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Japanese Record Industry Seeks "iPod Tax"

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on October 11, 2005 - 7:00am.
New York - Record companies in Japan are lobbying the government to impose an added fee on the sale of iPods and other digital music players sold in the country, with the proceeds compensating labels, songwriters and artists to compensate for lost revenue from piracy, The New York Times reported. The companies hope for a fee of between 2 and 5% of the retail price of the devices, but consumer groups and the Japanese media have pressured lawmakers to the point that the proposal remains stalled in a government committee. "This is typical of how industry groups try to manipulate government at the expense of consumers," Hiroko Mizuhara, head of the Consumers Union of Japan, told The Times. Japan already imposes a 2% fee on sales of minidisc recorders, while similar digital media levees have been floated in Canada. "Now everyone who used to be using CDs and MDs are using iPods," Koichi Numamura, head of the recording rights department at the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers, told The Times. "We can't just sit by silently while we lose money."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/10/technology/10ipod.html

tags: iPod Tax | Japanese Record Industry |



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