Germany Mulls A Copyright Levy + VAT For PCs 610
Willard B. Trophy writes "How does a US$13 plus an extra 16% tax on computers sound? That's what intense lobbying by publishing industry groups has forced the German government to consider. UPI has the story."
say it with me now... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:say it with me now... (Score:3, Interesting)
Hate to tell them this... (Score:5, Interesting)
I personally think that law is crap but thankfully I don't live in Germany.
they don't care. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:they don't care. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:they don't care. (Score:2, Interesting)
I'll try again. (Score:2, Troll)
You register it so you can prove you paid your tax. The implications should be clear, so let me walk you through again. The concept is that you have to pay a tax because it could be used for copyright violation. It's a tax on a press that might be misused. You don't think this will remain a one time thing, do you? Once you have people thinking that they should pay it once, the
Re:I'll try again. (Score:5, Funny)
Do you have to register your beer to prove you paid your sales tax on it?
Re:they don't care. (Score:2)
As I said in some other context: the "slippery slope" argument was old when the first caveman used it against another caveman to explain why cave paintings were a bad idea.
This isn't "a large step" toward anything. It's just an idea. Maybe it's a good idea, maybe it's a bad idea. If you want to argue that it's a bad idea, then by all means do so. But saying that this idea inevitably leads to something else, and that something else would be bad..
Re:they don't care. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is this argument so bad?
Ever hear the story about boiling a frog? Basically, you can boil a frog, and he won't complain, as long as you increase the temperature slowly. Being a cold-blooded animal, frogs only notice temperature changes, not absolute temperatures. So a frog will happily stay in the water while you boil him to death, provided you increase the temperature in small increments.
Windows Product Activation is a small step. TCPA -- itself quite harmless -- is a small step. MS introduces Palladium et al, and it seems to be a small step from activation and TCPA.
Next thing you know, we're not only registering our copy of Windows, we're providing information to verify that we are only using one copy.
Paying an extra tax on blank CDs is bullshit in my opinion. I'm not sure, but I think there is such a "levy" in the US either on CDs, burners, or both. I just picked up a new burner and a 50-pack of CDs today. You know what I have planned for them? Software backups, and fair-use compilations of my favorite songs for the car (from, obviously, legitimately purchased CDs).
I know many, many people who purchase a computer and have no intention of committing piracy, of software or music. I don't know what the situation is in Germany, but I'm sure it's similar, anyway -- I'm sure there are people who buy computers for other purposes.
Here's the problem. If everyone -- and I mean *everyone* -- is violating some particular law, then that law needs to be revisited. Obviously that law isn't for the good of the people, if the people themselves are violating it. So the solution is to change the law -- NOT to tax everyone who is violating it.
If the laws in the US were changed so that copyrights actually expired in a reasonable amount of time -- thus making copyright laws actually useful again -- I think things would be okay.
I'm sure Germany's situation would be similar...
Re:they don't care. (Score:4, Informative)
Because it falsely assumes inevitability.
Basically the slippery slope argument works like this: let X be some proposed change to the status quo. I don't like X; I don't want X to be adopted. Rather than arguing that X is bad, though, I argue that X will lead inevitably to Y, Y being something that is universally accepted as bad. See the trick? I didn't actually say anything about X at all, except to associate it with Y, and arguing that Y is bad is trivial because everybody already agrees that it is. I don't even have to establish that X inevitably leads to Y; if I'm sufficiently savvy, I can just assume that my audience already knows that X leads to Y.
You recognize a slippery slope argument by taking a step back and asking yourself a few questions. First of all, is it even possible that X might, by itself, lead to Y? Or would it be necessary for other, substantial changes to the status quo to occur for Y to happen? Most slippery slope arguments fail right here. Let's try it out.
Twitter said, "It's a large step toward the end of free personal computing." If you excise the word "large," because it has no meaning in this context, the statement in and of itself is true. Making it impossible for you to use your computer for one thing is indeed a step toward absolute control over what you can and can't do with your computer.
(Is it necessary for you to have absolute control over your computer? Twitter dodges this important question.)
