noah | October 30, 2007 1:45 am

What is it with the suits at Vivendi-owned companies demanding that they get kickbacks from every piece of entertainment-related hardware sold? Jeff Zucker of NBC is now complaining about Apple’s refusal to engage in a Zune-like deal where the company would get a cut of each iPod sold, saying that the company “sold millions of dollars worth of hardware off the back of our content.” He’s also saying that Apple “kill[ed] the music industry in terms of pricing,” because surely nothing the record companies themselves could have engaged in could have helped turn off listeners. [Globe & Mail]