good if you legalize file sharing (Score:5, Interesting)
The iPod is a media player, so look at how it relates to other media players. When you buy a TV, does part of the purchase price go to Paramount just in case someone watches a pirated version of Indiana Jones on it? Does every movie theater built in the USA have to pay construction fees to movie companies (I'm not talking proceeds of ticket sales, I'm talking about a fee just to build the damn theater) because it's possible a future owner might show a pirated film there?
If this Universal casehas any merit, it should extend to everything just to point out how ridiculous it is. Eg, every hammer sold should include a fee to De Beers because that hammer can be used to break a window and steal one of their diamonds. Likewise every diamond purchased should include a fee to Home Depot, because that diamond can be ground to make diamond dust, which can be used to saw through locking gates and bars and to steal hammers. Rinse lather repeat.
Tag: Asinine (Score:5, Interesting)
What kind of environment do you have to be raised in that instills a sense of entitlement so absolute that it reduces onlookers to standing agape in stunned silence?
These people need to be kept away from sharp objects and heavy machinery until they grow up.
Schwab
Re:To Doug Morris... (Score:3, Interesting)
Tax Free? (Score:4, Interesting)
Not going to argue with that, but what I will say is I can't but think of the precident in the UK with the BBC. Theoretically I have already paid for all the content the BBC produces. Therefore I should own the copyright to it? Then why the hell are the BBC DVDs I buy copyright BBC Worldwide? Why don't I own the copyright to the BBC DVDs I bought? Is anyone aware of a case of the BBC suing someone for copyright infringement who has a TV license*?
Times like this I try to forget what the law says and ask what is fair. I also remember that the copyright holder has the right to do whatever they like with their product** - I have no need to use it if I am not happy with their terms. i.e. am I actually that worse of because Joe Blogs has released XYZ piece of music under terms that I feel are unacceptable, than I would be if Joe Blogs had never produced that piece of music at all?
Can we have the next slashdot poll as what encourages you to buy music - be it hearing a song on the radio, from an mp3 copied from a friend, from a CD borrowed from a collegue etc. I know I have never bought Music without listening to it via some free method first. To shut down all avenues of free music would stop me dead.
* Yes there were a few cases a while ago, but this was before the BBC had the whole lost Dr Who episode debacle.
** Your own definition of Fair rights of course must stand up in court.
Re:To Doug Morris... (Score:5, Interesting)
If I'm paying the "pirate tax" to help them recover the "losses" they have from piracy, there's no problem then, right? If they are still going to sue my guts if I have pirated mp3s on my ipod, then why I am paying extra money with the purchase of an ipod? I'm paying them protection money and they still come after me? If they are going to act like the mob, they should at least do it properly...
PSA (Score:3, Interesting)
PSA #1: Hypocrites
(Approximately 80 seconds)
According to the major record labels, everyone who downloads a song off the internet is a thief. But there's a lot they aren't telling you.
For example:
Did you know that when you buy a major label CD virtually none of your money makes it to the musician? It's true: When you pay $15 for a CD, the artist royalty is about 75 cents.
But most major label artists don't even get that--musicians don't get any royalties until they pay back all the costs of recording and promotion. That means they don't get anything until they sell at least 500,000 or a million CDs! Here's another way to look at it: for most CDs at the record store, NONE of the money goes to the musician.
So when the major label CEOs tell you that sharing music is "stealing from musicians", they're
A) Lying through their teeth
and
B) Hypocrites
The real thieves are the corporate record labels, and giving them your money just perpetuates a system where musicians get screwed and independent music gets locked out of the mainstream.
The best part of all this is that--thanks to filesharing--the corporate record companies are dying off, while independent labels are thriving. Musicians, radio DJs, everybody. We finally have a chance to change the music business.
Don't buy major label CDs. Support independent musicians. Take back music.
Re:Fuckin' A Right! (Score:5, Interesting)
Evolve or Die (Score:4, Interesting)
And they are 'doing without' in droves. People are buying Wiis and DVDs and getting cable TV and video off YouTube. They are loosing market share and blaming piracy. Blaming the unnameable is truly the last bastion of an industry that is dying. It means that, at AGMs, the directors will have an excuse for bad
profitability, when inaction is their only excuse. If you hold shares in a large music company, time to ask them what product they plan on releasing when they have become irrelevant due to their inaction.