Twitter's implication, though, is that one restriction will inevitably lead to absolute control. Let's apply our test here. Is it possible for making it either illegal or impossible for computer users to do one illegal thing with their computer to lead to absolute control over what users can do with their computers? Or would it be necessary for other, substantial changes to occur in order to institute that total control?
Obviously the answer is "no." It is not possible for one restriction to turn into absolute control without lots of other changes to the status quo. So right there the slippery slope argument fails.
In other words, while it is possible that we might go to sleep tonight having accepted one restriction and wake up tomorrow in a totalitarian police state, it's also possible that we might all wake up to find chocolate bunnies under our pillows in the morning. Unless some pretty drastic things happen, neither one is going to occur.
The boil-a-frog variation is basically the same as the slippery slope argument, only with the extra rhetorical spice of implied malicious intent on the part of an unseen actor. "They're boiling us, folks! It's happening slow, so we don't notice it, but they're boiling us! Jump for your lives!"
In other words, my dear friend, the whole line of reasoning is day-old bullshit, and it stinks.
Here's the problem. If everyone -- and I mean *everyone* -- is violating some particular law, then that law needs to be revisited. Obviously that law isn't for the good of the people, if the people themselves are violating it.
Not all laws exist for the good of the people. Some laws exist for a different good, but people must still obey them.
Look at it this way. The penalty for speeding is very minor-- a small fine-- and the likelihood of getting caught is low. The penalty for shoplifting is more serious, and the likelihood of getting caught is higher. The penalty for bankrobbing is very severe, and getting caught is a virtual certainty.
Hardly anyone robs banks, some people shoplift, and virtually everyone speeds.
We can address the problem of widespread casual piracy by making the penalty for doing so severe, and the likelihood of getting caught high. Say, if the fine for downloading a copyrighted MP3 were $10,000, and the odds of getting caught were 50/50.
Re: What boiled frog is that? (Score:3)
Yes, however. (Score:4, Insightful)
The same thing happens with insurance. Are you contemplating insurance fraud? You are making everyone else's premiums go up when you do it.
So even if computers have legit uses, and even if you don't break the law, there are enough people out there misusing computers and breaking the law that bottoms lines are being affected. Naturally, businesses don't like this and are working to change it. The only way you can do anything useful about it is prove that the loss is negligible, and to stop illegal copying.
Re:Yes, however. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Yes, however. (Score:3, Insightful)
Either it has to be legal to download at a cost, and then the issue is from where those money comes (PC Purchases, CD-R Tax, CD Price, Concerts or whatever).
OR it is ILLEGAL to make and download illegal copies, and in that case it is a crime that should be punishable through courts. This is the case now, but in some strange way, the Music industri think it has the right to make a certain amount of money fro
Re:Yes, however. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why?
Because business is not about a break-even point.
It is about making profit. Lots and lots of profit. That theory stands if companies are looking to reach a break-even point. If they are selling at cost, they need to add on the part that is lost to break even.
I am not saying that stealing is somehow moral. However, the idea that it has any effect on prices is simply hogwash. Businesses charge what the public is willing to pay, not what they have to.
Re:Yes, however. (Score:4, Informative)
Businesses charge what gets them the most profit. If thefts go up, they increase costs to cover the lost sales--and if thefts drop and sales drop faster, they lower prices to get the profit margin back.
There is always someone who will buy something for any price point,but the slimmer the margin, the more people buy it. The game in business is finding the sweet spot where you get the most profit from the right sales volume / margin markup ratio. Shrinkage does throw this off, and you're a fool to think that it doesn't.
Re:No. Have you even taken economics? (Score:3, Insightful)
With many physical goods you have to design not only the goods themselves but also machines and systems to produce those goods. Even where you do have costs like movie sets they don't need to be durable enough for hundreds of thousands of uses.
Peter Molyneaux wants gov't support, because Black and White took too long and wasn't bought by enough people. EA may be able to take the write off, since they produce
And? (Score:3, Insightful)
If stealing didn't affect prices, this law wouldn't even be being discussed anywhere.
