Belgium To Tax Rewritable CDs

An anonymous reader writes "The Belgian federal government will quietly introduce a tax on rewritable CDs on May 1, the office of the country's minister of economy confirmed. Officially called a "compensation for personal use," the tax will add 12 euro cents (13 cents) per hour to the price of a CD-R. The proceeds are earmarked for composers, copyright holders and performers. Here is the scoop."

Comments

Only for cds you own

[fille]

The flemish article states that this extra tax is only a compensation for copying cds you own. So no, you can't copy a friends cd legally just because you paid the tax.

Some political parties even want an extra tax to compensate the industry for losses of illegal copying! Since the elections are sheduled for may 18th, you can punish those bastards right away! *grin*

Re:Only for cds you own

[dago]

Well, the point is that the copyright law I (was suppose to) studied at school stated that 'copies made for private use' are allowed.

And the problem is what is private use. And I can't find anything which state that copying something from kazaa is illegal. When napster was hot, IFPI menaced (email, letters) against people sharing stuff, not downloading it ... so ...

Now, for 'ethical' things, artists should be retributed for their work, of course. But as you stated, ther are a lot of problem with existing bussiness models ... talk to any small group about the SABAM.

So, that's currently a very blurry situation where eveything is evolving ... let's see what will come. The spirit proposition go into that sense : to find another solution (now, wether it's good or not...).

Not CDRW

[sconest]

The flemish article talks about CD-R not CD-RW.
It also says there was already a tax for audio CD-R that'll be increased from 12 eurocents to 23 eurocents.