CD-Rs to get cheaper as Philips backs down on licensing

Discs going for a song

By Team Register • Get more from this author

10th February 2006 09:40 GMT

An anti-trust investigation into the licensing of Philips' recordable CD technology has been shelved after the firm changed its tune.

The result is that CD-Rs are going to get even cheaper. The European Commission anti-trust investigators said in a statement that the end of restrictive licensing woud bring prices down. Philips already cut its royalty charges by almost half to $0.025 per disc and back-dated the cut to October 2005.

The investigation had been running since 2003 after a complaint from the Federation in Interested Parties in Fair Competition in the Optical Media Sector.

The EC said it had closed the investigation after Philips changed its licensing regime so it was "fair and non-discriminatory". ®