France's 'Culture Tax' Could Hit YouTube and Facebook 314
PolygamousRanchKid writes with this excerpt from BusinessWeek: "Should YouTube subsidize le cinéma français? France's audiovisual r.egulator thinks so. In a report this week, the Superior Audiovisual Council (CSA) says that video-sharing websites should be subject to a tax that helps finance the production of French films and TV shows. ... Although the CSA report says that videos posted online by private individuals should not be subject to taxation, it contends that video-sharing sites increasingly have become 'professional' content providers. ... Separately, France is considering a tax on smartphones, tablets, and other devices as another source of revenue for cultural subsidies. The proposed tax would raise an estimated €86 million annually that would be used to finance the 'cultural industries' digital transition,' France's Culture Ministry said at the time."
Kickback time (Score:5, Insightful)
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...except when the state does it, it is legal.
I don't see a problem with the YouTube tax. According to TFA, YouTube would be subject to the already existing tax on video-on-demand. This means they would have to pay a percentage of whatever people pay them to watch YouTube (on paid channels), just like their competitors.
The tax on smartphones etc is more problematic. It may lead to smartphones that disable or cripple video streaming just to avoid the tax. If you're wondering why your cellphone or digital cam
Re:Kickback time (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see a problem with the YouTube tax
I do... Youtube's not a French company. The idea that any country in the world can levy a tax on you if you're an internet company, would be crippling.
How about a "Mohamed" tax from muslim countries, on any depiction of Mohamed in a video? The tax amount? $1 Million dollars, per viewer of each such video.
Global companies and tax (Score:5, Insightful)
Youtube's not a French company.
Yes they are. I guarantee you that Google (who owns YouTube) is incorporated in France and can be taxed there. The fact that the parent company is in the US is not important here. France absolutely can tax the French subsidiary of Google. There probably are taxation angles via the EU as well.
The idea that any country in the world can levy a tax on you if you're an internet company, would be crippling.
It would be if they could collect the revenue. If you don't actually do any business in France they cannot tax you even if they pass laws which try. They simply cannot collect the money.
Not Culture (Score:3, Insightful)
If you have to subsidize it, then it ain't culture; it's history.
Re:Not Culture (Score:5, Informative)
But everyone does it. The UK has a system of subsidies for movie production (Lottery money, mostly). Uwe Boll's financial success came from exploiting the German system of subsidies to make films that were subsidised for more than their production cost, making it impossible for them to do anything but profit. The US approach is less open subsidies than tax breaks, both official and a policy of openly tolerating accounting practices that would be considered illegal in any other industry.
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But everyone does it.
Do you actually think that is a reason? . . . or are you trying to hold everyone else accountable? I learned at a pretty young age that when I tried to use the phrase, "but all my friends are doing it," that I was *still* accountable for being responsible and doing the right thing - which meant that I reaped the consequences of the stupid thing I just did that I tried to use that excuse to escape.
Check your language - whenever you use that phrase you should seriously question your log
Re:Not Culture (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually I was arguing that if everyone does it, all must do it. As with any other area of protectionism. It's your basic game theory:
- If no-one does it, all achieve modest success (ie, cultural influence)
- If some do it and some don't, those who do achieve great success at the expense of those who do not.
- Therefore if some start doing it, everyone else has to join in to achieve an even playing field again.
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And don't forget the Pentagon. Whenever you see a two bit tv show featuring, say, an aircraft carrier, it is subsidized by DoD. Strings attached of course, so it is effectively outsourced propaganda.
Re: Not Culture (Score:2)
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sure [salon.com]. But this is just one of many relevant google hits for "Hollywood pentagon".
Google finds on your mil/art funding question (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.salon.com/2011/08/29/sirota_military_movies/ [salon.com]
"The U.S. military's Hollywood connection"
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/aug/21/entertainment/la-ca-military-movies-20110821 [latimes.com]
http://movieline.com/2013/02/06/military-entertainment-complex-hollywood-pentagon-relationship-battleship-zero-dark-thirty/ [movieline.com]
Operation Hollywood
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2004/09/operation-hollywood [motherjones.com]
A script often self corrected until the use of mil equipment works out.