Years ago, they could have made a cheap, effective, simple service. Instead - everyone copied music, found what they like and bought CDs because they felt like they should support the artist. Record sales went up. Then Napster got a sued, Audiogalaxy got shutdown, and the punters should no longer try before they buy.
RIAA continues to sue... people continue not to buy.
It's time to wake up record companies. It's not too difficult. iTunes will save your ass. If you leave it 2 more years - iTunes will own you ass. You will have to bend over and lick Apple's boots. Do you realise that you are 1 freakin step away from having someone like Apple set up a service to post produce 100000 punters Garage Band files and then release them? The only thing you have is radio stations who you collaborate with. The advertising revenues for these are not going too well. Do you feel you owe it to them to ensure they join you in a symbiotic slide into oblivion?
I have bought my last 2 years worth of music though iTunes. I don't need a CD. I don't need all
the wasted plastic and paper. I don't need to waste resources to have music. I don't need the stores,
the transport, the manufacturers. Sound only needs to be touched and felt in 1 way - through bass
pounding in your chest... not through yet another breaking CD container.
Wait Till it Goes to Court (Score:4, Interesting)
For starters this seems like a violation of the anti-trust statutes. Universal knows they have no legal means to compel apple to pay them money for every iPod sold so instead they are trying to blackmail them into doing so by threatening to stop selling apple their songs. Whether or not the iPod is used to play/possess illegal songs is totally irrelevant. Refusing to let apple sell their songs on iTunes won't stop ipods from being used for illegal music, in fact it would likely increase it. This is nothing but a clear cut case of a company using it's monopolistic practices to extort money, exactly the sort of thing the anti-trust laws were designed to prevent. At least MS could come up with a non-laughable (just a bit of a snicker) claim that their bundling practices were for the consumer's benefit, Universal has no such case.
More interestingly what happens when the RIAA sues someone who had illegal music on their ipod and they argue in court that the ipod surcharge gives them the right to do so? While I'm skeptical that such a claim could succeed one never knows. Also, even if the poor victim of the lawsuit loses this point it puts Universal in an interesting position. In order to successfully sue people using their ipods to play illegal music they must admit apple wasn't purchasing *anything* with the surcharge. That makes it even harder to claim that the surcharge was part of a valid business deal rather than something they coerced using monopolistic power.
--
I know one thing for sure though. The second I find myself paying a surcharge on a device I purchase to the RIAA I will make a point of not purchasing music for that device. At the moment I buy songs from itunes not too infrequently but if I've already paid $5 to the RIAA I will always search for an illegal copy first. Maybe in the long run they will realize people have an innate sense of fair play. If you don't insist on DRM and sell songs for a reasonable price people will choose to pay money so the artists are compensated but the second you pick someone's pocket claiming you need to be paid for what you were going to steal people will stop feeling bad about stealing from you.
Re:To Doug Morris... (Score:3, Interesting)
Personally I restrict my custom to companies who show some modicum of ethics and decency in their dealings, and I am willing to pay a premium for those principles if needs be. That's why I'll never buy (or allow anyone I know to buy) a Sony product again. I was never going to buy a Zune anyway, largely because it is just not worth it for the features. Hearing that it comes bundled with an extortion payment to the **AA is hardly surprising for a Microsoft product, but nonetheless is the final nail in the coffin as far as my decision goes. If Apple go down this route I'll likewise never touch an iPod again. There are still plenty of other choices.
Re:Fuckin' A Right! (Score:5, Interesting)
The levy is a fee paid to the recording industry to subsidise the industry for the loss of revenue taken from duplicate media sales to compensate the industry for *fair-use* backups of media for personal use. Really a coup for the music industry because they're getting paid every time you exercise your rights, and they still get to take you to court if they can fake enough evidence about your downloading.
But this new one is fantastic, because if Apple accedes to the music industry's wish (and I personally hope they will as quickly as possible), it hopefully (IANAL) creates an circumstance where you have already paid damages to the music industry, and hopefully double jeopardy means they can now not take you to court and say "well you took our music but we weren't compensated" because they will have been (for any music published by Universal at least). Thus making their entire catalog free for download by anyone, anywhere, who owns an iPod.
This is different from the Zune, which pays money to the publisher simply as a gratuity for the favour of their songs being available on the Zune music purchasing outlet. The establishment in this case is not being compensated for copyright infringement.
