Slashdot Mirror
New Fee For Internet-Capable PCs In Germany
An anonymous reader writes "German online news sites heise.de and spiegel.de has stories, that from April 2005 on a fee of about 17 to 18 EUR per month must be paid to the national broadcasters in Germany for personal computers in private households, which have possible access to the internet. The fee must not be paid, if it is already paid for a TV set. Companies are said to be obliged to pay that fee from 2007 on." Those who don't read German should make use of the Fish.
In Italy, you have to pay a fee for TV broadcasting. Most people refuse to pay it, since it a no-sense and moreover it is difficult to check if you own a TV set. But it is much more easy to check if you subscribed an Internet contract.
M.
Not many people will be hurt by this:
- if you already have a TV set, you already pay this fee. (Most households already have a TV set and pay 48.45 EUR every three months to the GEZ.)
- it's per household, not per computer
I have four machines connected to the net at home, and I can ignore this new regulation, cause I registered with GEZ as a TV owner. So who cares?(BTW, the point that public broadcasting should be financed from taxes and not have a special authority for this is IMHO very valid. Would mean less bureaucracy, and a more fair distribution of burden.)
afaik, it's a fee on receivers which mostly funds the state owned tv and radio stations. you have to pay it as soon as you have a television or radio set in your apartment, no matter if you watch these state owned stations or not.
they argue that with internet capable pc you are able to watch/hear tv and radio programs via the net - therefore your pc is a receiver and you have to pay for it.
a) is correct. The government is providing an independent bunch of TV and rasio stations to provide basic support with news, culture, and so on. This is the result of the assumption that private TV stations would never broadcast high-quality programme for minorities. (I think I shortened the argumentation...)
b) those kids don't have to pay at all. If they can't afford it, they are propably qualified for a exemption.
If your PC's video card has an TV tuner, you have to pay anyway. There is no change.
You are free NOT to buy a TV. I gave mine away and don't pay the tax. Once in a while a threatening mail comes in from the licensing agency, I scribble down "I don't have a TV, you bastards, go away" and send it back. No one bothered to knock my door down and search my flat, yet.
It's a tax you pay for owning a TV and so becoming able to watch the public TV services. GEZ is the agency which you have to pay, and which controls that everyone who has a TV pays. And yes the german people are not very happy with this.
Germany is a federal republic and the TV tax is under the authority of the member states, not the government of the country. The latest modifications to the "Rundfunkstaatsvertrag" (broadcaster treaty) are adopted by the member states at a time when the majority of the member states is under CDU (Christian Democrats, the "conservative party") governance. For completeness sake, it is very likely that things would not be different at all if the majority of member states were under SPD governance.
This new rule is an example of how such an overly bureaucratic system costs. Here in The Netherlands we had the same system until 5 years ago where you had to pay to some special authority if you own a tv. That licensing stems from the ages when only few people had a TV and it was unfair to tax everyone for the broadcasts. Since 5 years, this whole separate authority has been ditched and the public channels are just paid out of the general tax budget. A lot easier and a lot more cost-effective. And no need for special rules when some people use only a computer to watch tv.
If you own a TV or radio set, then you are benefiting from this service. If you benefit, you have to cough up some dough. They now added computers into the equation because you might visit the stations web pages or receive life broadcasts. Typical red tape thinking.
The networks owned by the public are heavily restricted when it comes to broadcasting commercials and they HAVE to fulfill educational duties. But they shove the same crap to your screen that you'd expect from Murdoch/Saban/Berlusconi owned companies. Quality leaves much to be desired for. The Beeb at least managed to provide true quality programmes like HHGTG, Red Dwarf, Monty Python and such. German broadcasting seems to fancy endless music shows for the elderly, romantic, yet shallow TV plays, game shows and so on. Nobody under the age of 50 would even remotely consider watching that utter crap. Only true benefit they offer are well balanced news broadcasts and quality investigational journalism.
Now comes the brilliant part. They will charge even companies for their internet PCs. Plain silly.
There is a dubious aspect of this fee for PeeCees. The official broadcasting system wanted a substantial raise for this fee. They did get a miniscule one with a net amount of 350.000.000. Been bitching ever since. The new computer tax won't give them much more cash from the households since nearly all of them already pay the fee(don't have to pay double). But the new rule gives them a way to extort cash from companies who weren't paying thru the nose, yet. Let's see. My company has to pay a fee for something I shouldn't do as per company policy. Love that one.
