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German Court Sets Copyright Tax on New PCs
Posted by
michael
on Sat Jan 01, 2005 06:00 AM
from the since-you're-paying-already,-might-as-well-fire-up-kazaa dept.
from the since-you're-paying-already,-might-as-well-fire-up-kazaa dept.
graemee pastes: "The District Court of Munich has ordered Fujitsu Siemens Computers to pay a copyright levy on new PCs. The landmark decision, announced on Thursday, ends a nearly two-year dispute between the largely Germany-based computer maker and the country's VG Wort rights society, which has sought compensation for digital copying. VG Wort had filed a suit against Germany's largest PC maker, Fujitsu Siemens, seeking 30 euro (US$41) for each new computer sold in the country. The court agreed to a 12 euro copyright levy."
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May I be the first to... (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless of course this completely ligitimises copying c.f. Canada. somehow I doubt it though.
Re:May I be the first to... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:May I be the first to... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's like the cd-r issue. Either the RIAA gets money from a tax on cd-r, or they get to enforce their copyright for damages in the court... but not both. Both these organisations are effectively double dipping. This shows how courts and governments can be manipulated given the right amount of money.
Why it's wrong is that users pay a fee for using their cd-rs for any legitimate content, and anyone that uses their computer is similarly paying a fee, for the possibility that they might do something illegal with their machine.
(The RIAA and similar organisations are too used to their lucrative contractual deals where they get alot of money for doing very little, such as 15% breakage fees still existing from vinyl days, when even then it was ridiculous for the artist to be paying for that.)
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Re:May I be the first to... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:May I be the first to... (Score:5, Insightful)
They should have a similar fee on all printers, copiers and scanners, since using one of those may also be practicing fair use. Not to mention CD and DVD players, televisions, and radios. Thos machines are also essential elements in fair use of purchased media.
I've got it, the eyeball and earlobe fee, that way they can get everybody. Doesn't matter if your deaf and blind, because I'm sure those people don't get out of paying the 'fair use fee' on their computers.
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Re:May I be the first to... (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Has anyone tried defending an infringement suit (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe they got the law giving them lovely money to compensate them for the FAIR-USE copies.
A beautiful, nasty, WRONG argument, because a copyright holder is not entitled to compensation for Fair Use copying. That's WHY it's called Fair Use: because it is fair for the user to copy without paying.
But it sidetracks the whole Why-Am-I-Being-Sued-For-Copying-When-I've-Already
That's why word meanings are important! You can't let your foe own the win by redefining the terms used in your arguments so that you can't even make yourself understood in the debate. Orwell made this clear. L. Ron Hubbard used word redefinitions (Win, Enemy, etc) in his writings to redefine how his followers thought when certain key words were used, making argument with his ideas impossible. Redefinitions of the word "pirate" and "thief" to describe copying intangibles was intentional on the **AA's part. Bush's PR people reconstituted the simple idea of the word "torture" into the less objectionable "abuse" in the news media. It's all about the words. If your opponent removes your ability to express yourself in words understandable by a third party, you've lost.
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Re:May I be the first to... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, they may get to do both here. In the US, 22 states now have laws on the books that say drug dealers must pay tax on the illegal drugs they sell. Of course these states aren't actually going to collect anything, but it gives them something else to charge drug dealers with when they're arrested. Unfortunately, this is an example that the RIAA can point at and say "look, we can tax an illegal activity and still go after people for doing it." IANAL, but this seems a very dangerous example to set.
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Re:May I be the first to... (Score:5, Insightful)
While we might not know where all the levy money went, we at least now know the levies will be gone soon (in Canada), assuming they have not already been abolished thanks to the court's decision.
I wonder what kind of share independents manage to get from royalty claims. Since the RIAA regularly forgets that a free/independent market exists and sues intependents who distribute their own stuff, it must be quite a hassle for independents to fight off the RIAA if it accidentally (but happily) files levy claims for unlicensed productions.
People should realize that governments are becoming a system of "by rich people for rich people" instead of the "by the people for the people" they used to be and should be - governments are another area where the barriers to entry are rising every round, effectively keeping most people out.
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Re:May I be the first to... (Score:5, Funny)
Therefore, like all taxes collected for a specific purpose, they're going towards something else.
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Re:May I be the first to... (Score:4, Informative)
Those who live for creating new taxes will succeed on collecting them, and their money will be one legally collected, but somehow not really deserved, which will benefit them on the short run only. The problem is obviously an old set of laws that were not created with the new Digital World in mind. Hopefully governments will call young people to revise outdated schemes making impossible for old structures to predate on people's resources in such ominous ways.
