France To Tax the Internet To Pay For Music

bs0d3 writes "A new tax in France is aimed at ISPs. The new government tax on ISPs is to help pay for the CNM (Centre National de la Musique). Already in France there is a tax on TV, to pay for public access channels. It's similar to the tax in the United kingdom which pays for the BBC. This ISP tax will be the musical equivalent to that. President Sarkozy comments, 'Globalization is now, and the giants of the internet earn lot of money on the French market. Good for them, but they do not pay a penny in tax to France.' This all began after the music industry accused French ISPs of making billions of dollars on their backs. Now the music industry must also get their hands in their pockets."

Correction.

[Z00L00K]

It is not a tax to see public channels it's a license fee to own and use a TV receiver.

This also exists in other European countries like Sweden.

Re:Correction.

[Teun]

Indeed, this is not a tax.

Such a levy on accessing TV and radio exists in most Western European countries and it pays for the national broadcasters.
Something that's supported by a majority of the population in the bigger countries like the UK and Germany.

When you don't have a TV or radio you don't pay.

But this French proposal sounds differently, you pay regardless, even when you don't listen to music over the net.
Clearly le Président de la République is shacked up with an artist.

Re:French music

[Zorque]

Ever heard of a little group called Daft Punk? They're only platinum sellers, so I can see how you might have missed them.

(See also Phoenix, David Guetta, Alcest, etc.)

Re:Who can tell...

[JPLR]

There is no such tax at all at the moment. President Sarkozy told to the press that this kind of tax could exist in the future. This means the government has to propose a law which it hadn't, that the parliament vote for it (there are at least two turns between the two houses if every PM agrees which is highly unlikely, and otherwise many turns until an agreement is reached) and finally that the government fund the law which means the chance that such a law would be implemented in very low.

Re:So downloads of music are free in France then?

[hey_popey]

Fat chance: in France there's already have a tax on HDDs, memory cards and all types of blank media to pay for our right to a "private copy" of the music people purchased, but this does not authorize them to downloadâ¦

Re:Oh good

[Cley Faye]

That would be a logical step, right ? wrong.

A small summary about how the french government think it can help funding music (and art in general):
- put tax on blank media, check (but the money don't go to artist)
- put tax on internet subscription to fund movie industry, check (search for COSIP tax, but still not a penny for artists)
- put another tax, again on internet subscription, to fund the music industry, in progress (guess who won't get anything from this? artists)

For those that don't know, the fact that we're paying taxes on blank media doesn't mean we can use them to copy our own stuff, and taxes on internet subscriptions doesn't mean anything for both subscribers, and people behind music/movies. Only some cash stream for a few very poor corporations...