I haven't paid that silly fee in years since I don't own neither radio nor TV. Even if I did, I wouldn't have to let their investigators into my flat. Tho they are known to be real bullies.
My tip for any Germany resident is, if one of these bullies shows up at your door and won't go away, call the police. They haven't bothered me ever since. Still get their extortion letters, tho.
20 minutes into the future
GEZ-fee for internet-PCs comes
Violent protests became loud after first plans of the Prime Ministers were confessed to raise the GEZ-fee in the course of the increase of the broadcast fee and tv fee also for PCs with internet connection from 2007. Now a fee increase comes around 88 cents -and the GEZ-duty for internet-PCs in private households already as of 1 April 2005. Solely for firms, GEZ-fees should planned raised become how originally first as of 1 January 2007, reports the Frankfurt general newspaper. Abgesegnet will must the decisions of the Prime Ministers yet of the respective parliaments of the states.
Would indicate
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The fee should confessed raised become after that previously become plans for each PC, with which the user can go into the internet. A special connection for a tv reception or broadcast reception, about a TV- or DVB-T-card, is not necessary so that a PC becomes GEZ-compulsory. Who already GEZ-fees berappt, that doesn't have to pay for its internet-PC again -who to be sure no radio or tv set, for that however a PC with internet connection possesses, is asked future to the cash register. For firms, it was named already in the design of the decision, is supposed to be raised would become the fee grundstücksbezogen -business therewith per firms building payment compulsory if they do not pay already GEZ-fees for possibly available tv devices or radio devices, that colleagues in the business use.
Against the plans of the Prime Ministers, violent resistance had moved out of economy and politics. The foreseeable effects of the compulsory fees unique "worldwide for computer" would stand in "evident contradiction" to that by the Federal Government proklamierten and also of the opposition parliamentary groups carried economic objectives, emphasized about Hans-Joachim Otto, media political speaker of the FDP-parliamentary group in the Bundestag. Martina Krogmann, internet-delegated of the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Socialist Union-Bundestag parliamentary group, feared above all negative effects on the economy and expressed itself for that to abandon the plans as quickly as possible again. End the rows of the countries-Prime Ministers was to be heard however already that the economy would be burdened on the basis of already paid GEZ-fees and the grundstücksbezogenen regulations only negligibly in addition. Business associations not so however wanted to stand let that: "business with an additional duty to burden, only because it internet suitable PCs use, is simple and seizing a joke", meant about Friederike Behrends, leader of the team media politics in the BVDW (national association digital economy).
Grietje bed, speaker of media political the green in the Bundestag, brought on the other hand another proposal into the discussion: around with the distribution of UMTS-Mobiltelefonen with radio and TV-Empfangsmöglichkeiten again a delicate debate around the expansion of the GEZ-fee to not to start, would prefer it the introduction of a lump sum "media fee" per household. At the same time it should however also social releases and exceptions for households without digital media devices give. Such proposals emerged are final in the past years again and again, the plans for a GEZ-fee on PCs by bodies nothing new: broadcast fee and tv fee for computer are proposed are already for some years again and again also GEZ-fees about for UMTS-mobile phone again and again in the conversation. The earlier intention to a GEZ-fee on computer, that knocked at all political parties actually on approval, were stopped however in view of the resistance above all out of the economy until now again and again. (jk/c't)
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No, it's not.
The fee is collected by a third party, not the government, and none of the money goes to the government. Consider the problem at hand: How to fund public broadcasting adequately (i.e. it is a given that you want to ensure that you can have public broadcasting with a certain quality level)? If you raised taxes for this, it would be a government thing, and any government could simply decice not to raise taxes anymore to do away with too critical public broadcasters (would be nice if they were actually critical, but that's another story). So in most countries where a scheme for funding public broadcasting is needed beyond donations, a separate entity has been formed to collect the money independently from the government.
Of course, there is the problem of the legal basis for such a third party, and that is where any government could still intervene by simply declaring this entity as illegal.