For the rest of us, there is a law that says: "hecha la ley, hecha la trampa" ("done the law, done the trap" or, there is always a way around a stupid law). Hack your system.
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Re:Obviously you are too young and stupid to... (Score:3, Insightful)
And refusing to pay for this "insurance" will no doubt greatly increase the odds of something "bad" happening to you.
Where can I get a piece of this action?
This needs to be exposed. (Score:5, Interesting)
And people will ask questions about it. Then you explain it (in the FAQ or a brochure) and point people toward the government.
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Free downloads in Germany.. (Score:5, Insightful)
They're already paid for.
(Sure the courts wont see it that way)
~cederic
Re:Free downloads in Germany.. (Score:5, Insightful)
You've indeed paid royalties for the stuff you copy.
Yet this does not make it legal to offer someone else's work for copying.
Various European courts have already confirmed that the downloaders are not the infringers but the uploaders are.
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Re:No no no (Score:3, Informative)
No, there is no implied agreement. There is an explicit agreement [iuscomp.org] on which this tax is based.
Article 53 defines what kind of copying is allowed. Article 54 says there should be a compensation for it.
Re:Free downloads in Germany.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Exactly. I'd gladly pay a copyright tax if it gave me rights to legally download and copy whatever I want. The pessimist in my says this would never happen. But it would be interesting to see what happens if someone were taken to court and used that as a defense. If such a tax doesn't give you license to copy stuff, then is it really anything
Huge levies in Finland (Score:3, Informative)
Teosto also collects over 1 euro for every DVD-+R(W) disc. As a result a pack of 50 no-brand discs costs 129 euros here versus 25 euros when ordered from Estonia INCLUDING shipping. However, importing CDs and DVDs without paying the levies is illegal and carries insane penalties (fines over 20 euros for a single disc and even jail time).
And no, you can't legally download or copy CDs nor DVDs even though you have to pay the levies - there's absolutely NO
This sets up a nasty loop (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This sets up a nasty loop (Score:4, Insightful)
First, it would seem to legitimize copying copyrighted material - since they are charging you a fee to cover that very thing.
Second, if they still prosecute people copying copyrighted material on a home computer, then how can they justify this? They are already penalizing people without due process and assuming that they are guilty of copyrighting (charging them for it whether they do it or not).
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Re:drugs tax (Score:3, Insightful)
Independent labels and copyright taxes (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Independent labels and copyright taxes (Score:3, Informative)
From the horses mouth [www.gema.de].
Sounds like a bargain! (Score:5, Interesting)
You pay tobacco tax and you're legally allowed to smoke it.
So if you pay a "digital copying tax" on a computer, you must be allowed to do digital copying on it, surely?
Out of curiosity, if you built a pc from scratch, which component gets this tax, or is it split up between all of them ?
Logically, yes... (Score:3, Interesting)
However, in order to make a digital copy, or a copy of anything, you don't need to pay anything. Nothing, no tax, zilch. Assuming, of course, that you already own the source material you're copying.
I just don't see how you could justify a tax for copying, because you're either going to be copying illegally obtained material (in which case you can't really tax it, because it would legitimise the crime - you really can't tax something which is ill
Re:Sounds like a bargain! (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, that's the point. In Germany, copying for private purposes is explicitly allowed by law. There are many court cases setting the limits, of course. However, the "Privatkopie" right is quite broad, and it does include making a few (the generally agreed limit is 5 or 6 in total) copies for friends.
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Re:Sounds like a bargain! (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course that side of the bargain is always conveniently overlooked. I hope this 'success' won't mean similar arrangements in other European countries; but the movie industry would love to collect a tax for private copies we can't make.
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Re:Sounds like a bargain! (Score:5, Informative)
As a footnote: the movie industry has used lots of pressure on shops and video stores to forbid the import of non-RC2-DVDs (you can't buy/rent them anywhere anymore). There are sometimes price differences that you could order an RC1-DVD-player from amazon.com with your RC1-DVDs and pay less than buying the RC2-DVDs in Germany.
Example: just waiting for the 4th season of Angel;
RC1: ~42 Euros from playusa.com(+possible customs and German VAT (16%))
RC2: 110-120(!) Euros, depending on the shops..
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Re:Sounds like a bargain! (Score:3, Informative)
Do let me know when I'll be free to start smoking marijuana, won't you?
