Japan has abandoned the proposed iPod tax — a copyright law revision that would charge royalties on digital music players. The move came after no way was found to enforce the proposed levy.
Under the current system, consumers pay a charge of about 3 percent of the wholesale price of a product that can be used to duplicate copyrighted content. Since last year, recording companies and other lobbies have been arguing that the same system should be applied to recording devices with hard-drives, including MP3 players like Apple Computer’s iPods as well as flash-memory players.
A panel of experts couldn’t agree on the new tax, the Associated Press reported. The iPod, which controls about 70 percent of the global market, has been a hit in Japan, despite the fact that home companies such as Sony and Toshiba compete with their own players. The iPod’s market share in Japan has grown to 60 percent, the Associated Press reported.
