Anti-piracy software royalties cut

BORDEAUX, France: A group of technology firms has slashed the royalties they want to charge for essential anti-piracy systems after pressure from mobile phone companies, the group said.

The companies, including Sony Corp and Philips Electronics, said they would cut the proposed tariffs for anti-piracy technology by one third to $0.65 per mobile phone or other electronic gadget.

Calls for the reductions stemmed from fears that high royalties might stifle the markets for digital music and video.

The technology is used in an open standard developed by the mobile phone industry's Open Mobile Alliance (OMA). The GSM Association of mobile operators complained earlier this month about the initial price of 1 dollar per device and 1 cent per transaction, such as buying a song from an online music store.

The operators' protests follow similar grumbling by manufacturers of mobile phones and consumer electronics, who told Reuters in late February that a $1 royalty per mobile device was too high a price just to protect digital music and video against illegal copying. >

They said they would not be able to recoup that amount with revenue from digital entertainment.

The group of technology companies which own all the essential patents, represented by a U.S. umbrella organization called MPEG LA, now propose to charge just $0.25 per mobile phone subscriber per year, regardless of the number of songs or other digital content that is being purchased in that year.

"The revisions are responsive to feedback from the market," MPEG LA said in a statement.