In Germany, we have two state-owned TV stations, ARD (which is a conglomerate) and ZDF. These are funded partly by the state, partly (to a small extent) by advertising, and mostly by collecting a monthly fee of about EUR 18 from TV owners. This fee is paid per household, regardless of how many TVs you actually have. If you don't have a TV, you don't have to pay it. (There's a smaller fee paid on radios if you don't have a TV). The point of this regulation is that the stations should be largely independent from the advertisers' whim as well as from the state's. This is, actually, a very valid point, as far as I am concerned. I don't want an American situation over here where TV is controlled by some conservative media czars, and neither do I want an East German situation where the state controls all TV content. Don't forget that state-run broadcasting was an extremely powerful instrument in the hands of the state during the Third Reich, and we've been trying to avoid this from bad experience. Now I don't personally appreciate a lot of the content on ARD and ZDF, but still I think the basic system is OK in itself, as it's the lesser of three evils.
Some time ago, the stations found out that you can watch TV on your computer even if you don't have a TV set. That's why this fee is being introduced. It won't affect many people, as their household is most likely to have a TV already. The only people affected will be those who have a computer, but who don't have a TV. They aren't that many. I don't have a TV, for example, but my flatmate has one, and therefore I don't have to pay extra. (We'll split the fee, however.)
This is a completely different situation from that proposed a fee on computers because one could, technically, copy copyrighted media with it, same as the fee on CD-R media or blank tapes that are collected in some countries. In Germany, for example, you can get special "audio CD-Rs" where this fee is included and where, under present legislation, it is legal to copy copyrighted audio materials for non-commercial purposes. (Of course, apart from the "audio" label that makes them applicable for this fee, they are just normal CD-R media, usually fairly high-quality ones.) Some time ago there was a proposal that the PC should be classified as an instrument of media reproduction as well so that this kind of fee would be imposed on CD burners, for example, but this proposal didn't get through. The TV situation is entirely different.
As a state gets corrupt, its laws multiply; the most corrupt states have the most numerous laws. (Tacitus, Annales 3:27)
The Tv licence fee goes to funding the BBC and as a result the bbc doesnt have advert breaks! Ever seen a movie on regular tv with no adverts? its heaven!
and also no adverts during programs either. They wont split up a 1/2 hour program to show 5 mins of adverts in the middle!
did you know an episode of the simpsons lasts only 20 minutes without adverts?
How many computers are too many?
The fee on CD burners, recordable media, fotocopiers, etc is compensation for "fair use" copies which the people create with them. It is distributed to registered copyright holders. The fee on TV and radio receivers finances the public broadcasters ("Oeffentlich-rechtlicher Rundfunk"). It is not related to copyright issues in any way.
The GEZ seldom operates roving vans. Instead, they just knock at your door and require to see either their recipe, or they call the police to forcibly enter your home. If you have a computer (and who doesn't nowadays?), you're in big trouble, not matter what kind of monitor you use.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
I think you can LEGALLY download music off the net if you have paid this tax. The GEMA tax has to be paid by all concert halls, music playing clubs and radios, and it is paid to musicians relative to the amount their music is played (or to their distributors at least). So probably it won t be illegal to download music anymore?!?
that was channel...five... which, if you had even bothered to research, you would have discovered is an independant COMMERCIAL broadcaster that has nothing to do with the BBC, and is completely beside the point really. In any case the reaction in the website of the comic that likes to call itself a newspaper should have told you that this is NOT exactly a common occurance on UK television. Regarding getting all the news you need off of the Internet, yes, you are right, and it's a damned good thing, but with situations like http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12502 8&cid=10478943
ocurring, want a bet as to whether bigbizz (tm) is trying to stop that too?
In any case i think the comparison was meant to be regarding television only?
My other OS is also FreeBSD
if the government does not interfere with broadcasting at all, you get a media environment like the US, with lots of channels competing for consumers' and sponsors' attention. The result? Ads targeted at kids, news coverage that imposes the sponsors' opinion upon everyone. Thanks a lot! As an American, this is what you should be upset about.
But the German system has also failed in this area, at least in part. Especially ZDF has been very keen on entering cooperations with the private sector. Just think of Buhl Data GmbH, or the partnership with MSN and T-Online. Nowadays, you can't watch a game of football without being presented a short commercial for some alcoholic beverage (even though advertising is forbidden at that time).
