“These devices are just repositories for stolen music, and they all know it,” that is a quote from UMG chairman/CEO Doug Morris regarding iPod and MP3 player users. Isn’t it nice to know how Universal Music values us as customers – it’s not as if we haven’t bought enough music from Universal for them to become the world’s largest music company with a turnover in 2005 of €4,989 billion – enough for Mr Morris and all his cronies to live very luxurious lifestyles. I expect Mr Morris has some form of portable music player and I suspect that he hasn’t paid for most of the music on it. He probably listens to music on his computer, in his car and at home, he probably listens to music when he travels overseas… Does he pay for most of his music? Of course not. But he expects us to – for every different system we play the same song on, Universal Music Group want us to pay. If you have one type of music player, but decide you prefer a different brand – pay again, because the two players use different digital rights management systems and aren’t compatible with each other. If you buy music in North America he wants you to pay again to use it in Europe and pay again to use it in Asia… er, except we can’t use it here in Asia because we’ve all been branded as thieves. None of the major music online services are available in Asia “because of piracy problems”, so I guess here in Asia we’re just supposed to all sit in the dark and twiddle our thumbs while humming a non-DRM-protected tune. Mr Morris, get with the programme, most people wouldn’t need to use ‘pirated’ music if you charged a fair price for it and allowed listeners to use it wherever and however they wanted to. You’re entrenched in a system of corporate greed; having to pay multiple times to listen to the same song is nothing more than extortion. I paid money for all the CDs I have ripped onto my iPod, Mr Morris. Did you?

sd