When you steal something that cost 2$ to make, even if you think, "I'm only stealing 2$" you're actually stealing the 40$ some guy would've paid to enjoy that game. To think this doesn't affect prices is lunacy.
Re:Yes, however. (Score:2, Interesting)
-Chris
Re:Yes, however. (Score:2)
No, they wait until you go to buy insurance for that car and then they make you pay for "uninsured motorists coverage".
Re:Yes, however. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hate to tell them this... (Score:5, Insightful)
So the original artists themselves are now going to have to pay taxes on their tools of production because those tools are capable of, well, producing.
It's like taxing printing presses because they can print things.
I don't know about Germany, but here in the US the courts have already extended the various protections accorded to printing presses to the computer used for the same purpose. A rare case of the judiciary realizing that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, in the legal sense at least, it's a duck.
Of course *now* the printing press will probably be considered a tool of terrorism. Certainly a use which America's Founding Fathers would heartily disapprove.
Freedom of the press only belongs to those who have the freedom of *a* press, and now, the unwashed masses all have better presses than were even available before.
So I guess we have to make them pay more for freedom.
KFG
Not so. (Score:3, Insightful)
This troubles me. We pay that tax, for the purpose of paying the copyright holders for their loss by making copies. Now, these same people who receive the money are taking actions to prevent us from making copies that we paid a tax to be able to make copies.
We should demand that all copy protection be removed. Otherwise, we should receive that tax to be repaid.
Re:Hate to tell them this... (Score:2)
Re:Hate to tell them this... (Score:2)
My First Thought (Score:3, Insightful)
So $13 for all the file-sharing I can handle? (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess the RIAA has counterparts in other countries who are narrow-minded trolls - what a surprise! Greed isn't just in the good ol' US of A.
Re:So $13 for all the file-sharing I can handle? (Score:3, Insightful)
That reasoning is specious at best. ("Thank you, sweetie.") Violating copyright is against the law. Period, full stop. The fact that you (hypothetically) are being assessed a tax to offset the cost of widespread copyright violation does not mean it's suddenly against the law. The one thing has got nothing to do with the other.
There's a reason I've marked you as foe (Score:3, Insightful)
First of all, when theft occurs in other forms of business, the loss of capital is offset by raising prices. The government doesn't get involved. When more people are driving poorly in the area you live in, your insurance goes up. The cars are not taxed and those profits given to insurance companies to offset the costs. The Germans are proposing a flawed way of dealing with this problem.
Re:So $13 for all the file-sharing I can handle? (Score:3, Insightful)
And speaking of specious arguments... let me put this proposed PC tax into a more-mundane setting:
2) What if there was a "bank robbery tax" on all automobiles sold? After all, you MIGHT use it as a getaway car. Therefore let's levy a 16% tax on all cars sold, with the collected tax distributed among banks, because after all, SOME b
Re:So $13 for all the file-sharing I can handle? (Score:3, Interesting)
Otherwise, no dice. If you want to collect your "tax" from me, you have to be willing to give back control of what I bought to me.
Re:So $13 for all the file-sharing I can handle? (Score:2)
Let's assume that your German, so this applies to you.
If you don't like the tax the goverment is proposing, you have _exactly_ three options.
1: Work in the system to repeal / defeat the tax, which will take time.
2: Leave germany - which will drastically alter your life.
3: Open rebellion ("work outside the system") - which is illegal, and likely to find you slapped in prison f
Protectionism (Score:2)
Not implicitly... (Score:2)
If the person is willing to go through legal hassles, then this kind of judgement can really cripple the German eq of RIAA. They have gone one step forward in legitemizing copying. Also due to this law citizens can also seek ban on copy protected CD's because they are paying for copyright break. Horray for germany
No, only media you could own... (Score:4, Insightful)
It is possible to make copies for non-commercial purposes only of media that you or your friends could legally own.
