Norm and eXactmobile in royalty battle

Norm issued a summons against the provider in mid-August, and on Wednesday last week eXactmobile filed notice in the Cape High Court of its intention to defend. Norm is asking the court for an order that eXactmobile 'must cease infringing the copyright of Norm's members' and pay royalties of 7.5% backdated to 1 January 2006. It is also seeking R2m in damages. John Fishlock, Norm board member and MD of Universal Music Publishing, said that up to 2005, royalties on ringtones were charged as a fixed amount per download, with some discount on volume. Ahead of the expiry of that agreement, Norm had proposed that mobile content providers pay 7.5% of what was charged to consumers as a royalty fee. Norm says that eXactmobile agreed to this but later reneged on the agreement and offered 5%. Following this impasse, publishers and composers have received no royalties from eXactmobile, or any other members of the Wireless Application Service Providers' Association, to which eXactmobile belongs, since 1 January 2006, Fishlock claims. However, eXactmobile denied that it is not paying royalties and maintains that it has licences in place for all content sold on its platforms. eXactmobile's CE, Davin Mole, said: 'We view the comments made by Norm as defamatory and we reserve our legal rights in this regard.' Full report on the Mail & Guardian Online site