The UK, Australia, Germany, France all have their funding mixes for their own culture. The US mil movie/script 'corrections' aspect is well known, has been reported for years.
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No, subsidizing would mean Pentagon gave them money to make the film. In reality what they're doing is giving them access to the military's planes/ships for filming.
You could argue that it amounts to the same thing, since this saves the studio money by not having to rent their own plane or make mockups. And you would've had a good point... 20 years ago. Nowadays they can just CGI pretty much anything for the same price or less of sending the cast and crew to the military location, setting up shop, etc.
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Imagine you want to make a movie.
One the one hand, you can fund it yourself or try to find investors who you'll have to pay back if the movie makes money.
On the other hand, you can just take some free government money and keep all profits for yourself.
Just because everybody does it, doesn't mean they can't do without.
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On yet another hand you can propose the idea directly to the consumers. If they think the idea is any good they can choose in aggregate to fund the production. Since you just got paid to do work, you let everyone download the product for free -- It's in infinite supply, thus has zero price regardless of cost to create (that's why you charged up front). You want more money? You create more works. Bonus: No piracy can exist, that's free publicity.
Now, you're not going to start out making a hundred millio
Re:Not Culture (Score:4, Funny)
Uwe Boll's financial success
That settles it right there. If France doesn't subsidize culture, then they'll face the dreaded Uwe Boll gap. Can't let Germans win the culture war!
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If you have to subsidize it, then it ain't culture; it's history.
Like the lord of the rings film? NZ$300 million in subsidies. Iron man 3 got $20m.
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If you have to subsidize it, then it ain't culture.
Isn't a lot of the US cultural institutions subsidized via donations and fund raisers so that rich folks to mingle and be seen with other of their ilk also pretending to be socially/culturally concerned by donating a tiny fraction of their wealth and then write off the donations on their taxes? The difference is that in socialist Europe we cut out the middle man by taxing directly and then distribute to directly to theaters, museums, art projects, movies and so forth.
Culture being subsidized is hardly anyt
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If you have to subsidize it, then it ain't culture; it's history.
Agreed. Anyone who says otherwise is a dumb ape who doesn't grok basic post-scarcity economics. Information is not scarce; It is in near infinite supply. What is scarce is the ability to create new information. You can charge for the work to create information, or the work to deliver information, but not the information itself: Economics 101 says that which has infinite supply has zero price regardless of cost to create; Thus you extract payment for the creation process. This is the Information Age, an
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It's a choice made by the French.
No, it's a choice made by the French government and imposed on French citizens. Those, when they chose, do so by way of opting to watch this movie and not that movie, by paying for this and not for that. No imposition is ever a choice, except by those who do the imposing.
If French movies were good, as in "something the French are actually willing to directly pay for", subsidies wouldn't be necessary because those movies would pay for themselves. Since the French don't actually want to pay for them what they
Re:Not Culture (Score:5, Insightful)
So, Alexgieg - you are merely defending America's capitalistic approach to "culture", am I correct? Basically, if it doesn't make a heap of money for Hollywood executives and investors, then it's not really culture, right?
Sadly, America has lost a lot of culture in the past century, because of Hollywood. There was a time when an American citizen could be entertained by Russians, Slavs, Africans, Asians, Mexicans, or any other culture they might choose. Today? We've lost almost all of that. The only entertainment that has survived is that which corporate executives approve of. Entertainment which they have harnessed toward the goal of milking Americans of their money.
As a young boy, and as a young man, I remember being fascinated by the diversity that was obvious in my own hometown, and in the surrounding region. Today - cultural diversity seems to be about dead. Everyone, no matter their background, flocks to the cinema for their entertainment. They all listen to music for which they have paid - music approved by RIAA represented companies. What has happened to our folk music, and our folk lore?
