BKK2 on 13 December 2008
| Zuhyc said: This is a very interesting read: http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9874317-7.html The BDA gets royalties from each disc and drive sold, which is divided amongst their members. |
Thanks, the points most applicable to this thread:
The numbers add up quickly. Look at DVD, for example. To make a DVD player legally, manufacturers recently had to pay around $4 per player or drive, according to some estimates. A few years ago, those fees were around $15 to $20. Fees get paid every time a DVD drive gets included in a PC. Nearly every PC in the world has a DVD drive these days and roughly 250 million PCs get shipped every year. Companies that legally make DVD discs also pay fees. The DVD6C licensing group dropped the per disc fee in January to 4 cents per disc. Years ago, it was 7.5 cents per disc. Then there are verification fees.
Blu-ray has a lot of grandfathers. A lot of people call it a Sony standard but by our estimates Sony doesn't even have 30 percent of the IP," Doherty said. The top four intellectual property holders are likely Sony, Panasonic, Pioneer, and Warner.
So, assuming that BD royalties are the same as DVD royalties originally were then Sony would get around 30% of 7.5c per disc, or 2.25c per disc. As already mentioned in this thread though, these fees were probably waived during the "HD war", so Sony probably won't see any royalties until those contracts are up.
