Digital Home Thoughts: Universal Looks for Alternative Sources of Income

"Universal Music Group CEO Doug Morris wants it all...being the world’s largest music label kinda helps too. Speaking today at the Reuters Media Summit, he mentioned that UMG expects to reach a settlement with MySpace, which the company sued for copyright infringement. That’s kinda obvious: no one wants to drag it, much less the labels now. Then he said he may try to fashion an iPod royalty fee with Apple in the next round of negotiations in early 2007, similar to what it did with Microsoft’s Zune, though in fairness it seems he was asked a leading question on that. Addressing his lawsuit-happy image, he said: “I am not going to allow any of the people to infringe upon the rights of these artists and songwriters. That’s my job. and I am going to get money from the people who are creating businesses based on their backs.” Then, something which a lot of people will agree on: he said that mobile operators need to cut the price of song downloads if they want the market for such services to grow...Morris disagreed with the idea that consumers would pay more for the convenience of downloading a song while they’re on the go or sitting with their phone at a sports arena."

I'm sorry, but rather than go after income from dubious sources, maybe Universal should concentrate on producing quality content. If the MP3 player manufacturers are paying a royalty since it assumed that music will be pirated on these devices aren't they just legitimizing stealing music? After all, that royalty is built into the players cost, so if I paid the royalty, I am no longer stealing music.