Culture?
I really don't know much about French movies, or French music, or French culture in general. I'm not a student of any of the arts. If I were a student, maybe my opinion of French art would be lower than Hindi, or Chinese, or Russian. Maybe. I really don't know.
What I do know, without a doubt, is that the shit that Hollyweird puts out is truly that - shit. Bang-bang shootemups, often times with less plot than little children could offer. "Action thriller" is just about synonymous with "brain dead".
If California experienced an earthquake that swallowed Hollyweird and all of it's execs, along with all of it's major actors - mankind would have lost nothing.
I would much prefer to sample a little culture from places like France, than to be forced to watch another idiot action movie out of Hollyweird, thank you very much. Not that I intend to start studying any of the arts, mind you. But, I do enjoy a little entertainment now and then. There is nothing on the airwaves in the US that entertains me.
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Basically, if it doesn't make a heap of money for Hollywood executives and investors, then it's not really culture, right?
That's a rhetorical way to put things. I can take your phrase verbatim and make it look as bad or worse for politically-backed productions by just changing the target:
"Basically, if it doesn't give a lot of power to politicians and the lobbies that support them, then it's not really culture, right?"
Everyone, no matter their background, flocks to the cinema for their entertainment. They all listen to music for which they have paid - music approved by RIAA represented companies.
It's their choice. Don't act like the Internet doesn't exist, you can obtain almost anything you want, it's all one or two clicks away. Take it, show others, cause them to notice there's better stuff out there, j
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On the surface, your response looks reasonable. The factor that you've left out is, the corporations spend millions upon millions to brainwash the masses into believing that the corporate offerings are all there is.
More, the corporations actually have sent take down notices to block original content, posted by the owner. Intellectual Froglegs had an episode taken down, with his own song cited as infringing. The guy wrote the song, he sang the song, he used it in an episode that he produced, then he poste
Re:Not Culture (Score:4, Interesting)
the corporations spend millions upon millions to brainwash the masses into believing that the corporate offerings are all there is
You're still talking like we're in the 1990's, and overthinking it at that. Anyone who ever browsed Youtube knows that's false and that the corporate offerings are a small part of what's out there. No, they still watch blockbuster movies because they like them. Then they get home (or open their mobile phones) and watch from dozens to hundreds of independently produced stuff per month.
the corporations actually have sent take down notices to block original content
An anecdote doesn't science makes. Yes, this happens. No, it isn't prevalent. If it were you wouldn't be citing one example to make your point, you'd be giving a statistic. If there's one it'll probably show such invalid takedowns amount to a small fraction of a percent.
What doesn't mean media corporations wouldn't love to be able to do it to everything they dislike. They just cannot. Whatever their power is, and it is certainly huge, it isn't that huge. And they're shrinking. Unless they change drastically to cope with the reality of an Internet that cannot be domesticated, in a few decades they'll have all but disappeared. And there'll be much rejoicing, for I'm with you in my dislike for them as corporations. As for the stuff they produce however, nope, those are neither "the" nor "a" problem. Both things are unrelated and shouldn't be mixed.
Re: Not Culture (Score:3)
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"responding well to carefully planned psychological campaigns"
Those work but not perfectly. If they did the media conglomerates wouldn't have been shrinking over the last decade.
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Sadly, America has lost a lot of culture in the past century, because of Hollywood. There was a time when an American citizen could be entertained by Russians, Slavs, Africans, Asians, Mexicans, or any other culture they might choose. Today? We've lost almost all of that.
I honestly blame political correctness for alot of culture being lost. some for the beter most for the worse. go back and watch old movies, lets take a christmas story for example being its the time of year. The end scene in the chinese resturant where the "china men" are singing deck the halls, and mispronouncing the words. Today if someone tried to put that scene in a movie, they would be labeled a racist and the scene would have to be cut. This is just one simple example, but go back to movies from the
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Excellent point. Political correctness flat out denies any pride in your heritage, unless you are part of some select minority.
