Spain to adopt media player tax on July 1st
Spain will be one of the next countries to adopt a so-called "iPod tax," Billboard writes. Formally known as the "digital canon," the tax will go in effect on July 1st, and apply to all electronic devices (and their media) capable of storing, copying or recording sound and images, even to the extent of applying to printers, scanners and ink cartridges. The fee levied against manufacturers will vary depending on the particular device; while ellphones with MP3 playback will warrant a levy of €1.10, dedicated MP3 players will cost an extra €3.15 each.
The tax is meant to compensate artists and publishers for the alleged costs of piracy, but has been extremely controversial in Spain, and fought against by the likes of electronics makers and consumer groups. It was in fact intended to be imposed 18 months ago, but was delayed due to debate.
Hands on: Zoomii breathes life into Amazon's bookshelves
Zoomii, in a nutshell, is a visual bookshelf browser for over 19,000 books from Amazon's catalog, though it can search for over 162,000 titles. Instead of browsing through flat lists of book titles and their cold statistics, Zoomii stacks books in shelves alphabetically by author, organized by genre. You can click and drag across Zoomii's landscape of shelves, zoom in and out with your scrollwheel, and click a book's cover for basic statistics from Amazon, including the ability to add the book to your cart or wishlist.
eMusic Wants to Get into DRM-Free Video
eMusic, the MP3-only music seller, is trying to break out into offering video, CEO David Pakman told NewTeeVee on Friday. But the company would only do so if networks and studios would agree to let it sell DRM-free MPEG-4 files.
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