This means forget the cams, the screeners and so on, just when the official DVD is released in Germany. It realy upsets the film distributors that they have jacked up ticket prices by about 10-15% and their income hasn't gone up by more than a few percent. They forget that the German economy isn't doing well and Cinema visits are a luxury.
The thing is that there is tight vertical integration from the company doing the dubbing down to the theatres. There are few real independents.
The dubbing here is of variable standard (it is sometimes just plain wrong), so a lot of Germans prefer the English version, which is only legally shown by a small minority of theatres and then only in major cities.
Achtung! (Score:3, Funny)
Our records indicate you have not paid der taxen on your computer. Please register at arbeitmachtfrei.homelandsecurity.net [idlewords.com] immediately. Our agents will contact you shortly. Guten tag!
Re:Achtung! (Score:3, Interesting)
They justify it on the grounds that you if you own a television, you could watch public television and thus you should pa
Small computer shops (Score:5, Insightful)
It sounds like the German government wants all computers to be built by big foreign companies, and not small German shops.
This level of taxation would cut into the small margin most small shops make. That means no more guys who come up with creative solutions for problems, no more friendly service. Just packages and long queues waiting for some ignoramus at tech support when the thing breaks. (Plus the shipping time.)
Re:Small computer shops (Score:5, Interesting)
Might be time to start up the 'almost a computer shop' where you sell cases with a mobo, ram, hd, cd drive, nic etc but no CPU, claim it is modern sculpture. Then you set a street cart outside where you can by processors. So people come in, by the computer, err sorry sculpture and then pop out to the street card and buy the proc for the box!
yes, this is practical (Score:5, Interesting)
"Blank magnetic media, especially recordable CDs"
Yes, because CDs are magnetic...
But on a more serious note, they are calling everybody who buys a computer a theif. No questioning use. No checking if the computer will even be connected to the internet.
Everybody. Every man, woman and child. Every office assistant, every student.
Let's pretend that the computers sold are $700. That's not including the monitor (which is used to see what pirated files you want to download), printer (which is used to print labels for your pirated CDs), or any other peripherals (such as your speakers, used to play the latest pirated Rammestien singles). They get $13 right off the bat. Now, let's add another $112 for the 16%. That means that on a $700 computer, you have to pay an additional $130, not including peripherals / other sales taxes.
I work at a retail store. We sell about 6 computers per week. Multiply that by the amount of stores in Germany, and that number by $130.
And the recording industry needs how much more money to pay for the pirated CD sales losses?
Re:yes, this is practical (Score:5, Insightful)
Then a few people start getting wacky. We ban a few more things - hemp, alcohol.
Then guns, model rocket engines, blank CD media.
We either all stick together and fight all victimless "crimes" and prohibition, or we all lose by the precidents we establish against things we don't like.
Re:yes, this is practical (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe they're talking about taxing the levy of $13? As bizarre as this sounds, this seriously wouldn't surprise me.
overlooked (Score:2)
I even bought a subscription to see the article early so I could read it over fully just so I wouldn't make stupid mistakes like that.
and I still missed it. as stated before... oops..
Re:yes, this is practical (Score:2)
Guilty? (Score:5, Funny)
errr... Im sorry Mr Ashcroft, your right.. I was having evil thoughts, Im guilty of thought crime. Yes we are at war with the people from the east.
FANTASTIC (yes I'm serious). (Score:5, Insightful)
Otherwise, don't charge me for PreCrime(TM).
How are they levied? (Score:2, Interesting)
Why Don't We Tax... (Score:3, Funny)
Per computer? (Score:5, Interesting)
So, what makes the item a computer? If someone goes into a different store to buy each part and assembles a computer, which store do they get charged the extra $13 at? The one they bought the cpu at? Well, that could be an upgrade. So could a new motherboard. In fact, the only thing I think they could use their tenuous logic to justify would be a hard drive. In that case, what if I build a computer with two drives?
Aside from the logic problem of defining what part should be taxed as the computer, this ignores, for example, servers. Do people installing servers at an ISP get to ask for their $13 back for every box they build to serve, say, the billing system or internal database? Who tracks that?