You were somewhat free to do so after they passed it. Except that the law required you have the marijuana to get the license and required a license to have the marijuana.
The Supreme Court didn't laugh and ruled it unconstitutional in 1969 on the grounds that it forced self-incrimination. In 1970, it was officially made illegal in the Controlled Substances Act.
Parts? (Score:5, Interesting)
As assinine as this is overall, I would much rather pay a $50 tax on any computer than have the media industries completely destroy or cripple beyond recognition the internet and anything remotely interesting that computers can do.
Re:Parts? (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.golem.de/0301/23447.html [golem.de](german)
(google tranlation) [google.com]
The GEMA is/was also trying to get the tax on printers, IIRC
Wait a minute.. (Score:3, Informative)
VG Wort is not about music. VG Wort is responsible for collecting money on written documents / books and the rights associated with them. And they are right about wanting to get that levy on computers, because people who want to set up Xerox machines and use them commercialy have had to pay that levy since, eh, always (And thereby you have the right to copy material out of books without owning the books).
So yes, you have to pay the levy, but you are also allowed to make non-commercial copies of books / magazines etc because of that. Stop complaining.
Re:Wait a minute.. (Score:3)
Interesting, but weird. How am I supposed to copy a book or magazine with a computer? I see three ways:
Re:Wait a minute.. (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030312-1209
Re:Wait a minute.. (Score:3, Informative)
Under fair use, you're not allowed to copy entire books or magazines but an article or two is allowed.
Germanic vs. Roman law (Score:5, Informative)
First they tax CD-R(W) media by default because they assume you will use them for copyright-protected content and now they're also making you pay an additional tax on computers because they assume you will illegally be using copyright-protected content on your computer. They just assume mens rea without proving it on an individual basis. Guilty until proven otherwise is the premise Germanic law is based on. The German legal system as well as all other modern legal systems are based on Roman law, which is based on the premise that you are innocent until proven guilty. How this decision could have come about is totally beyond me. What's next? An additional tax on eyeglasses because you might use them to view copyright-protected content?!
Just as a reminder, the four levels of mens rea set forth in the MPC (Model Penal Code) are:
Re:Germanic vs. Roman law (Score:4, Insightful)
No, you misunderstood the intent of the law. The intent of the law is not to make you pay in advance for breaking the law, but for extending your rights as consument by compensating the producer.
The tax was levied on copying devices and media because you were allowed to make copies of music and films. Not just for you personally, but also for friends and family.
I speak in past tense, because AFAIK, the law has been somewhat modified.
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Blazing idiocy (Score:4, Insightful)
Tax this, tax that, distort the market.
VG Wort have increased the price of PCs to *everyone*. Over the whole of the economy, anyone who uses a PC to create a product or offer a service will now have to charge that much more - which means the entire economy is that much less productive, because there is a fixed amount of money available for investment, and the price of buying a PC based service is now higher.
What's more, the knock on effect is huge, because PCs are vital to so many industries. It will now be that much more expensive to buy *food*, because all the PCs bought by food retailers and wholesalers are that much more expensive; and we ALL buy food!
This sort of ruling, the very fact is can occur, is a hallmark of the danger of concentrating economic power in the hands of political power.
This court has both political power - the right to make decisions - and economic power - the right to make decisions which influence, in this case, a form of taxation.
When political decisions are badly made in the political sphere, the consequences are things like national ID cards, or foreign countries becoming upset with us.
When political decisions are badly made in the economic sphere, there is less choice of goods to buy, they cost more, and everyone, to a greater or lesser extent, becomes poorer.
--
Toby
Pay up, but don't you dare make copies! (Score:4, Interesting)
I think this is really a fine display of greed. Make everyone pay but give nothing in return.
Canada was here... (Score:3, Informative)
Seperation of powers? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm surprised that people aren't more upset by the fact that you had here a court creating law. While on the face of it I think the ruling is bogus, I'd be a little bit more upset that judiciary just created a new tax, something that is clearly the job of a legislative body. They've basically usurped the process by which a law is passed, and all the checks and balances built into the system.
In other headlines... (Score:4, Insightful)
VG Wort doesn't pay much to copyright holders (Score:5, Informative)
I co-authored some long-since-forgotten academic articles and a book back in my days as a graduate student. The articles appeared in some conference proceedings, and the book, as well as a couple of the articels, were published in the Lecture Notes series of the Springer Verlag. So my name got put on a list somewhere, and every year for about three or four years, a check from VG Wort came in the mail.
