Zune, Universal and your $1

November 28, 2006

This is a few days old, but still definitely worth posting. For every Zune sold (that’s the new Microsoft MP3 player), the company is giving US$1 to Universal Music Group. Apparently, this is to offset the ‘fact’ that they are most likely to contain ’stolen’ music, according to Universal fuckwit CEO, Doug Morris. Apologies for all the ‘marks’, but this post may have a few. By the by, Universal are the group that own far too many labels to note here; needless to say, if you buy music, there’s a pretty good chance they get a cut.

This $1 may or may not make sense to a lot of people. Some may say it’s a joke, and bring in Creative Commons, podcasting, unlicensed music, etc. Others may say it’s nowhere near enough to compensate broke artists, like Metallica, who are doing it tough and having their music stolen. Either way, it is very interesting to hear what Chris Penn, from The Financial Aid Podcast (which I have finally subscribed to), had to say on the Pacific Coast Hellway recently.

To paraphrase Chris’ opinion, Universal have effectively put a price on their intellectual property. To be more specific, a Zune that holds 30 gigabytes of music can hold around 7,500 songs, meaning Universal are being compensated approximately $0.0013 per track. So each track is worth about 0.13c. This should be interesting when they start claiming damages from ‘illegal’ downloads, where the amounts often run into thousands.

Even more interesting, not to mention startling the first time you hear it, is that by giving Universal the $1 from your purchase of a Zune, they have basically covered you for ‘obtaining’ your first 7,500 Universal songs. That’s right. Universal are being compensated for the free/stolen music that is being put on your player. If you don’t put that music on your player, then you are forfeiting your $1 that you rightfully paid for.

You do want what you paid for… don’t you?

I make absolutely no claim as to the legal or actual legitimacy of the above post. Just food for thought.

Posted in Tech