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Also it's muuuuch better to create a new administration to manage the money as the management positions are a handy hideaway for politicians that have been voted out of office. We wouldn't want any politicians going unemployed, no, no, no. French politicians prefer that the rest of the economy be weighed down by these blood sucking vermin & now that the pool of french donors is insufficient for their increasing appetite, they are looking to the internet for new hosts...
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There are quite a good number of good French films. However, the French have an uphill struggle making a movie profitable even if it were the world's best movie, because they are in French.
Hollywood has it easy, the English speaking world that understands US culture is enormous (300M Americans, 30 odd million Canadians, 60 odd million Brits and Irish, several million Australians and Kiwis, plus a huge number of people who can speak English fluently as a second language). The French on the other hand have on
Re:Not Culture (Score:5, Interesting)
the French have an uphill struggle making a movie profitable even if it were the world's best movie, because they are in French.
The absolute best example to counter this line of reasoning is Japan. Their pop culture is so powerful that the almost unsurmountable fact of "it's in Japanese!" offers no obstacle for its spread all around. If French cultural production was culturally powerful people would be flocking to it, learning French for the sake of watching the original, organizing fansub efforts to illegally subtitle French movies, shows and comics into dozens of languages, create sites to host thousands of fanfics, fanarts etc. about their most beloved French shows, and so on and so forth. Nothing of this happens for the simple reason that French cultural production fails miserably at touching the hearts and minds of anyone but a small minority among even the French.
Also, while today almost no one is interested in learning the French language, until before WW2 it was the international language. Everyone everywhere learned French and talked with people from other countries in French. By capitalizing all that goodwill France had the opportunity to become not only the center of high culture and science it already was, but also of becoming the undisputed superpower in matter of global popular culture. It didn't want to, it still doesn't want to, and as such its cultural producers are reduced to begging the government for money.
As long as they continue accusing externalities such as the (utterly irrelevant) worldwide number of French speakers for their lack of success, they'll continue failing. No, they have no one other than themselves to blame. That's all there is to it.
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Maybe they want to keep their culture going instead of relying on the whims of other cultures.
Your observation has already been accounted for. Recall the story of the culture that could (Japanese) and the culture that couldn't (French)?
And intent != outcome.
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they want to produce it for their own country.
They want to produce cultural content for their own country? Produce it with their own money.
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The idea that "movies should pay for themselves" shows a lack of understanding of the economy.
If for instance you make a movie for Catalan people and people of Catalan culture, you need to make sure that the 10M of Catalan speaker pay enough to make your movie work.
If you make a movie for the US market you can spread the cost over 400M people, So in practice you can spend up to 40 time for a Hollywood (or a Bollywood) movie than a Catalan movie.
And the way (far from perfect) things are done in France are no
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On the other hand, why does every single piece of art have to be solely judged by how much revenue it takes in? Is a documentary about some event far less important in history than a zombie movie just because it doesn't pack the cinemas?
This is why US movies tend to follow the exact same cookie-cutter plotline without deviation.
I hate to say this as someome from the US, but the serving of yogurt from Starbucks has more culture than anything the big, mainstream movie houses churn out these days. There are
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Problem is that the only yardstick you’re using to measure quality is profit. Things can be valuable yet unprofitable.
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They elected those politicians. The french wants their tax-funded movies.
I'd believe it if these matters were voted upon individually in a system of direct democracy, but as long as one must chose between parties that group thousands of different policies on the basis of "which of those mixed sets is the one I disagree less with?" I'll keep being doubtful that population specifically directly favors this or that secondary or even tertiary policy. No, when they vote they focus on the major issues and in those alone. Everything else comes as an added set of impositions they have n
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Behind the times. (Score:2)
FTS:
The proposed tax would raise an estimated €86 million annually that would be used to finance the 'cultural industries' digital transition,' France's Culture Ministry said at the time.