Finally, I find the article's mention of precedent interesting. The article mentions that none of the money collected to date in Canada has yet to get to the members its supposed to go to.
While the article has a decided tilt and is certainly not unbiased reporting, I find the collective sum to be appalling, and hope the measure gets a sound thrashing, along with whoever proposed it.
Re:Per computer? (Score:2)
From the article: (Score:2, Insightful)
The aforementioned Canadian collective has yet to distribute to its members even one tax dollar of the tens of millions it inexplicably hoards.
Well, since the industry has proposed these new levies, and they havent been implemented, it makes a fa
Re:From the article: (Score:4, Insightful)
And now they're proposing yet more legislation to levy further "taxes for the poor starving musicians and movie stars". Given that they've so far failed to distribute previous levies, why would anyone have confidence that further levies would be distributed, but would rather go towards someone's retirement fund (or whatever)??
There's already a levy (Score:2, Informative)
In all likelyhood, every cent of this levy-tax-thing has gone into the pockets of the collective.
Re:From the article: (Score:2)
Re:From the article: (Score:3, Insightful)
Middlemen (Score:2)
"In essence, copyright is a temporary monopoly on creative work granted to the authors, publishers and distributors of such products. It is intended to compensate them for their efforts and encourage them to continue to create. Yet, the disintermediation brought on by digital technologies threatens to link author and public directly, cutting out traditional content brokers such as record companies or publishers.
"This is the crux of the battle royal. Middlemen are attempting -- in
Re:Middlemen (Score:2, Flamebait)
It's a horrible summation. It ignores the fact that content brokers are only one of the parties affected by piracy.
Look, let's assume that all record companies, for example, evaporate tomorrow. "This Internet thing has really busted our asses," they say, "and we've all decided to move to the country and take up fishing." Suddenly people who want to make a living making music have to distribute their recordings themselves. No big deal; instead of manufacturing and distributi
Re:Middlemen (Score:3, Insightful)
Janis Ian's experiences [janisian.com]
Advice for the aspiring musician [celticmp3s.com]
Baen Free Library [baen.com]
Re:Middlemen (Score:4, Insightful)
Piracy won't be effected. But eliminating the middlemen may significantly reduce copyright infringment. (Word choice clouds the debate. Not just "piracy"- things like "evaporate" polarizes something that's really a continuum. No crime can be eliminated completely, but that's not required)
Copyright infringment has more and more complex motivations than wanting something for nothing:
(Additionally, getting music off P2P isn't "something for nothing"- it's not completely free- it takes some investment of time and effort to find these things and download them. Only worth pennies, maybe, but they "pay" something, just like we "pay" to watch TV by the time wasted in commercials)
Focusing on the thought process of the representative college student:
An album of 10 songs often costs more than $1.50 each. Only a minority of that cash goes to recording/editing costs and compensating the musicians- most of it goes to publisher, for marketing and profit. College students aren't fond of those bland men with ties, and are less inclined to give money than if it was going more directly to the artist.
If each song cost $0.50 or $0.75 (reasonable I think, if advertising and distribution is taken out), then we might come to an equilibrium where it's not fear of law enforcement that makes students pay for their music, but peer pressure. If the cost is reduced, and convenience is increased (with something like micropayments [peppercoin.com], prehaps), and purchasers feel the money is going straight to the musician (with whom they often feel an emotional bond), then the incentive to "pirate" is much reduced, and the personal guilt from violations is increased. ("Oh my god, I stole like $2.50 from Jewel. I am SO lame! I'll click those 3 payment buttons right now")
Consumers will have much less motivation to load files onto P2P if they're already available for quick download elsewhere. Student roommates won't view duplicating a CD as striking a blow against the establishment. Courtney Love won't proclaim that the labels are robbing her, but instead might remind listeners to double-click the tip jar.
Voluntary compliance is not impossible. I can't claim it will happen, but neither can anyone else prove it won't.
(An additional benefit to the entire culture might be that, with publishing house's ad budgets devastated, popular music will become more varied. There could be less winner-take-all homogenization. Maybe, thousands of musicians will earn $70,000 per year, instead of hundreds getting $millions and the rest washing dishes as day jobs.)
