Ruling on Japanese iPod tax postponed

Those of you living in fear of having to hand over an iPod "tax" to Japanese royalty agencies can breathe a sigh of relief (for now, at least). It seems the entire issue will be put on review until sometime in 2007, according to Asahi.com. Right now, the JASRAC (Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers) applies a surcharge to the sale of blank, recordable CDs, DVDs and digital recording devices in Japan. The resulting funds are then distributed among rights holders, in an attempt to make up for the (presumably) illegal files that will be (presumably) transferred onto those storage devices. If passed, the iPod will become a part of that group.

[Via Macworld UK]