Former singer Feargal Sharkey used the London Calling music conference to demand a levy on gadgets that allow music to be copied. “To legislate for the copying of a CD on to an iPod might, at this point in the development of humanity, seem like a technical irrelevance, even bizarre. But if successful, this would create a new income stream, returning lost value to the artists and composers.”

Sharkey said the proposal was “exactly the same” as the license under which electronics makers must pay to use the MP3 format: “The organisation that licenses manufacturers to produce MPEG players has now licensed about 300 million devices around the world at about $2 each, so that generates about $600 million of business. Guess who's not seen one single penny from that $600 million? The artists and the creators.”

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