News Corp backs Beyond Oblivion

THAT’S FOXY: News Corp is backing U.S.-based start-up, Beyond Oblivion, an ambitious digital music initiative that promises to combat piracy by shifting the burden for paying for music to hardware makers and ISPs, giving consumers free, legal access to an unlimited number of tracks, FT.com reports. Company founder Adam Kidron said that Beyond expected to pay out well over $100m in royalties to record companies within five years, but believed it was ultimately possible to add $10 billion or more to last year’s global digital music revenues of $3.7 billion. Whoa. Citing IFPI estimates that 19 of every 20 downloads are illegal, which implies a potential market size of more than $70 billion, Kidron said, “Our job is to collect as much of that as we can. To collect $66.3 billion would be something of an achievement, but to collect $10 billion of it would make people very happy. Those figures are completely within reach.” (4/28a)