Japan’s music industry has asked the government to charge a royalty on portable digital music players. “Money earned from the fee, likely to be 2 percent to 5 percent of the retail price, would go to recording companies, songwriters and artists as compensation for lost revenue from home copying.”
7-11 stores in Japan will start selling iPods later this month. “Japanese consumers will be able to buy five types of iPod from the chain, including the iPod nano.”
Police in the UK have blamed an increase in street robberies on the popularity of iPods and mobile phones. “Figures to be released by the Home Office later this month are expected to reveal that muggings rose by almost 40% in some parts of the country last year.”
Newsweek has an article looking at the music industry’s crusade to collect shares of ad and content revenue for its music videos and artist searches on search engines like Google.