If they're now thinking of a tax (which probably takes years to implement) to fund (more time to implement) the digital transition of the cultural industry, those industries are really well behind the times.
They should be well on the way by now, if not finished already, with this digital transition.
Re:Behind the times. (Score:4, Insightful)
You're making the assumption that french culture is independent of the french govornment. While this may be true for those artists that are earning a living on the art they produce, the govornment of france feels that they are responsible for maintaining french culture, and as a govornment agency have mandated studies that have determined that this is the cost of making this transition, and as a result have instigated other studies that have recommended that taxes on these artifacts of the digital transition should cover that cost. The fact that the cost has already been bourn by the artists and art viewers as they have made the transition independent of the studies of the state does not eliminate the requirement that the state collect those fees, to make the transition.
When all is done, every artist in France is likely to be given a 2 Euro digital camera that does not capture more than 6 images at VGA quality or lower, at a time, and does not support any of the various flash media storage formats that are in circulation, To allow them to transition to 'digital'. any remaining incidental funds recovered by the temorary taxation will be used to cover the costs of distributing those cameras.
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The landslide starts (Score:2, Insightful)
Some of you will say it has already started. And in some ways, it already has. However, as these 'small' little seperators wiggle their way into the legal framework, country by country, the Net is going to become a legally convulated hell for personal media, personal information, and copyright. It's pretty grey now, however this is just going to murk up the waters more.
Net neutrality was a half-assed attempt to stopgap it in the US, but the FCC, however contadictory politicized and impotent, sure as hell is
Nice try. (Score:5, Informative)
Just like last time when they tried to save the french film industry from the pirates, they created a new agency to stop piracy.
After a couple of years and a for a budget of 13,7 million dollars a year, they actually had exactly 2 users convicted, 1 user slapped on the wrist and 1 user who got a fine of 150 Euros.
This will work exactly the same, not at all.
http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/1483616/frances-hadopi-2-convictions-1-fine-125-million-warnings-since-2009 [billboard.com]
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Very true. The French constitutional court gutted most of the legislation regarding "illegal" downloading and streaming so they've basically given up.
Translation (Score:2)
In more general terms, what they are saying is that successful businesses should be taxed to pay for their unsuccessful competition to catch up.
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Macdo, as they are colloquially called here in France is doing quite well here. It is the biggest purchaser of french beef, all of which is consumed locally. For all the Egghead Intellectuals that complain about fast food while sponging off governmental programs, there is rest of France that tries to work for a living, and yes, goes to Macdo occasionally.
There is another option (Score:3)
Stronger copyright laws - not "culture tax" (Score:2)
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I think you're misreading the talk about remakes - they were in response to the claim that France has no culture, not an excuse for the tax.
The remakes are not "rip offs", Hollywood is pretty serious about not getting involved in "Intelectual Property" disputes with anyone with enough money to pay for serious lawyers. I think you'll find that the people who own the rights to the original film get paid before the remake is made.
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Indeed. The people who sell the rights often make more off the bad Hollywood makeover than they do off the original.
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Good God - don't encourage ANYONE to strengthen copyright law! Outrageous, draconian copyright law already inhibits artists. Real artists that is, not the media whores who sign those big corporate contracts.
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First and foremost, the term of copyright protection is wrong. You want ten years, fifteen years, or twenty years? We can argue that forever, and you can make good points for any of those figures.
You want life of the author, plus? Totally frigging unreasonable. 75 years? Still unreasonable. 50 years? Well - that's at least within the realm of rationality.
Let us undo all the work done by Disney and Sonny Bono, let's get the copyright terms rolled back to something reasonable, then we can talk about an
Oh, quelle catastrophe! (Score:2)
What a catastrophe, Youtube and DailyMotion are supposed to pay a tax of 1% or so on the business involved in France! I'm certain, this 1% of their revenue will make the difference between going bankrupt or being the pride of capitalistic success.