Both ARD and ZDF are guilty of some rather worthless programming, too.
No, you're right. That's why what happened in the Netherlands (moving from a collecting entity to tax based funding) makes much more sense regard the argument of government influence - why hide it?
the Germans are grumpy about it.
You can be sure about it. The GEZ-fee is like "the British pay for their TVs, to pay for German equivalent of the BBC." Thats not the main problem. The main problem is this should be a flat tax for everyone. Right now, you only have to pay for each TV/radio set.. Of cause, if someone moves out of his parents home he doesnt file his request to pay the fee (maybe they forget about it and in addition students are poor). To get the money the GEZ has some guys running around town, ringing the bell of appartments to "check for a TV". It gets expensive if you open the door and a TV is running in your living room. These "supervision state methods" are making the GEZ unpopular.
It's not as bad as all that: if you use a detuned TV for watching videos, DVDs and computer games this is legal. I don't know how it is for other countries but tvlicensing.co.uk says:
:)
If you use or install television receiving equipment to receive or record television programme services you are required by law to have a valid TV Licence.
(emphasis mine) I agree their advertising is pretty heavy-handed, but those "TV detector vans" just drive roun full of cheese, they can't detect the smell of an unlicensed TV any more than they detect the porn under my mattress. They just have a database compiled from TV sales which they cross-reference with their list of licensees.
So take a breath, tell 'em your TV is detuned and not used for receiving or recording broadcast signals. And stop looking for porn under my mattress, I don't have any
Matthew @ Bytemark Hosting
I'm sure that this has been answered before, but, in order:
1 Yes; analogue, 3 channels with adverts and 2 BBC channels, digital, 12-odd channels with adverts and 8 BBC channels (though some of these run at different times, so there's only 6 BBC channels at any one time running). 2 Yes, but it's inexecrable, and subsequently has poor market share. 3 They provide the BBC channels in their feed, but they don't bill one for that; it is the subscriber's responsibility to ensure that he is compliant with the law; use of BBC channels is not what's being taxed, so, no. 4 Yes, I believe so, but ICBW. 5 A CRT computer monitor is a TV without a tuner, so, yes. 6 No, it's a part of the tuner (super het.). Plasma TVs &c. also have such a tuner. 7 Yes, I suppose so, but the feed into a television from a non-terrestrial broadcast feed (satellite, or cable) is in the form of an RF jack that is then interpretted by the tuner (thought sometimes this is by SCART or component in, instead). 8 As above, yes, part of the tuner. Legally, no, because the detecting of the tuner is the mechanism, not the law (otherwise someone would just make a tuner that used a different frequency). However, they would not automatically detect one's watching of TV, so... 9 Yes, presumably; no idea, but probably not, as a mark of common sense, rather than the letter of the law; and no idea.In brief: The "licence fee" is the cost that is charged to people with equipment capable of picking up a particular part of the RF spectrum. It is a Government radio-spectrum licence, all the money of which goes direct to the BBC.
James F.
"Well, the system used in the US seems to work well enough"
That's a whole new debate there!
"where ads are used to pay for the production and transmission of television shows"
Problem with that is that there is too little advertising revenue around for the UK's existing 3 terrestrial independant channels as it is - that's why we end up with endless cheap-to-make "reality" shows, live pig-wanking on TV, programmes letting us literally watch paint dry, etc. That's what the independant TV channels come up with for us these days.
And now you want another 6 channels to fight for a share of that same pot, meaning everyone gets less, TV programmes become even more crap? Thanks but no thanks. I reckon 33p (less than 60 US cents_ per day is not too much to pay to be able to maintain TV channels with no advert breaks every 10 minutes...
People should not be afraid of their governments - Governments should be afraid of their people.
The GEZ, who collects the monthly fee, is not a government organization (see many of the above comments for details). Therefore, they have no direct power to force you into paying the fees.
If you have not declared to them, how many radios / TVs you have in your home, they will send you a letter each Month, telling you to please do so. The letter's wording gets increasingly aggresive each time, but that's it.
