UK music industry gets even more desperate/unpopular – demands iPod tax

Dave Walker iPod
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ipod-nano-battery-recall-sparks.jpgThe UK music industry needs your help – those yachts, limousines, expensive awards festivals and tax haven homes don’t come cheap you know. So to help them keep a life of luxury, the trade body (the Music Business Group) wants a tax on iPods.

Yes, really. The tax would then grant you the ability to rip music onto your player without the worry of plod arresting you – because it is illegal after all. Just like home taping is/was. In a statement that sounds more desperate than logical, it said: “Enormous value is derived from the transferability of music. Last year alone, over 20 million MP3-capable portable devices were sold in the UK, and over 90% of music on the average MP3 player is music that has been copied.”

“UK creators and right holders are legally entitled to benefit from this value. At present, this value is enjoyed by both consumers and technology companies while creators and right holders are effectively excluded from any value. This constitutes market failure.”

I’m sure us UK consumers – who have consistently paid more for music that large parts of the overseas market – will be appropriately sympathetic.

(via MacWorld)

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Dave Walker
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2 comments

  • Nope this is a far better idea than sueing every 1 and would actually free up courts lawyers judges and still allow the artists the people most affected to make a living but the thing is who would be the artists being paid i dont think the labels would know how to split up such a pot also fat cats at the bpi riaa and ifpi would prolly loose there jobs as they were only evolved to criminalise people they will fight to keep there jobs to the death which is around the corner they have disgraced the artists for years the goverments have allowed them to use the courts as a method of intimadation they hand out rediculous fines to people caught dloading a lame mp3 they also threaten isps with court because isps are not dumb enough to do there bidding the music industry must except new ways the licencing scheme is maybe 1 of the more prefered method and stop attacking p2p as the evil of society if used properly and licensed also p2p can benifit music a lot.

  • Now, before we shoot this ideology down in a blaze of hate-fueled napalm, let’s look at the TV License paradigm.

    You pay a yearly subscription (license) for your household to freely consume and do whatever you like with the broadcast video content on your devices. This is really neat and I think should be explored for audio.

    I would be really interested to hear some opinions regarding a combined ‘AV License’. We could then torrent and P2P as much AV as we like because at the end of the day all of the concerned parties both in video and audio are getting a cut from the combined ‘AV License’ pot of the media we individully distribute, transcode and consume.

    Is such a concept really such a horrid idea?…

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