Universal Music chief Doug Morris yesterday said he might look to secure a royalty fee on Apple Computer's iPod sales when his company renews its contract with the IT firm in the New Year.
Universal was the first major to secure such a royalty off the sale of Microsoft's new iPod rival, the Zune player. Microsoft agreed to pay a levy on its digital music hardware sales as part of its negotiations to licence Universal's content for its Zune Marketplace download platform.
Speaking at the Reuters Media Summit, Morris said: "It would be a nice idea. We have a negotiation coming up not too far away. I don't see why we wouldn't do that... but maybe not in the same way. The Zune [deal] was an amazingly interesting exercise, to end up with a [cut from a] piece of technology".
On other matters, Morris said that he expected to reach an out of court settlement with News Corp's MySpace, which Universal sued earlier this month alleging that the social networking site allowed and encouraged the illegal distribution of its content. Speaking about the litigation at the Reuters event, Morris implied certain confidence in his company's legal case by suggesting MySpace wouldn't want the dispute to go to court. He said: "I think it will settle. It would be a horrible case for them to lose".