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Finland to add royalty fees to mobile phones, USB drives?

14 November 2008 9:58 by Matti "Siggy" V�h�kainu | 9 comments

Teosto (Finnish Composers' Copyright Society) has officially requested that USB drives and mobile phones with MP3 playback function should join the products -- such as DVDs and DVRs -- with a recording/storage device royalty fee. Teosto has been fighting for the right to add the fees to mobile phones for two years now and now they want both external hard drives and thumb drives included as well. The proposal will now travel to Ministry of Education where the final decision is made.

Teosto has claimed that extensive amounts of copyrighted recordings are copied to both USB drives and mobile phones each year and therefore the composers have a right for a proper compensation. The fees would increase mobile phone prices up to 12,60 euros (approx. $16) for music phones such as the Nokia's new touch-screen XpressMusic 5800 and presumably Apple iPhone.

Last year the same happened to HD DVD and Blu-ray discs that carry nowadays a fee of up to 1,89 euros per disc.

The proposed royalties for the year 2009 are as follows.

Mobile phones with MP3 playback:
1,4 euros for up to 512MB of internal memory
2,45 euros more than 512MB but up to 1GB of internal memory
3,45 euros more than 1GB but up to 20GB of internal memory
4,15 euros more than 20GB internal memory

Mobile phones that are advertised as music phones (eg. Nokia XpressMusic series, Sony Ericsson Walkman series):
2,4 euros for up to 512MB of internal memory
7,35 euros more than 512MB but up to 1GB of internal memory
10,50 euros more than 1GB but up to 20GB of internal memory
12,60 euros more than 20GB internal memory
Same fees as in dedicated PMPs

USB drives:
0,65 euros for up to 1GB drives
1,30 euros for larger than 1GB but up to 5GB drives
2,60 euros for larger than 5GB but up to 20GB drives
3,30 euros for larger than 20GB but up to 50GB drives
4,10 euros for larger than 50GB but up to 120GB drives
4,90 euros for larger than 150GB

Permalink to this article | Topics: Lawsuits & Legislation MP3 & Digital Audio

Sony prices first touchscreen Walkman players (14 April 2009)

Sony to buy out Ericsson's share of Sony Ericsson? (18 March 2009)

Chinese media player offers native 720p playback (1 March 2009)

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic very successful in Russia so far (9 December 2008)

Blu-ray DVR coming from Mitsubishi (5 December 2008)

$99 4GB iPhone coming to Wal-Mart? (4 December 2008)

Nokia withdraws from Japanese handset market (30 November 2008)

Nokia now shipping 5800 XpressMusic (28 November 2008)

Nokia to start Japanese mobile phone service (22 November 2008)

Hong Kong pirates selling bootleg Blu-rays on DVDs (18 November 2008)

Apple adds more DRM to MacBooks (18 November 2008)

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Discuss this article!
shinkai (Newbie) 14 November 2008 10:44
Fighting for reviving something that is practically dead.. what? [ + quote]
ugc (Member) 14 November 2008 11:04
and exactly how do they distribute this money should this pass? [ + quote]
Leningrad (Member) 14 November 2008 11:49
what about people who dont copy music to thier flashdrives, that aint fair to them. [ + quote]
masa92 (Member) 14 November 2008 12:56
*Originally posted by Leningrad:* what about people who dont copy music to thier flashdrives, that aint fair to them. This is capitalism my friend. Teosto is like a legal mafia in Finland, they can do anything, and they don't even need to kill DAs to continue their collection of consumers money. [ + quote]
ThePastor (Junior Member) 14 November 2008 14:25
This is exactly why many of us oppose this kind of crap. Where will it end? I have a phone that CAN play MP3's, but I don't put any on there, nor do I own ANY music subject to any kind of royalty. A thumb drive doesn't even have the capability to play the music! What about SDram or other memory options? Do I have to pay a royalty whenever a song comes up inside of my head??? [ + quote]
Jaussi (Member) 14 November 2008 14:40
*Originally posted by ThePastor:* Do I have to pay a royalty whenever a song comes up inside of my head??? According to Teosto, yes. And how much of those royalties would go to the people who make the music (whom Teosto according to themselves are protecting) ? Not one cent I bet. [ + quote]
beanos66 (Junior Member) 14 November 2008 16:18
*Originally posted by ThePastor:* Do I have to pay a royalty whenever a song comes up inside of my head??? and if you happen to whistle a couple of bars, everybody around you has to pay royalties [ + quote]
Leningrad (Member) 14 November 2008 17:30
Damn it! there a song in my head, now i have to pay royalties. [ + quote]
NamelessN (Newbie) 14 November 2008 17:59
*Quote:* *Originally posted by ThePastor:* Do I have to pay a royalty whenever a song comes up inside of my head??? and if you happen to whistle a couple of bars, everybody around you has to pay royalties mmm.... exploitable... [ + quote]