Seriously, to corporations like Google or Amazon, taxes and tariffs are just regular business to be dealt with as appropriate, just like road traffic is to be dealt with when driving around the city. It really doesn't matter whether its called VAT or some other nam
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So, if I make an indie game, and I self publish, and someone in France pays me to download a copy over the Internet we both already pay to access... I should pay the French government? For what? For their ability to farm their citizens? No, if you want to farm people, then tax the purchasers. If you want more French gamedevs, just because I made a game, it's my fucking fault -- All the resources are free and available online: Compilers, Engines, Assets, Tutorials, etc. Just like anyone else. It's lik
Classic France (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, this is classical French behavior. Over the years they have put various taxes on this or that to protect this or that industry. Think taxes on blank media which should go to the record companies. Not a cent to artists mind you, but I digress.
Actually, the only real way France will learn is to simple ignore them. By ignore them, I mean completely pull out of the France. No french versions of websites. No, french youtube, no French google or bing.
I wonder how long it would take for the French people to freak out for being cut off from any meaningful content?
Alternatively, for French versions of websites, you have have a "pay to enter". On youtubes page, there can be a sign saying due to the ridiculous cost of operating in France, you will need to pay 5€ per month in order to watch any videos.
The same on google and bing and yahoo. Want to search? 15 cent per search.
I say call their bluff and pull out of France. Now, if we could just get those surrender monkeys out of the EU....
Re:Classic France (Score:4)
Actually, the only real way France will learn is to simple ignore them. By ignore them, I mean completely pull out of the France. No french versions of websites. No, french youtube, no French google or bing.
I'm trying to think of a more subtle way of saying 'fuck you', but I can't. You realise how outstandingly arrogant you sound? That you would have foreign corporations put such massive pressure on a government to act in a way that they want?
I don't particularly think this tax is a great idea, and it's likely to limit what gets offered to France, but guess what, it's up to *France* to make their decision on the tradeoff and then *Google* etc to decide whether it's worth it to do business in that country. And you can bet your life that they still will. Just because you have an anarchist / libertarian / bully hardon for making governments do your bidding, doesn't mean the real world works like that.
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Do you live in France or do business in France? If you do then respect their laws. If not then there is nothing you need to concern yourself. There are other valid forms of government that don't necessarily follow how you would prefer to be governed.
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You're sure, huh? Maybe you haven't been reading any damned thing about corporate taxes. Or, maybe you've been reading but suffer some comprehension problem.
NONE OF THE MAJOR CORPORATIONS PAYS MORE THAN A PITTANCE OF THE TAXES DUE IN ANY NATION!!
I hope that is clear enough for you. When Google, or any other major player, has a million dollars in tax liability, they just shuffle numbers on ledgers, move some money around, and hide that liability wherever convenient - like Ireland.
Google is your friend. L
Confirms what I know about France (Score:2)
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I'm sure that Vikingpower means Greece. The economy in Greece is really kicking off. Oh yeah, I have a really nice bridge for sale that would look great in your back yard!!
How about we agree to it for French videos? (Score:2)
How about we agree to it for French videos originated in France (not Quebec, Louisiana, or elsewhere)?
If it was uploaded from France, it's subject to the tax, otherwise it's not? If it's a French Culture Tax, then obviously, it's because of the value to the world of the French Culture, right?
How the invisible hand of the market ... (Score:2)
People will whine about how the French government should not tax stuff to support local culture.
But any movie produced in any country larger than France (for instance US, India, China) can be paid for in the local market and then basically given away for free or as close to free as needed to kill the local production.
Add to this that the US is rabidly promoting "patriotism" which is a form of nationalism so that anything "foreign" is automatically suspect.
The various programs promoting this are ways to clo
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That's what it is, an "import tax", the vidéos are "imported" through the Internet.... ... against of course the outraged protest of the US representatives...