Re:Middlemen (Score:3, Interesting)
They should be paid a fair price for the work they actually do. Touring is more likely to comprise a full time job than doing only studio recordings.
interesting (Score:2)
Is this the right approach? (Score:4, Interesting)
However, you have to question the fundamental motivation of the various industry associations. Should their motivation be to maintain/replace revenue from new streams (the path they seem to have chosen), to generate new forms of revenue (online music sales being the most obvious), or to make sure they get what they are due from their current streams (antipiracy).
It seems the option they have taken is the one of least benefit to the users. As someone who pays for CDs, I am paying a "tax" to subsidise the pirates. And I get nothing new for the money - I am just unwillingly propping up their obsolete business model.
Seems poorly thought out to me.
Next thing you know.. (Score:5, Funny)
The German pre-emptive strike (Score:2)
Well I hope some of it also goes to Microsoft, for my illegitamate copy of Office.
Or does this tax just go to those whose products are not primarily aimed at being used through a computer? If so, surely the most legitamate tax position would be the internet or (as has already been done) recorable media. It seems
Re:The German pre-emptive strike (Score:2)
That's actually a valid point... If to anyone, this money should go to Microsoft. It's probably suffering huge losses* because of piracy. And what about all the shareware authors? Why aren't they compensated?
Oh, right, I forgot... Shareware authors don't have any powe^H^H^H^H money and MS actually has business sense. Go RIAA!
*where losses are the dynamic, RIAA-type losses. Like for example how I own the equivalent of 16 Pentium 100 class computers.
Re:The German pre-emptive strike (Score:4, Funny)
Even illegat... uh, illeget... uh, pirot... uh, w4r3z3d copies of Office include a spell checker. Give it a try.
It won't likely happen (Score:2)
So does this mean... (Score:2)
Re:So does this mean... (Score:2)
Someone has to say it (Score:3, Funny)
you americans are so pathetic while we here in Germany|Sweden|France|Belguim|Whatever we anjoy very many freedoms and the DMCA* has no powerful and everything is wonderful and blah blah blah.. [sic]
Mwahahahaha.
Now back to our regular schedule.
.
.
.
* 'DMCA' used as a placeholder. Replace with favorite law, tax, levy, weird burden or policy that exists because of commercial pressures from Big Media
Re:Someone has to say it (Score:4, Interesting)
Every country is at risk from these pressure groups. What is worse, the government's urges make copyright laws consistent across continents threatens us, because they always move them upwards, dont they. EU is looking at the DMCA, the UK raised its copyright duration from 50 to 70 years to be consistent with europe,
My fear about this tax is the precedent: why not tax ISPs next. Everyone knows 73% of all network traffic is pirate music
One-year mediation effort? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think I'm missing something here.
According to the article, "this is the non-binding outcome of a one-year mediation effort by the patent office between VG Wort, Fujitsu Siemens Computers, Germany's largest computer manufacturer and other makers."
Where does VG Wort, an association of German musicians, composers, etc, get the right to even suggest this? This isn't coming from drunken politicans, this isn't coming from overactive legislation, this is coming from a private agency. What's stopping these computer companies from just thumbing their nose at VG Wort?
I really do think we need a tariff on clothes though. Without clothes, I would be to embarassed to go to the store and buy music. And when I buy music, I inevitably pirate it on my favourite P2P service. So truly, clothes are the "enabler" in this vast ring of music piracy.
VAT (Score:3, Interesting)
This is ridiculous oppression. (Score:4, Insightful)
It would be penalizing EVERYONE on the basis of the industry's absurd projections about how much piracy is costing them. They simply add up the retail price of every unauthorized copy, and call that their "losses" when the obvious fact of the matter is that people download 10-100 times more than they would actually have paid for hard copies of if they hadn't been able to download anything unauthorized. Plus, mp3 downloads have the mixed benefit of providing record albums with free marketing. They actually PAY radio stations to play the songs (not the other way around) as a form of marketing, so how is this so bad? If people really like the album they will buy the whole thing instead of going to the trouble of collecting the low-quality songs individually on Kazaa or Bearshare. Therefore, in effect, the industry's projected losses figures are inflated from their real world losses by a factor of at least 20.
