Security cameras have become ubiquitous in many countries. Whereas before they appeared only in banks and at high-security areas, they are now entering public places such as The US software giant Microsoft has broken off licensing talks with four major music companies over its plans to launch a subscription download service. It is believed Microsoft had been in negotiations with EMI, Warner, Universal and Sony-BMG about selling music online for a flat monthly fee. However, sources told the Wall Street Journal that the talks broke down on Friday because of what Microsoft considered to be excessively high royalty demands. The sources said the music labels were seeking royalties of around $6 per user per month - believed to be roughly in line with what rivals pay in license fees - according to the Journal. Microsoft is understood to have been seeking a lower charge in order to undercut competitors in the emerging music subscription industry. It already operates a music download service, MSN Music, which claims to offer 1m songs at $0.99 each, but many experts believe flat rate subscription services will become increasingly popular. Yahoo! charges PC users $4.99 a month for its music subscription service, while Napster costs UK users £9.95 a month. Apple's iTunes store currently dominates the online music sector, accounting for more than three-quarters of downloads and charging 79p a song in the UK. In July, Apple announced that more than 500m songs had been downloaded, many for its popular iPod music players, which are incompatible with rivals' download services. The royalties sought by music labels have become a major source of friction for download firms. Last month, Steve Jobs, the Apple CEO, claimed recording companies had demanded that iTunes raise its prices. Mr. Jobs warned people would revert to illegal downloads if charges increased. "If the price goes up, people will go back to piracy," he said. "Then everybody loses. If they want to raise the prices, it just means they're getting a little greedy." According to the Music Managers Forum, artists receive around 4.5p from every 79p sale on iTunes - around 6% of revenue - but 35p from physical singles sales, equal to about 12%. Two weeks ago, the Warner CEO, Edgar Bronfman, suggested download royalties should not be uniform and said newer material should cost more than back catalogue songs.
Talks between Microsoft and music companies failed because ____ .
they currently dominate the online music sector
the music companies' fees are too high
Microsoft is making excessively high royalty demands
the cost of producing music is so high
the music companies are seeking a lower charge