Re:So nay container that can hold illegal goods .. (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, but that insult there is exactly the point.
The point is that right now you are providing no revenue for Universal.
If they get this license fee in place, then you will. Even though you do not consume and have no desire to consume Universal product.
Don't mistake their retarded rhetoric for their true intentions.
They know that most people use their iPods legitimately to hold music they purchased on CD or through iTunes. They know that, if they are able to slip this license fee in, most people will still continue to buy their products legitimately. Very few people doing that today will be put off enough to stop.
So for them, it only increases their income without them having to do a damn thing more. And they know it.
"Piracy tax" is just the dressing they use to hide their real intention to siphon money they aren't entitled to from unsuspecting consumers. They're calling you a bloody pirate just as an excuse to be able to steal from you. They are the ones that want to be the pirates.
Re:Fuckin' A Right! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:To Doug Morris... (Score:5, Interesting)
FWIW I was in a band signed to a UK indie label during the 80's which was had licensing deals with pretty much every major label around the World. Then came the 90's and slowly but surely the CD's started disappearing off Tower Records' shelves. Then came the 00's and we get our own section on iTunes.
Needless to say if I'd bought my first MP3 player in the 00's I would have gone straight to iTunes and bought my albums from there, but instead I bought my first MP3 player in the late 90's and had to resort to grabbing un-licensed MP3's of my songs from wherever I could find them, basically because I didn't have the orginal CD's (my entire record collection is just that, records, and stored back in the UK) and I couldn't find CD's in used record stores.
If the record labels had got their shit together to build their own kickass online record store, and made their own kickass players so people could listen to them, Apple wouldn't have seen an opportunity and created iTunes and the iPod.
So FUCK YOU Universal, and every other label that starts crying about lost revenue.
More Royalty-Paid Media Choices Needed (Score:1, Interesting)
While we're at it, let's have a new category of CD-R "for music resale", with a higher royalty charge but which allowed you to copy any content you like and offer it for commercial sale. Once a fair and reasonable royalty could be decided for that, we'd soon find out if the record companies really are any good at what they do.
With their continual barrage of attention-getting headlines, music distributors are cleverly distracting us from their own ill-gotten gains through:-
- overpricing of CDs
- exploitative contractual arrangements with artists
- racketeering in the distribution of royalties collected.
I have no problem with royalty-inclusive iPods and MP3 players, so people can legally enjoy what (until now) may have been considered bootlegged content. However, this should always be the consumer's choice. There is no need for any new legislation here.
As consumers, each one of us represents one small voice, a potential sale. Personally, I can live without Universal's content if necessary.
The Candle-Maker's Union (Score:2, Interesting)
Nobody can produce light bulbs on a sustainable basis--the economics of the situation prevent it. You burn one candle per night, which supports the industry that keeps you safe. But if you only buy a single light bulb each year, well--NOBODY can succeed in a business model with such margins--light bulbs will be more expensive to produce than you can charge!
No, the only way to keep the world lit and safe is to ensure that the wax-handlers and wick-dippers are kept employed. We dare not tinker with this model--we play with bulb "technology" at our peril.
Think of the bees!
Or you can just pay me to not produce light bulbs, and then I don't care.
Doug Morris
CEO
Universal Candles
Public Goods theory (Score:3, Interesting)
The normal way of doing this for other public goods (e.g. defense) is through taxation. How is music different?
Re:To Doug Morris... (Score:5, Interesting)
And who's going to lead the lawsuit?
Actually, Apple should lead it. After all...
That sounds more like he's defaming Apple than he's defaming iPod owners, although that comment leaves plenty of room for both. And, of course, Apple makes a pretty stupid target for this kind of statement, having developed the most successful legal music download service there is. (I'm putting iTMS ahead of eMusic, AllofMP3 and the like because iTMS successfully charges more per song, has better selection (than eMusic), and is of unquestioned legality (compared to AllofMP3).)
Or maybe, instead of a lawsuit, Apple should just reconsider whether they want iTMS to sell music released by a record company that defames them and their customers. How much does Universal make from iTMS, I wonder?
Stupidity on a whole new level. (Score:2, Interesting)
I thought I was your customer you dumbfuck! (Score:3, Interesting)
If I had known that instead of valuing me as a customer they would treat me as just another "pirate", I wouldn't have paid for any of this shit.
