This Is Insane!

[Indestructible!]

Hi All,

Just read this on The Register... how on earth can this be legal?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/27/ne...lands_ipod_tax/

My favorite part:

If this legislation comes into play, the surcharge will be as much as €3.28 ($4.30) per gigabyte. This might put €180 ($235) to the price of a top end iPod.

and:

The charge will be levied against every MP3 player, and is effectively a tax on the MP3 format. Some efforts to place MP3 files under DRM protection will also mean that these will pay copyright twice over.

So let me see if I get this right: I buy a 60G iPod, which, in part, allows me the "privilege" of accessing iTunes and buying songs for $0.99 each (such a rip-off)... part of the $0.99 surely goes to pay the copyright holders, no?... and yet you're going to add an additional $240 in tax when I buy the iPod to somehow ensure that copyright holders get their fair share???

Talk about a WTF??? proposal!

One of the few times I'm glad I don't live in the Netherlands... although if it works there I'm sure it'll be discussed as an option by our friends here at the RIAA.

Cheers,

Shane

Note: If this has been discussed here on "the O" before, I apologize!

[Big Wheel]

With the Euro so strong against the dollar, we'd just end up with Ipod-tourism--people in the Netherlands deciding to take a quick trip to the States to go shopping. It's starting to happen with other things already.

[Jazzmoose]

Hey, why not? If they can save a few bucks, and put some money into our economy, I don't see anything wrong with it.

[WD45]

Doesn't iTunes operate primarily with the AAC format?

This otherwise smells like the tax levied on blank cassettes, DATs, et al. That rate seems a bit too steep to be taken seriously...

[John L]

With the Euro so strong against the dollar, we'd just end up with Ipod-tourism--people in the Netherlands deciding to take a quick trip to the States to go shopping. It's starting to happen with other things already.

Why fly to to the US when you can just drive a half hour or so to another Euro-zone country to shop? You would think that iPod sales in the Netherlands would just disappear for this reason.

This is really nonsense, a classic example of trying to treat the symptom rather than the disease. iPod technology has nothing to do with pirating. So why not collect the duty for all computer technology, especially hard drives, modems, and burners? And whose intellectual property will be subsidized from these duties? Are they going to distribute them to music companies? Absurd.

[Jim Alfredson]

Not very well thought-out at all. That's what happens when legislators, who know nothing about the technology, make laws about it.

[Claude]

This is not a tax (paid to the government), it is a levy paid to copyright rightholders. This isn't new either.

According to EU copyright law, such a levy must be paid on all devices which can be used to make copies of music, video and all other copyrighted material, and on the blank media. It is a compensation for the rightholder for private copies (which are allowed in Europe). The amount is open to negociation between the rightholders and the equipment and blanks producers, under the mediation of the government.

In Spain, an old formula from the tape age based on minutes of music that the medium can hold was applied, and amounted to a levy of more than 50 euro an a hard drive MP3 player.

The levy madness is worst in Germany, wher they are raised on computers, printers and even faxes.

I hope the system will be challenged as far as MP3 players sre concerned, because copying the music to the player is not a way of multiplying it but simply of using it.

Edited May 2, 2005 by Claude

[Michael Fitzgerald]

I don't have a problem with the idea of a surcharge - but ONLY if no one is going to bitch and moan about copying and distributing copyrighted material. You get it one way OR the other but NOT both.

Mike

[Big Wheel]

With the Euro so strong against the dollar, we'd just end up with Ipod-tourism--people in the Netherlands deciding to take a quick trip to the States to go shopping.  It's starting to happen with other things already.

Why fly to to the US when you can just drive a half hour or so to another Euro-zone country to shop? You would think that iPod sales in the Netherlands would just disappear for this reason.

I was under the impression that th iPod is already much more expensive in all of Europe than in the US, regardless of surcharge.

[John L]

That may very well be the case.

Claude: How is the determination made as to who are the "copyright holders" that deserve compensation through this duty? Anybody can become a copyright holder, and nobody can see whose music is being copied.

[Claude]

For music, the rightholders are the composers that are organized in "collecting societies".

http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number2.2/levies

[John L]

Sounds puzzling.

So if I composed "Bla Bla Bal," which appears on two discs released by an independent Italian label, what share of the duties on blank CDs and MP3 players in various countries should I receive?

[Brad]

I can see it now: "Give me ipod or give me death!" or "You have nothing to lose but the ipod itself!"

[Michael Fitzgerald]

The "what about the small guy" argument is exactly what is going on in the USA with BMI and ASCAP fees collected from clubs, radio, etc. People aren't matching up the playlist when they're writing the checks. So the biggest ASCAP or BMI composers just get more. It's unbelievably unfair.

Mike

[bertrand]

In France, the club owners actually sit down with the musicians and work out which tunes were played at the gig. It is the venue's responsibility to send in the paperwork. I actually watched someone from Cite de la Musique approach Herbie Hancock last year after a duet concert with Wayne to write down the set list. To my surprise, Herbie seemed to remember perfectly (he was smart not to ask Wayne, who probably would have given him a reply like 'a composition is never finished, so we can't really write down the set list').

I agree with Mike that the system in the U.S. is totally unfair. Why should Bruce Springsteen collect a penny when a Freddie Redd tune is played? (I mention Freddie since he needs help right now). Of course, I can't imagine U.S. club owners actually getting their act together enough to pull this off. Those idiots at Blues Alley can't even get their act together enough to tell customers on the phone who's in the band after the first set is already done.

Bertrand.