The fact of the matter is that the reason the industry is only posting meager profits is because their expenses are unnecessarily through the roof. More than 75% of all of their revenue is spent on marketing, lobbying, PR, and other such bullshit that contributes nothing towards actually putting out a good product for a good price. Maybe the RIAA should try the latter for the change.
Stupid, stupid, stupid (Score:2)
A 16% tax would mean 16% less computing power available. It would mean that 16% less work could get done. It would mean 16% of each grant gets wasted (from the POV of the group funding the reasearch).
Thank goodness the UK's fighting this one.
Also, they'd have to define computer. However they do it, I'm quite sure that there's at least one of the boxes I use wou
I don't believe it! (Score:2, Funny)
Who is John Galt? (Score:2, Insightful)
Phredd
I wish more people knew...... (Score:2)
nbfn
All this is, is screwing the customer (Score:2, Funny)
So, by levying recordable CDs, they should actually already have their fee to level out the damage done by copying. Now they're proposing to add a second one to computer
It it is nice to Know (Score:2)
Peter Suber (Score:2)
This is somewhat off-topic, but I go to the college at which Peter Suber teaches. I have yet to take a course from him, but I have read many of his writings. His website [earlham.edu] has interesting stuff not only on copyright law but also on computer science and philosophy.
Supercomputers, Mainframes & Servers (Score:2)
I'd hate to have to pay an extra $3.2 million for my brand new $20 million supercomputer because someone thought I was going to pirate music instead of model the weather.
These taxes really are silly. With Canada charging small-time independent musicians a hefty tax for CD media they use to distribute their own works to pay other artists to the US's piracy tax on DATs which are used almost exclusively by the IT world.
What is next? A per-kbps tax on
How long until we have no legal backup solution? (Score:5, Interesting)
I have one more observation. Why don't they tax CD players, which are obviously necessary to listen to the pirated CDs. Computers have so many uses, yet CD players have only one. And what if I buy a Computer with NO CD-Rom drive? What then? How do I then pirate music?
So many questions, so little karma.
Once upon a time... (Score:5, Insightful)
Fast forward to this story, and we find a new use...income stream. And we see the resurgence of graft, corruption and turf wars. Ahh, sweet history, how I love to meet you, again and again.
Schizoprhenic punishments (Score:4, Interesting)
The standard of proof is high (or why else did law enforcement work so hard to track him down), and the punishment is severe.
For-profit "pirates" rate this kind of treatment, and heavy P2P sharers may risk it too (the 0.2% that provides 80% of all files). (In fact, someone with ties to organized crime, fraud, or tax-evasion / money laundering will have many worse things facing him in court. The actual copyright violation is a minor concern for gangsters)
In this case, there is no proof at all, but at least the punishment is so light you can't really call it a "miscarriage of justice". However, these fees simply make some high-tech products seem slightly more expensive, and don't create any disincentive to violate copyrights. In fact, they may encourage it, "But I've already paid!"
Does anyone else see an opportunity to create an intermediate category of punishment for copyright violators? Not so large that it'll ruin the offender's life, and not so small that people can ignore it entirely. And certainly not unfairly assuming that 100% of the population is guilty.
How about something of the same magnitude as a traffic violation? Exceeding the speed limit isn't a real crime, as usually nobody was really hurt, so the punishment is light. Copyright violations don't necessarily hurt the "victim" either. So lets treat these things similarly.
Suppose a police department (I'm ignoring questions about whose jurisdiction applies) assigns an officer to fire up Kazaa, and then fire off "tickets" to the first pageful of people who appear to be sharing something obviously copyrighted to someone else. Fees starting in the $30-$60 range for first offenders.