Only after a long time of delaying your answer they will send a guy around to your home, to see for himself. And here comes the great part: Since they are not a government entity, they are not permitted to enter your home unless you allow them to. If you forbid it, bad luck.
This essentially means that you can postpone the fee indefinetely, which most of the people I know do.
Funny that you should mention the BBC and Fox News in the same breath. Fox's parent company (News Corporation) and the BBC British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB) both own half of the BSkyB (British Sky Broadcasting) satellite TV network. I wonder what their news reports look like.
Are you dumb? Or do you just like spouting bullshit? The BBC has nothing to do with Sky or BSB.
When satellite TV was in its infancy in the UK, there were two rival providers, British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB) and Sky. In a short time, the two merged (in effect, Sky bought out BSB) and the name of the company became British Sky Broadcasting (BSB still), or Sky for short. Sky is now the only satellite broadcaster in the UK.
At no stage did the BBC own a share of either original company and at no stage has it owned a share of the merged company. So, you're entire post is total crap.
The BBC's channels are broadcast on Sky, and it pays Sky for this service, just as its channels are broadcast by NTL and Telewest (UK cable TV providers) and pays for that service too.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Yes you are obliged to pay if you have a tuner but that doesn't mean you HAVE to pay. Just do what i do, throw the bill in the trash.
If some inspectors come around make sure you don't have the tv in plain sight from the door and simply don't invite them in.
My friend, when he was a student, simply replied when the inspectors asked if they cound enter: "go get the cops". And then he shut the door.
Problem solved.
Here, you're reproducing a common German conspiracy theory. Please stop spreading this myth, it lacks any factual basis. The GEZ man is not allowed to enter your home and check. If you let him in, it's your fault. There are cases where the GEZ man threatened to call in the police, but as far as I know, they never actually did. After all, what is the police supposed to do? "Forcibly enter your home"? Is there any documented case where the police forcibly entered anyone's home without their permission on suspicion of not paying the GEZ fee? After all, you can sue even the GEZ man for "Hausfriedensbruch" (literally, breaking the peace of your home, i.e. trespassing) if he enters your home without your permission.
Under German law, the police is not allowed to enter your home without a warrant. A warrant has to be given by a judge upon evidence or strong suspicion of a crime. Note that by not paying the GEZ fee, under German law you are not committing a crime. German penal law distinguishes between crimes ("Straftaten") and minor offenses ("Ordnungswidrigkeiten"). Not paying the GEZ fee is a minor offense, and warrants aren't issued on a minor offense, let alone the mere suspicion of it. I don't remember even seeing a case where the police got called at all, let alone where they forcibly entered people's homes on a GEZ suspicion. There are cases where the GEZ man entered without being allowed, but then he was in break of law, and the victim could have sued him. (Note that in this particular situation [and only there], the evidence obtained by the GEZ man while under break of law is actually considered valid, even when he's sued, but if he's sued, he will not be employed by the GEZ again, as he's a convict in this case.)
If you kindly tell the GEZ man that you have neither a computer nor a TV set, what's he supposed to do? There are all these myths that they go through your garbage to see if you read TV journals, that they rent the flat opposite your own to spy on you and so on, but they usually lack any supportive evidence. According to 4, paragraph 5 of the Rundfunkgebührenstaatsvertrag (the "law" that regulates public broadcasting), they have an "Auskunftsrecht", but this does not pertain to searching your home, just to asking you for a truthful statement on whether you have a TV set. If you have one while stating that you don't, you obviously are in break of law. The GEZ is a bother, and some of their data is obtained by a questionable treatment of government data, but they are not a secret police of some sort, and if you don't believe this, you've never been out of that peaceful German shell where the GEZ man is the biggest of all troubles. They are allowed to go around and ask if you have a TV, and to look through your door and through your window from outside if you actually have one. This is all they're allowed to do, and even for this they need a special law in place.
If you have a TV, while you claim that you don't have any for the purpose of not paying, you are committing a minor offense, like it or not. If your TV or your PC is visible from the street or from the door when you open it to the GEZ man, you are admitting to this minor offense. I mean, under German law you are required to pay this fee if you have a TV, like it or not. This is all of the "big trouble" you're in. If you don't like it, join one of the various petitions, but in the meantime, you are still obliged to pay it, whether you watch ARD or not.