And now they want to tax good paying customers like me for migrating to the latest platform?
Fuck you. Why don't I just pirate it from now on if it's all the same to you?
pirate 'tax' in Canada (Score:2, Interesting)
Let me share a little secret about speeding (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually in my state, California, it is technically legal, at least under typical conditions.
My last three speeding tickets were all 85-90MPH, two by CHP and one by SJPD, and for each one I wrote a letter which began: "I do not deny driving in excess of 65MPH, but [...]"
The results:
#1 (Watsonville) I got my money back and a letter saying Not Guilty.
#2 (Palo Alto) I never heard anything and the ticket did not go on my record.
#3 (Redwood City) It was Dismissed and I got my money back including the ~$200 FTA fine.
And I never even stepped in a court house, except for once because of the FTA.
What does my magic form letter say? I am not going to spoil the fun - let your fingers do the googling you can figure it out. But I will tell you that the speeding laws don't say what most people might think.
Let's Play "Spot the RIAA Plant" (Score:5, Interesting)
Other possible RIAA plants (this story only):
- #17043086 [slashdot.org] (User: Man in Spandex)
- #17043272 [slashdot.org] (User: LO0G)
- #17042814 [slashdot.org] (User: seriv)
- #17043858 [slashdot.org] (User: j-beda)
- #17043038 [slashdot.org] (User: Jerry Rivers)
- #17043474 [slashdot.org], #17043550 [slashdot.org] (User: pandrijeczko)
On a side note, the quote in the summary, "These devices are just repositories for stolen music, and they all know it,. So it's time to get paid for it," is not from the Reuters press release. [reuters.com] It originally appeared in the Billboard article announcing the Zune launch, [billboard.com] and was discussed on slashdot [slashdot.org].Boston iPod Party anyone? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Public Goods theory (Score:3, Interesting)
Too bad Senator Disney would never even listen to this proposal.
He can say whatever he wants (Score:3, Interesting)
These are the same people who've been saying "Apple must raise prices. The current prices are unsustainable" for years, and yet they aren't getting paid more. Apple's in the driver's seat for these kinds of negotiations unless Zune really takes off, so I wouldn't worry about it. In the article he says it would be "nice to have". Well, sure, we'd all love a raise.
This is a business negotiation between two companies. I don't really care if Apple agrees to split the profit on iPods or not, but it won't change what I'm willing to pay for an iPod.
Missing Citation? (Score:2, Interesting)
Is there a citation for this quote? I followed the link, and this quote isn't in the article. Maybe it was removed?
Not that I don't believe he said it, but it seems a little irresponsible to say "In the words of..." and then not provide a reference so that we can verify he was actually dumb enough to say that.
Re:Fuckin' A Right! (Score:2, Interesting)
Then don't welcome it... (Score:3, Interesting)
It would be very naive to think that once this tax is introduced, you can freely copy stuff. It's a simple game : he who has the most marbles at the end wins, and that's that.
Just to take away the surprise: you are not the one that will have the most marbles at the end if this tax is introduced.
Re:To Doug Morris... (Score:2, Interesting)
> or fair use copies from family members?
Well, since I know I would never pay so much for music to fill an 30-60 GB mp3 player, and nobody in my circle of friends would also, I assume very few people generally would. Everybody generally copies like theres no tomorrow. There is just too much good music out there to be all bought, so you must be really hefty indoctrinated with this "intellectual property" nonsense to voluntarily decide to stay musically illiterate and not download it, although you know that it makes absolutely no difference if you download music worth hundreds of bucks per month or not, when you wouldnt have the money to pay for all of it in the first place.
Re:Sounds good if you legalize file sharing (Score:3, Interesting)
OGG/MP3 PLAYER KIT NECESSARY! (Score:3, Interesting)
Let me state this: I DO NOT LISTEN TO MUSIC ON MY MP3 PLAYER! THERE IS NOTHING PIRATED ON MY MUVO!
If this trend continues, what the world needs is a kit. Flash memory / small embedded OS / amplifier / earphone plug / etc. Just like we build PCs from parts to avoid the Microsoft Tax on the preinstalled OS, we can build our own OGG and MP3 players from a kit.
If someone wants to make money, this would be good...
(I don't personally want a hard-drive based player - I'd rather have an almost indestructible flash memory player. But, it's a kit, and you can have whichever you want.)