From Digital Music News
"A Solution to Piracy? "iPod Tax" Gathers Steam With the British recording industry suffering from dwindling CD sales and an upsurge in P2P file sharing, support is growing among members of the U.K. music business community for an 'iPod tax'--a copyright levy to be added to the price of every MP3 player sold. Revenues would then be passed on to authors and rights holders. .... Legislators in
Holland recently came to a similar conclusion, authorizing a similar levy that could add as much as 180 euros ($227) to the price of Apple's priciest iPod.... Meanwhile, some industry analysts are attempting to frame the explosion in P2P file sharing as a source for new revenue streams, rather than an assault on existing ones. In their book, "The Future of Music", authors Gerd Leonhard and Dave Kusek point out that levies or taxes have been effective responses to the rise of disruptive technologies in the past, such as player pianos and cable television. Surcharges on MP3 players, digital storage media or ISP services could monetize P2P trading and legitimize what many have deemed "pirate" behavior.Unsurprisingly, this regulatory approach has its detractors, whose criticisms were bolstered by a recent Canadian court decision in which a federal judge threw out an iPod tax, ruling that no authority to levy a surcharge on MP3 players had yet been found in that country's laws. Though the anti-regulatory climate in the United States would seem to rule out an iPod tax for the foreseeable future, many in the American music business will be watching the overseas action with great interest...." Story by news analyst Michael Baker.
First, thanks for mentioning my book - much appreciated; keep it up;). Now THIS is an interesting twist: IF consumers would be allowed to pay a flat fee 'tax' or levvy or let's just call this a CONTENT TAX on a portable music player, would that mean that any and all content that may end up on this device would be 'fair game' and considered 'licensed'? In theory, it would then indeed be possible to monitor what content is transfered to these devices, and administrate the royalties accordingly, but maybe it would be plenty accurate to stick with some sort of model that would estimate the total use rather than actually account for each individual use (actuarial rather than actual, as my fellow digital music pontificator JIM GRIFFIN would say). In any case, I think EUROPE will take the lead on this one, rather than the US - the very word 'tax' or 'levvy' seems like a death wish to anyone that would dare to suggest it over there. well... let's see!
And of course, you can also buy my book, "The Future of Music" as an audio book via this link. But hurry - they are running out of inventory ;)
