woneffe's Profile

While I deplore this attempt to part me and my money, I don’t think a ‘tax’ on theft is something unique to the record industry. If you don’t think shoplifting costs are factored into every purchase from Walmart then your are certainly naive. Sure shoplifting costs are factored in to the price of consumer goods. But you don't pay a fee at Walmart for items that may be shoplifted from Kmart. This is what this Zune/Universal deal is in effect. One would be paying Microsoft for something someone may have stolen from Universal. If Universal needs to recoup costs from stolen product, they should increase the cost of their own product, not Microsoft's. The fact that the goods that may have been stolen from Universal may be transported and stored in the Microsoft product should be irrelevant. I don't pay an extra fee on a car which I may use to transport stolen goods out of Walmart or the home in which I may store said stolen goods.