The DVD6C Licensing Group, consisting of seven Japanese companies and Warner Home Video, have announced a 30.8% reduction in its royalty charge rate for DVD-R discs. Leading manufacturers indicated that this will help lower their production cost as well as speed up the shift of production from CD-R to DVD-R discs.
The royalty will be reduced from US$0.065 to US$0.045 per disc and will be retroactive to January 1, 2006 as long as Taiwanese makers sign new licensing contracts by the end of next month, according to a DVD6C press release.
DVD6C lowered its DVD-R royalty rate from US$0.075 to US$0.065 in January 2005, Taiwanese makers indicated. The reduction this time is probably because the alliance is aware of the situation that excessively high royalty charges may force some producers out of the market and this could result in decreased royalty revenues for DVD6C itself, the makers suggested.
Story source:
digitimes.com.
