Japan's Agency of Cultural Affairs is expected on Thursday to unveil proposals for what is being dubbed an 'iPod' tax, in order to further compensate recording artists and record companies for home duplication of their products.
Although older technology, such as DVD recorders and minidisk players are already subject to a copyright levy, the newer wave of portable digital products are not, and an attempt to impose such a tax in 2005 was unsuccessful.
The proposed move is causing controversy, with firms that manufacture the devices likely to be affected by the levy arguing that they will be forced to absorb the tax hit, rather than pass it on to the end consumer, and representatives of the recording industry reportedly threatening to derail the introduction of the "dubbing 10" initiative next month, if the new copyright tax is not approved.
Under the new dubbing 10 rules set to come into force on 2nd June, those consuming copyrighted content via devices such as HDD recorders will be permitted to copy said content up to 10 times, rather than just once, as currently permitted.
Leave a comment