Things You Never Knew...

True story! Well, at least Universal CEO seems to think so. Juicy quote:

"These devices are just repositories for stolen music, and they all know it... So it's time to get paid for it."

Universal Music is charging Microsoft USD$1 for each of its new Zune music players sold. Which is yet another episode in the music industry's war against mp3s, PMPs and the internets in general. (Yes, that plural is an intended typo) A war they are, mind you, losing badly. What can they possibly hope to achieve with this latest stunt?

Assume 10 million Zunes are sold. Yay, Universal gets $10m, and they claim they will share at least half of the proceeds with artists. I have absolutely no idea how many artists are with Universal, but I daresay it would finally work out to a pittance for each artist. And let's admit it, $5m is a drop in the bucket in terms of the bottom line for Universal, which probably measures its cashflow in terms of billions and not milions.

All I can see coming out of this the music industry getting yet another black mark. Not like they don't have enough already.

(P.S. As far as I can tell, > 80% of music on my iPod is legally obtained. I can't say for sure where the rest comes from)

Oh by the way. IP lawayers. Does copying less than 10% of a CD come under the same provision as photocopying books does?