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A few weeks ago there was news from the United Kingdom where some parties proposed an MP3 tax to support copyright holders and artists. The Asahi Shimbun, a major Japanese newspaper announced on Tuesday that similar plans are being developed and proposed in the Asian country. This week the Japanese government will come with a proposal to charge copyright royalties on iPods and other portable music players. Besides music players, hard disk recorders will also have this proposed 100 yen ($0,95) price raise.
Per device this sounds small, but according to the Asahi Shimbun, the copyright holders will cash in on about $9.5 million per year. Of course this might look like one of those horrible compensations, but older devices like minidisks and DVD recorders already have this fee added to their price. This justifies the government's move to do the same with popular portable devices.
Back in 2005 a same proposal was done on the Asian island, but the government committee failed to reach consensus and dropped the subject. Now it's back on and the discussion will rise once again.
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