According to billboard.com, Microsoft has agreed to share revenues from their Zune player with record labels and artists.

UMG refused to license its music to the Zune unless it could receive a percentage of each device sold, in addition to standard music licensing fees for downloads and subscriptions.

That, and the added claim that people that listen to music on any music player are thieves:

“These devices are just repositories for stolen music, and they all know it,” UMG chairman/CEO Doug Morris says. “So it’s time to get paid for it.”

I really don’t understand why DAPs are much more “illegal” than (normal) CD or k7 players, but in any case, what this means is that more than $1 of the $250 device will head to record labels, and half of those proceeds will be equally divided among artists.

So if the Zune sold, for instance, 2 million units, and half of the $1 gained from those units reverted to the 500 artists of a random record label, each artist would gain $2000. Which should be more than enough for them to stop starving for a few months. And that same “poor” record label would only gain a measly one million dollars. I hope I’m not the only who understands who’s getting the better end of this deal.

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