Too High

Electronics Makers Think Fee for Antipiracy Technology is Too High

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on February 25, 2005 - 4:00am.

Amsterdam -- A number of consumer electronics makers are unhappy with the high license fee being proposed by companies that invented technology to secure the transfer of music and other media to cell phones and other portable devices, Reuters reported on Friday. The Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) has proposed a $1 per device charge for its antipiracy technology. "This kind of price is certainly unreasonable. It's not in proportion to the economic value," one senior executive at a top five mobile phone maker told Reuters, who also pointed out that the $684 million in royalties from each cell phone sold last year is greater than total Web music sales last year. "This is too expensive," added a senior executive at a global top three consumer electronics firm. The chairman of the digital rights management working group at the OMA admitted that the licensing terms "have kicked up a lot of dust. People are debating if these are reasonable terms," Jan van der Meer told Reuters. Companies that developed the antipiracy technology include InterTrust, ContentGuard, Sony, Matsushita and Philips -- who pooled their patents and are represented by a licensing group called MPEG LA.

tags: Electronics | Antipiracy | Too High |