I know that Microsoft desperately wants/needs a music strategy but I cant believe they would agree to this....
Not a bad idea for big content providers, but dividing this pie is going to get interesting. The idea is that if they can't control the software, they may as well profit from the hardware. They had enough pull for Macrovision, but computer technology has worked around that temporary fix. Now they're using their pull to try to exact their fees thru this "iPod tax" concept, which is similar to the media tax that some countries use. It's an interesting idea, but the difficult thing is being fair to users and producers. The media tax is very unfair for some users, and now taxing MP3 players the same way is going to add to the confusion. If Universal gets 1%, what about the other major labels? And what about the independents? By the time everyone is bought in, the percentage of this goes up significantly, maybe double digits, and still, some producers are left out. To further complicate matters, the royalties from hardware dwarf the likely software/content losses. There will also be hardware that bypasses this content fee, which will be quite a bit cheaper in comparison. The only way this has any chance of working is if MP3 players are replaced every year like cell phones. Not likely in my view, but replacement rates of cell phones and computers have exceeded my highest estimates. |
