Korea - the fight about MP3 in mobile phones heats up

We reported back on April 1st that Samsung's new mobile phone launch that would have included a MP3 player was delayed due to protest by the Korean Association of Phonogram Producers about copyright issues.

The Korean Association of Phonogram Producers states now that "LG Telecom`s MP3 cellular phone provides no protection against playing free copies of copyrighted songs, which is a threat not only to the music industry but to the mobile content industry as a whole."

They just don't realise that more and more musicians use the Internet as a way to promote their business (e.g.; see David Bowie) and that more and more studies find that distribution via the Internet doesn't handicap sales of music CDs. We also agree with studies that state that if the music would be better and there would be more quality music on CDs, more people would actually buy CDs. But as long as one song resembles the next on most of the CDs published nowadays, of course people don't want to spend so much money on something that doesn't provide value for money.