If you're German
As a state gets corrupt, its laws multiply; the most corrupt states have the most numerous laws. (Tacitus, Annales 3:27)
You didn't get it. This is not a "tax". It's not collected by a governmental organization subordinate to the ministry of finance (who is responsible for collecting taxes over here). It is a _fee_ for watching public broadcast stations like ARD, ZDF, Deutsche Welle etc, who don't make most of their money by advertising. Want to watch a movie without advertising?
:-(
As far as the PCs, most of it has been said by others.
Nevertheless I consider this a bad idea, regarding the sometimes Gestapo-like behaviour of the GEZ (Gebühreneinzugszentrale, center for collecting TV fees) in the past. People who don't have a TV set or an internet connection but who do have a PC will certainly be queried by the GEZ folks. The point is that you have to pay the TV fees as soon as you have a functionable TV set, even if it is not connected to any antenna or power outlet, because you _could_ use it for watching TV with little additional effort.
open (SIG, "</dev/zero"); $sig = <SIG>; close SIG;
So they make you to pay for a service you don't want by forcibly bundling it with something you do. Why should someone who owns a TV and doesn't watch BBC have any more obligation to pay for the BBC than someone with no TV at all.
Either make the BBC fee a "for-real" tax that applies to everyone, or do what regular companies do and only provide it for those who pay.
By setting the minimum possible cost of Internet access to 17 Euros per month, the very poorest have been excluded from the Internet.
This is bullshit. If you are poor, you don't have to pay the fee. The only case in which you will have to pay more than before is if you are above the income limits, have no television, but own a computer.
I am German, but I have lived in the US and UK.
* the BBC is one of the best public broadcasters out there. The Brits can complain as much as they want, but mother BBC still rulez.
* ARD/ZDF have some of the highest budgets in europe, but produce hardly any acclaimed programms
* the ARD is not one single big station, but a conglomerat of smaller staate specific broadcasters
* according to the law the public broadcasters have to inform and educate the public. But in recent years they are showing more and more 'commercial' stuff and try to get around the advertising ban after 8:00pm (product placement etc.)
* neither ZDF nor ARD offer internet live streams on a daily basis, only small snippets, no archives of old programms or series
* every public broadcaster and every staate channel has it's internet presence. They are usually not very well done and offer the usual boring mixture of news and show announcements
* commerical broadcasters have been complaining for a long time that they are at a disadvantage, since they are based solely on advertising revenue and the public broadcasters are trying to hard to produce similar content
* most germans get their broadband connection from german Telekom (the pure hardware and connectivity) and their flatfee for access by T-Online (which is an offspin of Telekom - like T-Mobile). The government owns large parts of Telekom. The usual combined costs for telephone, DSL connection and flat rate is about 40 to 90 Euro (depending on the options you choose).
So overall is costs a lot of euros to be connected (I haven't included any cell phone prices). IMHO there is hardly any value for my money, since both public broadcasters and Telekom were build/supported with tax money.
I am not a fan of privatising everything, since BT in the UK was extremely slow to adapt broadband and still is very expensive.
ARD/ZDF need to be trimmed to be more efficient and lean, they have grown too fat and lazy to fullfill their mission to serve the public.
Free dialup no longer exists in Germany.
We never had Free dialup in the first place over here. We also do have to pay for local phone calls, but we do not have to pay for calls coming in on our mobile phones.
Strange how stuff works differently in different parts of the world, eh?
Or is it basically a fine for owning a computer?
Actually a backdoor tax for the government-controlled tv and radio media.
The really problematic part is the totally unrelated taxing of businesses. Up to now, businesses must only pay such a fee if they have TV or radio used on the business premises. (Most bigger companies pay this already because company cars that have a radio installed are included). However, most small companies do not. Since most of them have computers that are connected to the Internet, what really happens is the additional tax of those small businesses, in turn making it even more difficult climate to start and sustain such small businesses that make up a big percentage of employment, and especially new employment.
The German Goverment(s) (since it must be approved by the German states) shows again their insensitivity for overregulation and backdoor taxes, which are a big factor to Germany's bad economic situation and high unemployment. No wonder, more and more highly qualified Germans are leaving their country in order to live and work somewhere else...