And BTW the "freemarketer numbskulls" are trying to explain to the world that "import taxes are bad and naughty
and should be forbidden...." so it is only because in the 80s Français Mitterand insisted on an "exception culturelle" for cultural content
In practice it works this way : the "first world countries" go to poorer countries, and explai
Jurisdiction (Score:2)
While this might affect youtube.fr or whatever, it can't affect the main youtube site, or one costed in Canada, which could still be french-speaking
Maybe it's the language (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe it's the language that causes brain damage, because here in Canada, we have the Quebecois with that same perverse "protectionist" mentality about their language and culture.
Or maybe they just can't accept the fact that the days of empire are over, and that they no longer matter all that much on the world stage compared to when they were in their glory days.
What I do know is that protectionism and isolationism don't save anything; they just create isolated backwaters that aren't connected with the global culture and the rest of the world.
Stupidest example I can think of: In Quebec, you're supposed to yell "Quatre" on the golf course. The problem with that is "Fore" is short for "Forewarned", not "Four."
Re: Frogs (Score:5, Insightful)
There are many names you can cite
Proof is when a good french movie ls released you americans make exactly the same movie but with american actors
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Taxi and Le Dîner de Cons (called The Diner Game in the US) are two good French movies that got American remakes. I've never seem the remakes but they probably suck.
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Les visiteurs (which would translate "the visitors" in English) has also been remade as "Just Visiting" in the US. Then it came back in France as "Les Visiteurs en Amerique" ("the visitors in the US" literally)
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Hollywood not in here sindrome dates back to the early 20th century. That is one of the reasons if not the main reason why professional dubbing for cinema was never a viable industry in the US for a large part of the 20th century. And also why foreign films most of the time have had niche status relagated to film festivals. Contrast that to France, Germany, Italy or Spain who have a domestic film industry going back almost 100 years, and yet they import foreign films and dub them for their local audience. And this means we don't have to remake foreign films, we give them the original product.
Clearly, you have missed out on the whole "Kung Fu Theatre" 1AM genre thing...
Re: Frogs (Score:3)
Re:Frogs (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually French films are rather good. But as another poster said, Americans tend to remake French films. With an example being the original French film, "Anything for Her", being played by Russell Crowe or one you should know... "True Lies". Or did you know about "The Tourist"? I am not going to espouse that French films are superior, they tend to drivel quite a bit at times. However, to say that they have no talent shows that you are ignorant on movies.
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As a Brit, yes, the US Office was indeed better than the UK once. The UK one was sufficiently cringeworthy that it was a chore to watch.
But the American Coupling was vastly worse than the UK Coupling. With the same script no less. The UK Coupling was possibly the funniest series ever in any universe.
YMMV
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I suspect it's a cultural thing. UK version of coupling was understandable to those who have experienced UK culture to significant amount. It was a very Western European show if you will.
US version tried to do the same thing and failed because it was too alien for US culture. They should have changed the script to match the local culture far more to succeed in my opinion. It's true that you can to extent sell another culture's product, but it either requires heavy and costly indoctrination (as hollywood doe
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Hollywood remakes of good foreign films generally _do_ lose what's good about the originals.
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If French had any talent for making movies they would pay for themselves and wouldn't need to be subsidized. Name one French movie that isn't boring and pretentious crap.
Oddly there's quite a few Canadians who say the same thing about the government subsidizing movie and tv production here in Canada. Especially subsidizing things from Quebec...and it's gotten a lot more attention in the last few years, especially when large swaths of the media and publications have become anti-anglophone.
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And arguably both went beyond the "shootyshooty bang bang special fx" crapfest that seem to come out of holywood.
shooty shooty bang bang is Luc's speciality!
Taxi 1,2,3 ...
The Transporter 1,2,3
Taken 1,2
And that's just the letter "t".
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First taxi was hilarious though. Definitely one of the better movies.
Re:There are more french film than you would think (Score:4, Funny)
It lost something when they created the TV series.
