Japan recently tried to bring in a tax on iPods and MP3 players to help to pay back the royalties to musicians who claim they’re losing money as a result of the MP3 player medium allowing the free copying of music.

However Japan has now admitted defeat in these proposals, and the proclaimed ‘iPod Tax’ will now never become reality. Japan caved into opposition from the electronics manufacturers, a great many of which would have, of course, been Japanese themselves.

The notion of an iPod tax has been circulating for some years now, with a proposed figure of between 1 and 3% of all sales from MP3 players being redistributed to the music companies themselves.

Masafumi Kiyota was part of the panel looking to submit the proposal to the Japanese government, but they failed to agree following strong criticism from the electronics companies.

At this point, there is virtually no hope for getting the legislation passed.

The panel agreed to continue talking, but no date has been set.

Other recording technologies such as minidisk, DVD and cassette tapes are already subject to a similar tax in Japan, and many people don’t even realise it in the price when they purchase those items. The iPod Tax however was very high profile, and would have been noticed by the consumer and publicised by the electronics firms.