Last week, I wrote: The music industry was nicely under way in developing a decent, legal industry in which downloaders paid for their music. But looking at a report of the Dutch Consumer Association, many a remark can be made about the quality of delivery and payment. Of course this does not help the sales, as many a music lover does not want to troubled by hindrances. Besides in Europe, collecting societies are getting under fire for topping up charges, ranging from blank licence charges to copyright charges.
The porte of the report of the Dutch Consumer Association was that download music and movies are too high in price and very limiting in conditions. The report notices that there are 18 different formats for downloading music such as mp3, WMA and AAC. Besides not all formats are playable on music devices nor can music be transferred from PC to a music device. In The Netherlands 120.000 mp3 players have been sold.
The music industry was nicely under way in developing a decent, legal industry in which downloaders paid for their music. But looking at a report of the Dutch Consumer Association, many a remark can be made about the quality of delivery and payment. Of course this does not help the sales, as many a music lover does not want to troubled by hindrances. Besides in Europe, collecting societies are getting under fire for topping up charges, ranging from blank licence charges to copyright charges.
The porte of the report of the Dutch Consumer Association was that download music and movies are too high in price and very limiting in conditions. The report notices that there are 18 different formats for downloading music such as mp3, WMA and AAC. Besides not all formats are playable on music devices nor can music be transferred from PC to a music device. In The Netherlands 120.000 mp3 players have been sold.
The prices are considered as high as an album costs 15 euro. This about the same price as a CD, while downloads are cheaper to organise. Presently the turn-over in the Netherlands is just 5 million euro; by 2010; PriceWaterhouseCoopers estaimates revenues of 318 million euro by 2010. Besides music webshops do not mention the conditions beforehand, so that you only find out when you are trying to transfer the music from the PC to an mp3 player. Neither is quality guaranteed or indicated.
Then there is always the blank medium licence. You pay for music and still collecting societies want to collect money for having devices. When recently a levy was announced for the mp3 player in The Netherlands, it was enough for many an organisation. The ITC association of computing companies asked the minister of Justice to stop this levy, as there is already a levy on magnetic and optical discs. Under pressure the collecting society reduced the levy to 0 percent; also an investigation in the repartition of the collected money was announced by the Dutch Justice department.
The Dutch Consumer Association rated also the Dutch music dowloadshops. Out of 100 points the highest score was for iTunes with 66 point and for Musicstream of Planet and Freedownloadshop of the Free Record Shop 60 points. Also the downloadshops of Tiscali, MusicStore and Radio538 did come no higher than reasonable.
The Dutch Consumer Association has announced a signature action for a better service, lower prices, no digital rights limitation software and better conditions. But this should be done in relationship to illegal downloading.
Video downloading on mp4 players does not yet exist in The Netherlands. Not one downloadshop is servicing the Dutch market.
Target: music, video
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Blog Posting Number: 623
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