France to Apple: “J’Accuse!”

BRENDAN I. KOERNER — This should give the free - market aficionado over at the Economist plentitude to grumble about . The French solution to ASCAP , Sacem , is threatening to sue Apple over misplace euphony royalties . France apparently impose a fee on every white standard candle , white tape , or hard phonograph record sell in the country , on the theory that , since they ’ll in all probability be used to hijack euphony , Sacem merit a snub . Apple seemingly has n’t been ponying up the levy en masse of about 3.6 pct per iPod sell , so Sacem ’s talking about brining the legal hotness . The kicker is that , concord to the AP , a 40 GB iPod retails in Paris for an astronomic $ 677 . Is n’t this the kind of callous neglect for the common man that led to plenty of forefront getting dress off in 1789 ?

Update : Eagle - eyed reader Pieter points out that the above photo was crack in Milan , not Paris . Zut alors ! If anyone ’s got a pic of an iPod with the Arc de Triomphe in the desktop , we ’ll replace at once .

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