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Amélie [imdb.com], Delicatessen [imdb.com], Bienvenue chez le Ch'tis [imdb.com], Intouchables [imdb.com], Rien à déclarer [imdb.com], The City of Lost Children [imdb.com], L'Auberge Espagnole [imdb.com]
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Which kind of proves the point: If the material is any good, it will succeed and wont need artificial state support.
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Which kind of proves the point: If the material is any good, it will succeed and wont need artificial state support.
The same could be said of American sports franchises, which receive billions of tax dollars, mostly as stadium subsidies [wikipedia.org]. What the French are doing is stupid, but America is no better.
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"Les cites des enfant perdu" is also good.
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If we are going to discuss cutting oil company "subsidies", let us discuss the specific subsidies and the relative merits, or lack there of, of those subsi
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The purveyors of cat videos should be taxed to support the production of works more substantive than cat videos.
"Works more substantive than cat videos"? Heretic! Burn him!
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He/she is talking about the television fee. Since a couple of years ago public radio and television in Sweden is broadcasted on the Internet, and as a result any computer capable of connecting to the Internet is license bound. The license fee is collected once per year per household. This has of course been somewhat controversial and the topic is currently under heavy debate. The entire funding system is likely to change in the future, probably to a more traditional tax-like system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w [wikipedia.org]
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Swedish public service radio and tv is financed not by tax, but by a fee. The fee is, by law, for any device able to receive tv broadcasts.
I suppose calling it a "fee" means they don't count it against the Swedes' tax rate. But what you describe is a tax.
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No, the cheese has culture. Literally.
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Touche
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Infinite ignorance. What a concept. Can ignorance be truly infinite, or have we merely failed to measure the limits of ignorance?
Re:Taxes. (Score:5, Interesting)
No, it's important to make everyone pay by the rules. Anarchist bullshit you're spewing sounds nice if you have a strong anarchist bend, but otherwise, it sounds quite insane. Reality is that taxation is about preventing the suffering, rather than creating it. It creates safety nets, pays for medicine, police, fire protection and so on. It guarantees some income even if you lose your job, or get hurt. It lets you go to work when you have young children and gives you a place to put them in daycare. It provides centralized and functional education system. And countless other things.
Tax dodging is what generates suffering, heavy suffering at that. Much of the current budget problems in France are because traditional tax revenues are dying up - because of increasing paths of tax evasion being available to traditionally large contributors, such as large companies.
Companies that dodge this need to be taxed like others, both to prevent suffering and to allow competition to survive and adapt. They should not be allowed to effectively steal their contribution from taxation pool as they do now while destroying their competition though these unfair means.
Re:Taxes. (Score:4, Informative)
Some people visibly like having having a dick up their ass and will use any means to do so like conflating refusing an unjust tax with the refusal of the members of the EEC to harmonise their tax codes so that they could eliminate/control the double Irish. It isn't anarchy to denounce this manoeuvre by French socialists to finance their buddies by taxing everyone on the Internet. For the amount of money I already pay for my blank DVD, Internet access, Hard drives, USB keys, etc, I as a french citizen have received precisely nothing.
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Since you're such a fan of anal sex rape comparisons, let's do it your way.
Some people like getting a dick in their ass by large corporations, who take their money, rape their locale's competition leaving them without jobs, and export the taxation to tax heavens meaning there's no money for local doctor who would check if they got HIV from all the foreign dick in their ass.
Are we done with stupid comparisons yet?
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Introducing an additional "special" tax on one industry but not another does not equate to everyone paying their fare share. This is not about preventing suffering. This is just a pain money grab. The French do not have a special tax on the restaurant industry, nor the cheese industry, or the wine industry. This is a plain money grab. The funds go into the general revenue of the government and may or may not be directed to "culture". Culture is something that a group of people believe in, create and part
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They don't need to block the site at all. They just need to move the ad sales transactions out of France.