Europe's dysfunctional private copying levy to remain (Ars Technica)

[Nate the great]

From the article:

If you live in Belgium, you could pay a whopping levy of €178 on your inkjet multifunction machine to cover all your "private copying." But in Germany, you could pay €12 on the same printer. An effort to reform the madness has just broken down.

from:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/n...m_campaign=rss

****************
There's something I've been wondering about for a while now. If you pay a tax to cover your private copying, does that mean the copies you make are legal? Can you distribute them? I see that tax as having paid for the privilege to be a pirate. Am I wrong, and if so, why?

[slayda]

It's a Catch 22 just like income tax. If you have illegal income, it is still taxable. The fact that the Government wants their pound of flesh has no bearing on the legality of something. It's the sneaky way that Governments get our money.

[netseeker]

That article seems a little bit wrong. In germany you have to pay €12.50 on a singlefunctional scanner, though multifunctional machines are burdened depending on the scanning/printing performance.

Anyway, there doesn't exist a legal right for making private copies in germany. They are just explicitly tolerated by law and you can't get sued by the government body for making private (printed) copies - but that isn't identically equal to a "legal right". (the law doesn't state "you are allowed to make private copies") A holder of rights can try to sue you though and then it depends on what the certain court will decide in your special case.

And no, you are not allowed to distribute private copies in germany (except to close family) because then it wouldn't be a "private" copy as defined by law.

[mosteo]

I'll try to present my understanding of how things operate in Spain. Corrections welcome.

Basically, the industry here wants its cake and eat it, too.

The history goes so, if I'm not mistaken:

The term "private copy" was defined before the levy. Afterwards, the levy was put in effect, in order to compensate authors, but without any repercusion for users (that is, users didn't gain anything from the levy, but started to pay extra money).

Nowadays, there's constant struggle between the receivers of the levy (which are private "non-profit" entities, with the duty of fairly redistributing it to authors) and the citizens. On one hand, the receivers of the levy try to narrow down what's a private copy, and on the other hand they try to outlaw as much as possible of the copying/p2p practices.

The outlawing is in two fronts: legal (just yesterday a new law was passed that basically tries to remove from judges the decision to close a website, since all rulings against p2p *link* sites have exonerated them) and propaganda. You're told at cinema, radio and TV, both by private and government funded campaigns, that copying is stealing and killing the industry. Private copy is never alluded to.

Basic points challenged by the industry are that links are offending (which, to date, have been found by judges not to be, even if the hosting site has income from publicity [3]) and that downloading (not uploading) is illegal (which according to some is private copy, to others is not).

In short, soon (as things are shaping in the latest years) Spain will have the most swooping levy while everything will be as illegal as anywhere else. 3-strikes has also been commented from time to time to probe waters.

Today we have levy on blank media(!), hard disks(!), mobile phones(!), media writers... among others. Full list in [1].

Basically, we're paying for the same concept multiple times, receiving nothing in return (private copy predates the levy), and at the same time we are being told to face that we are the worst country in regards to piracy, in no moderate terms [2].

The proposition that the levy has to be paid with the purchase of the original support (for example a release music CD), which according to the collecting agencies is the only source for a legal private copy, has been however considered preposterous.

[1] http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_p...Espa%C3%B1a%29

[2]
http://www.filmica.com/david_bravo/archivos/007046.html
http://www.labrujulaverde.com/musica...s-internautas/

[3] http://www.filmica.com/david_bravo/archivos/008718.html

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by slayda

It's a Catch 22 just like income tax. If you have illegal income, it is still taxable. The fact that the Government wants their pound of flesh has no bearing on the legality of something. It's the sneaky way that Governments get our money.

In the US most illegal income is not taxed, because people don't report it. This is one of the reasons I support the Fairtax since people that have illegal income still go to the store and buy stuff at retail.

BOb

[zerospinboson]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

In the US most illegal income is not taxed, because people don't report it. This is one of the reasons I support the Fairtax since people that have illegal income still go to the store and buy stuff at retail.

BOb

You do realise that most of the crime is quite "above-board" (see banks, etc.), and that these are the most likely of all to have money left over after buying "essentials"? You might as well not be taxing them at all. Anyway, there is VAT already, so why put all your money in a single bet and only go for sales taxes?

Originally Posted by Nate the great

****************
There's something I've been wondering about for a while now. If you pay a tax to cover your private copying, does that mean the copies you make are legal? Can you distribute them? I see that tax as having paid for the privilege to be a pirate. Am I wrong, and if so, why?

You are wrong, and for a very simple reason. The law does not specify why anyone is paying those ridiculous subsidies (or if it does, it is "to compensate for general infringement", i.e., created due to lobbying power), and as such, you cannot derive rights from paying them.
The media companies, OTOH, will be able to claim a number of things which are all unverifiable and indisputable because the law does not having anything to say about up/downloading.
In any case, there currently still is a right to download/copy, so you don't need to view the subsidy you pay as some sort of absolution, although the fees are probably paid in part because we have "fair use" rights.

Anyway, to conclude: those companies can claim whatever they want, and because most judges still don't have a solid background in the history of Intellectual Property Rights, they will not recognize the arguments for what they are; as such, they are just as likely to go your way as theirs, and you basically have no guarantees whatever about which way they might lean.
Probably the most important point, however, is that if you are ever sued, you will not be able to afford their lawyers, and as such, you will lose, or they will drop the case before there is a judgement. Not much more to it than that.

[slayda]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

In the US most illegal income is not taxed, because people don't report it. This is one of the reasons I support the Fairtax since people that have illegal income still go to the store and buy stuff at retail.

BOb

Bob, you are correct. However they are still legally bound to pay such taxes. That's what they got Capone on. That said, I doubt that "two bit" illegal activies will ever be affected.