A critical point is arbitration should be similar to traffic court too: If you bother to contest it, you probably get off. Allow anyone who claims the police were mistaken to get off with a warning (but in the future they might investigate closely, if he shows up in the list again). Additionally, the police can only send one citation at a time- the can't count multiple uploads on a single day as repeat offenses.
For this to be possible, of course, an internet service provider would need to give the cops a means of matching IP addresses to people's names. The DMCA is a representative law that would allow this (or a similar law or technical mechanism could).
Now, I don't approve of the DMCA, but given that it's a law already (and more like it are on the way), I would rather it be used to send out minor fees, than throw people in jail. From the looks of things, the current DMCA is being used by corporations to threaten individuals with big crimes. A government agency threatening people with minor fees has at least an ideal of fairness (plus bureaucratic apathy).
A couple of official police citations is all it would take to get parents to rein in their teens' file-sharing habits, and that'd stop 50% of copyright infringement right there.
The Ashcroft DOJ is moving towards more and bigger prosecutions of "cybercrime" like copyright violations. As a compromise, I offer the "traffic ticket" model. It sends a strong message that copyright infringment will not be tolerated, but individuals are protected from excessive or capricious punishment.
PS. The use of "schizophrenic" in my subject is incorrect psychological terminology. Multiple-Personality Syndrome is a different condition than schizophrenia.
What do I think? (Score:2)
That sounds like a certain european country's economy is going down the tubes, and they are looking to tax their way into recovery. Any economist could tell you it's a foolish approach, and will only encourage the current decline in tech.
I really feel bad for the citizens though, but you know, if you vote these people into power, you get what you vote for. If they really cared, they'd vote the socialists out, but with a 10.5% unemployment rate [cnn.com],
Here's a solution... (Score:2)
That should help to offset the "I've already paid for it with this tax" against the "I need to survive off my work" arguments
Not fair (Score:2)
Not happening in the US Folks... (Score:2, Insightful)
1. Any congress person who votes for this is going to have to go back to their district and say that they raised taxes on an item by 16%.
2. The tech companies such as Dell, IBM, and HP/Compaq also have lobbiests who kill things like this before they even happen. Anybody remember the SPACCCA or whatever it was?
3. Big businesses all over the US would howl at congress because of this and colleges would probably rebel in the South.
And how reliable are the piracy numbers? (Score:2)
Yet again another instance of someone pulling numbers out of their ass. Or has anyone here actually seen the research that supports these numbers?
What if other groups used the same logic? Nasa, for example - lobbying for levies to make up for funds lost due to t
While we're making taxes (Score:5, Funny)
FINALLY!!! (Score:2)
Too bad for them this shit will *NEVER* fly in America. We hate taxes. Especially taxes that do nothing more than line the pockets of people who weren't savvy enough to solve their problem from the get-go.
Yeah, we may be ruled by special interests, but how many people have broadband access on their PC? How many huge companies (that lobby) are dependent on selling computers or computers selling?
If I can own a
Re: (Score:2)
How many bites of the apple? (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't forget that the recording industry is *already* getting a levie from CDR/RW drive sold in Germany.
Check out this story [bbc.co.uk] published by the BBC back in 2001.
What next I wonder?
A special tax on speakers because they "might" be used to listen to pirated music?
A special tax on guitars because 9 out of 10 amateur musicians play copyrighted tunes without paying the relevant performance fee?
It's just a shame that the recording industry has such deep pockets and politicians the world-over are so willing to accept bribes.
That is no 'extra' 16% tax for copyright (Score:5, Informative)
BTW, the VG Wort (and the VG Bild-Kunst (image-art)) claim that this strengthens the right to make a private copy. The hardware-makers protesting this (like HP) would rather use DRM and TCPA. (Article in German [heise.de]
Re:That is no 'extra' 16% tax for copyright (Score:3, Interesting)
Mmmh. Source ? (Score:3, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Proud to be an American... (karma burning.) (Score:2)
Actually you should feel threatened by this move: if they get away with it in Germany, they will target other countries. Be prepared to resist.
-steve
(who considers windows an extra tax on PCs)