High off of their success with Microsoft's Zune deal, Universal Music plans on seeking a similar fee-per-device deal with Apple on the company's iPods. When the Microsoft deal was signed, which saw Universal getting a small cut of each hardware device sold (likely as a bribe of some sort to stop Universal from complaining about the wireless sharing feature) many saw it as a Very Bad Thing, setting a bad precident.

"It would be a nice idea. We have a negotiation coming up not too far. I don't see why we wouldn't do that... but maybe not in the same way," he told the Reuters Media Summit, when asked if Universal would negotiate a royalty fee for the iPod that would be similar to Microsoft's Zune.

"The Zune (deal) was an amazingly interesting exercise, to end up with a piece of technology," he added.

While it looks similar to a levy going on the sale of each device with the proceeds earmarked for each record company, it is not. If Apple decides to continue down the slope that Microsoft created, it could mean the price of your next digital media player has just skyrocketed up. 

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