Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Germany Increases 'You Are All Pirates' Tax On Solid State Media By 2000%

techdirt.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 112 posts

Re: Germany Increases 'You Are All Pirates' Tax On Solid State Media By 2000%

#61

Post by morsch »

mironathetin wrote: post #53

Gema is really nuts. I don't understand who lobbies for them, but instead of producing music that people like to buy, they rely more and more on taxes. Even back in the 70s they managed to put an extra tax on tape cassettes, because you could copy vinyl on them. Back then, this might have been the most likely usage for cassettes. But for CDs and USB sticks this is a rip-off. There is one more nutty thing that falls i…

The fee pays for public broadcasting, not just public TV. Public broadcasting includes TV, radio, and the internet presence of the TV and radio media. I don't have a TV, but I do listen to public radio and I use public news web sites all the time.

I think the new system is much more reasonable than the previous system, which had loads of people claiming they don't own any kind of receiving device when that claim is just patently absurd for almost everybody today. This was different in the 50s or 60s where not everybody had a radio at home, much less a video device. Today it's just a system that rewards dishonesty. It also lead to an expensive byzantine bureaucracy (the GEZ) just for collecting the public broadcasting fees and snooping (in person!) after people who say that don't own a TV/radio/whatever.

What is crazy is that they didn't get rid of the GEZ when they changed the system, but I assume that'll happen sometime down the road. And of course you're free to disagree with having any public broadcasting system at all, or that it should be financed differently (I agree). But the previous fee system was just broken and needed to be fixed.

Re: Germany Increases 'You Are All Pirates' Tax On Solid State Media By 2000%

#62

Post by yason »

Finland has initial plans to move from levies specific to certain media/storage products to an annual fee. The fee would be collected as a part of TV licensing fee which is also moving from a specific "per tv-owning household" license to cover all citizens, regardless of their TV ownership or lack of it. So, in effect, the copyright institutions effectively have a way to tax people.

It will only amount to less than a handful of euros per year and generally it's more fair than the irrationally random levies (buying an external hard drive implies levy, buying an external harddrive case and a separate hard drive doesn't) but there are two problems.

First, the "tax" will undoubtedly increase every year. The copyright mafia has demonstrated their intention to adjust the levies accordingly to match an annual 10-15 million euros of income. So, now the "tax" might only be three euros. Later it will only be four euros, come on! Then only a fiver, come on, that doesn't hurt anyone! Then only ten euros, it won't make a difference... and so on.

Secondly, having paid the increasing fee (see first point) it's mostly undefined what you will get in return. By paying this fee—that is involuntarily taxed from your income—I think the common attitude will soon turn into "I've paid for it already, so I can at least decide to pirate some movies to get something back in return."

Neither the levies nor the annual fee aren't compensation for illegal copying, just private copying. It's just that the general public already perceives that private copying doesn't need to be compensated. For example, people don't generally take well the idea that after buying a cd they would need to pay again to make copy of it for their car player. Thus, a majority of people will inevitably attribute this forced copyright tax to an implied, unofficial license to pirate.

The legislation probably takes ten years to catch up with that. But I think it might be a good way. Personally, I would probably pay 20-30 euros annually to legally download content from PirateBay. The distribution of the collected money could be based on the popularity rank of Finnish artists and movies on PirateBay, instead of the arbitrary radio playing lists that they use currently.

The power of peer-to-peer would be worth paying for. The MAFIAA guys can handle the creation of the content, let the internet people handle the distribution. That way each party can do what they're good at.

Re: Germany Increases 'You Are All Pirates' Tax On Solid State Media By 2000%

#63

Post by hef19898 »

What concerns me, beyond the broken system we have, in Germany taxes are here to stay. So when this comes through it WILL stay like forever. And not even a world war will get rid of it, we have taxes that survived two of them and we still pay them...

Re: Germany Increases 'You Are All Pirates' Tax On Solid State Media By 2000%

#65

Post by mtts »

nickik wrote: post #51
rmc wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you just buy from another European country and import? Yes that's one of the fundamental reasons for setting up the European Union. A Single Market.

I really like the idea of the EU, a single market no more protectionism and other simular idotic shit. In reallity the EU is just another layer of stupid regulations and now we get protectionism and interventionsim on EU level too. Im happy that Im not in the EU (Switzerland) but I belive only getting the good stuff from the EU (open borders ...) will get harder and harder with the EU becomming more like a country.

And the great thing is that your country, being entirely surrounded by EU countries, has no choice but to implement all those "stupid regulations" as well as it won't be able to do business with its neighbours otherwise.

Re: Germany Increases 'You Are All Pirates' Tax On Solid State Media By 2000%

#68

Post by daliusd »

greyman wrote: post #27
daliusd wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from other European country but similar things happen here. I disagree with you here. We should register ourselves as content creators and get our money back in other legal ways. We should demonstrate how much those taxes are stupid.

I am also from other European country, but I believe that tax is favourable for me as an ordinary citizen and I am happy to pay it! Really, I don't joke here. It is not "You Are All Pirates" tax - this tax allows me to legally make a copy of a work of art for my private use, even if I didn't pay for the original - it is enough that the work of art was already presented in the public [for example, song in a radio, mov…

I really doubt that it is still legal in all cases. You might assume that it is legal if that makes you feel comfortable but you must be careful here. I personally wouldn't travel with questionable content on my laptop, smartphone or other device through airports only because it might be considered illegal accidentally.

Re: Germany Increases 'You Are All Pirates' Tax On Solid State Media By 2000%

#69

Post by mironathetin »

morsch wrote: post #61
mironathetin wrote: post #53

Gema is really nuts. I don't understand who lobbies for them, but instead of producing music that people like to buy, they rely more and more on taxes. Even back in the 70s they managed to put an extra tax on tape cassettes, because you could copy vinyl on them. Back then, this might have been the most likely usage for cassettes. But for CDs and USB sticks this is a rip-off. There is one more nutty thing that falls i…

The fee pays for public broadcasting, not just public TV. Public broadcasting includes TV, radio, and the internet presence of the TV and radio media. I don't have a TV, but I do listen to public radio and I use public news web sites all the time. I think the new system is much more reasonable than the previous system, which had loads of people claiming they don't own any kind of receiving device when that claim is j…

I agree, the previous system was bad. It has been replaced by a system that is also bad. Even worse, this one can be attacked in court because it is obviously unfair.

This is the only situation I know, where a company distributes their product for free and then asks everybody to pay for it. This is a special situation of course, because the public broadcasting has the official task to educate and report in a neutral way. This is welcome - no doubt.

But the presence in the internet and thus on computers is no excuse to collect money from everybody. In contrary, the presence of the internet allows to measure exactly, who is using the services. In a few years from now, perhaps even today, it would be possible to do the same with the wireless receivers, like TV.

So it would be easy to charge the households who use the service. No GEZ needed any more, but a fair system that charges for usage.

Post reply on HN