Royalties to be imposed on Blu-ray recorders, discs in Japan

Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, which represents manufacturers, and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, which oversees copyright entities, agreed to impose charges on Blu-ray products thus responding to copyright holders demand that extra charges be aplied on sales of Blu-ray recorders and BD discs.

The charges currently imposed on the sales of DVD recorders and discs are to be extended to cover Blu-ray devices sold in Japan. The charges are expected to affect retail prices of the Blu-ray recorders and blank media in Japan.

The debate over digital recording devices remains unresolved in Japan, manufacturers and copyright holders have engaged in a fierce debate on compensatory charges and the allowable number of disc copies consumers are allowed to make, after recording their favorite digital TV program.

According to the Asahi Shimbun newspaper, Japanese manufacturers have cancelled the introduction of the "dubbing 10" function for copy controlled terrestrial digital TV broadcasts, which was scheduled to begin in the beginning of June. The function would allow Japanese consumers to make up to nine copies of a DVD that holds terrestrial digital content. Copies would require both a recorder that supports the new feature as well as usage of CPRM DVD-R/RAM/-R DL media.

Until now, owners of DVD recorders are allowed to make a single DVD copy of the digital TV programs, due to the applied digital content protection restrictions. A digital TV program recorded on the hard-disk of a DVD recorder could be copied to DVD or another device just once. When the content is copied, the original data in the hard disk was deleted.

The Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, which oversees digital broadcasting, is expected to further discuss whether or when to introduce dubbing 10.

Story filed 21 June 2008

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