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The Japanese Will Try to Impose an iPod Tax

October 11th, 2005

What good is a company’s success for, if there aren’t any third party companies to want as much profit as possible?

Apple has succeeded to impose an unbeatable music distribution system, not to mention the iconic player. Still, why shouldn’t there be others to take advantage of this situation as well?

In the US, the music companies are trying, by any means possible, to increase the price for digital music downloads. But the Japanese have another approach, that of installing an “iPod fee.”

Several officials from the Japanese music industry have asked the government to adopt a tax which will be added to the digital music players’ selling price. The money obtained from this tax, appraised at 2-5% of the retail price, is to be divided between production studios, composers and artists. Allegedly, the money represents the losses caused by the illegal duplication of the music files.

It’s worth mentioning that this compensatory system has been active in Europe for almost 40 years, Germany being the first country to adopt it for the stereo players with recording capabilities. Since then, almost every European country has adopted its own compensatory system.

Source: SP

Entry Filed under: Daily News