Japanese labels lobby for "iPod tax"

I can feel the tears collecting in the corner of my eye...let's see now...we have the record companies who generate enormous profits from the sale of every overpriced CD and we have Apple who, whilst enjoying comfortable gross margins on iPod hardware, are running the iTunes Music Store at barely more than break-even although...and here's the kicker!...the record companies make even MORE money off a downloaded track or album than they do off physical sales. Please...pass the hankies!

Has anyone seen CD prices in Japan? They are outrageous. In fact it's so bad that many people just rent CD's then copy them and return them. I find this attempt at an iPod tax laughable. It's obviously just a grab for more cash.

Sounds like perhaps they should have a CD rental tax. That would come much closer to placing the burden on the people more likely responsible for illegal copying. Why punish the iPod purchaser who is 100% legal? And just how much of such a tax do you think will actually end up in the artists pockets?

Next we'll have a special tax on ALL hard drives because before you can load music on an iPod you need to get it on your computer's drive (I would wager that there is FAR more illegal music on people's computers than there is on iPods). Follow that with a tax on all computer operating systems in order to reimburse software developers for profits lost to software pirates. Then we'll have a tax on cars in order to compensate the victims of bad drivers.

If you can't beat them and don't want to join them...tax them!!

This would be fine is 100% of the tax went to the artist and zero for the label. The artist is getting screwed the most.

People don't buy music because of a label. They want the artist's music.

Again, the assumption is that the iPod is used to store stolen music, which isn't always the case. Many have 100% legit music on them.

This used to exist on cassette tapes and the problem I had with it was that it would result in far more money going to Michael Jackson than smaller artists - the presumption being that popular artists suffered more piracy - wheras in my experience people often pirate what is hard to get hold of / what they wouldn't 'normally' buy.

(The same argument holds against those who propose a flat fee for music that then gets divided up amongst bands - it benefits those selling millions more than those selling thousands).

If such a scheme was proposed here in the UK, I'd be able to make a perfect test case as my 20G iPod was quickly filled with 1/3 of my existing CD collection.

Apple should then in turn charge the japanise record companies a fee for loading there albums on the iTunes Music store. Do on to others as they do onto you. Charge Apple apple charges you back. Right now Apple provides the bandwith,uploads, and advertising on iTunes. So if they want to tax Apple then Apple should charge for all of the bandwith,uploads, and advertising of the songs on there store.