[Ecommerce] FYI: French Group Seeks Royalties on IPod

[Manon Ress]

French Group Seeks Royalties on IPod
Wed Mar 10,10:14 AM ET  Yahoo!

PARIS - A French association representing recorded music rights holders
threatened Wednesday to take Apple Computer Inc. to court in a dispute
over lost music royalties.

The argument centers on a fee levied in France on sales of blank CDs,
tapes, hard disks and other hardware that can be used to copy music. The
proceeds go to musicians and other rights holders who lose money to piracy.

The Society of Music Creators, Composers and Publishers, or Sacem,
accuses Apple of consistently refusing to pay the levy on sales of its
iPod music player, which contains a hard disk drive. In a statement,
Sacem said that unless Apple settles its growing account, the agency
that collects the payments "will have no other option than to go
immediately to court to make sure that the rights of artists, composers
and producers are respected."

Efforts to get comment from Apple's French subsidiary or its California
headquarters were not immediately successful.

Apple's pocket-sized iPod player can download and store up to 10,000
music tracks from a home computer and play them back from its hard disk
through headphones or an amplifier and speakers.

The French royalties levy came into force in July 2002 and taxes hard
disks built into music players according to their size.  The levy on a
top-of-the range iPod, which retails at 550 euros ($677) at French
department store FNAC, would come to 20 euros ($24.63). Sacem estimates
that Apple sold 20,000 iPods in France last year, with disk capacities
ranging from 10 to 40 gigabytes.

In 2003, the society collected some 150 million euros ($185 million) in
levies on hard disks and blank media sales on behalf of artists and
other rights holders.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=562&ncid=1292&e=1&u=/ap/20040310/ap_on_hi_te/france_apple

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Manon Anne Ress
Consumer Project on Technology
www.cptech.org
PO Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036
manon.ress@cptech.org, voice: 1.202.387.8030, fax: 1.202.234.5176