To put it briefly, I could have just as well done without it. I don't know how they determined how much money was dispersed to each individual, it was based on some formula that I never bothered to try to understand. At any rate, it was nothing to get rich on, maybe about a hundred marks or so if I remember correctly (this was back before the Euro). About enough to take a girl out on a nice dinner date, once a year. Which of course is nothing to sneeze at, especially if you're a student hustling to make ends meet and struggling for ways to impress a girl. But I could have just as well managed without it. (If she's worth it, you always find a way, you know; and one nice dinner in a year won't get you very far.)
More prolific authors get more money from VG Wort, since the money is based on how much you've published. But I doubt that the cash from VG Wort makes a whole lot of difference to people who make their living as authors; they have to get the vast part of their income by other means.
So if this is the benefit to society that is to be gained by making everyone pay an extra 12 Euros for each PC, I think it's obvious that we can just as well pass it up. Aside from all the philosophical debates about copyright law and whether it's fair and just to pay creators of content this way, the practical effects of the scheme are just not very significant. Why put this added burden on the buyers of PCs just so some student can take someone out once a year? It's better for everyone, economically and socially, to keep the prices of computer hardware down than to extend this meager benefit to copyright holders.
German scanners and printers are slower (Score:4, Informative)
The VG Wort gets a fee based on the throughput of these machines. To lower this fee, many devices sold in Germany are (or were?) sold with reduced speed.
Sometimes you could speed up peripherals by installing english drivers.
This makes sense, this is good, stop ranting (Score:4, Informative)
The important legal difference is that private copies are legal in Germany. Again: In Germany, I can take a DVD, CD, video, whatever, and rip a copy for my own private use. Of course, if I start distributing that copy or screen it in a public place etc. they get to throw the book at me, and will do so very, very hard.
This Recht auf eine Privatkopie is something German consumer groups have been fighting tooth and nail to keep in he face of massive industry pressure to adopt an American-style "sorry sucker, you can't do jack" system. On the long run, this new ruling will actually work for the consumer, because it weaves the right to a private copy tighter into the greater legal fabric. Now, when I buy a computer, I have paid for that private copy, so industry can just go shove a bratwurst up their Po, with mustard. Or they can try to get the VG Wort system changed -- and good luck with that, because it touches just about every scrap of printed matter in Germany, from newspapers to pornographic novels.
All the talk here about "guilty until proven innocent" is pure crap by people who haven't taken the time to read the background kindly provided by the Germans on the list and should be modded down as ranting, if not German-bashing.
As somebody who has lived in Germany for a while let me say that German law for the most part is a very sane, logical, and balanced system that almost across the board is superior to the 18th Century money-comes-first atavism that the U.S. is forced to suffer through. The SCO case proved this quite well: German courts took about a week to bitch-slap Darl's minions back into the real world, while, what is it now, years? later IBM and RedHat are still forced to pour millions into legal fees.
Re:This makes sense, this is good, stop ranting (Score:4, Interesting)
[...]
[...] As somebody who has lived in Germany [...]
How long ago did you left? In the meantime, things got worse regarding copyrights... you know, corruption by lobbies, masked as 'international pressure', 'germany has to stay competitive' (wtf!) etc...
The right to a 'Privatkopie' only exists on paper now. The new copyright law implemented a few years ago specifically forbids cracking copy ''protections''. What if you want to make an allowed copy of such media?
Germany's attorney general Brigitte Zypries said that there is no right to personal copies in copyright law ("Das Urheberrecht kennt kein Recht auf Privatkopie", see e.g. this German c't computer magazine article [heise.de]).
IMHO, such laws show how corrupt our goverment became.
Interesting opininions on slashdot (comparing copyright violation to drugs and to rape) let me strongly suspect, as another poster in a previous thread said very well: 'meme injection by *AA astroturfing agents'.
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Re:Not A Rights Issue; Extension of Common Practic (Score:4, Informative)
By the way, if I remember correctly, Canada for one applies the levy also to hard disks (I'm not sure Germany does this). So Canadians already pay the IP tax on their computers.
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Re:Thank god for our capalist govt. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Thank god for our capalist govt. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Thank god for our capalist govt. (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't worry. It just means that non-oil economy won't start in the US. US will be forced to follow, though. The oil megacorps will kick and scream while being dragged off the scene, maybe buy few more years of life, but that's about all they will be able to do.
Same like stem cell research. If the clerofascists ban/restrict it in the US, it only means Korea will become the biomed leader.
The world is too big to allow a comparatively small group to stop the progress. Slow down, perhaps - but not stop.
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