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.
I'm so happy to see the German broadcasters finally making money off of their value-added services.
I was unaware of the "TV Tax" in Europe, so I checked with my friend google and came up with the following:
Official website for the UK: http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/
I'd like to propose a new pay TV service to you.It will provide you with 5 broadcast channels. Yes, broadcast channels--cable or satellite will cost substantially extra. These are not specialty or niche channels. They just contain your usual mix of re-runs, soap operas, sitcoms, and miniseries; you will love some of these programs, dislike others, and ignore many of them. And, yes, there will commercials.
Subscribing to this service will cost you $15 a month. Not subscribing will cost you $1600. Those are your only choices. Take your pick.
Doesn't sound like a good deal? Welcome to England.
That's right: England--home of the Magna Carta, birthplace of modern civil liberties, cradle of the freedom of the press--does not allow a citizen to so much as own a television unless he pays £112 per year for a license. And don't try to fool TV Licensing. If you live in a flat with no TV license, you will receive a series of ominous letters warning you that agents of the government could drive down your block at any moment, hunting for contraband picture tubes, ready to fine you £1000 if they find one. (How do I know about these letters? Don't ask.) Stores cannot so much as sell you a VCR without reporting your name and address to the Powers That Be.
And if your TV purchase somehow slips through the net, TV Licensing's website warns, "the fact that our enquiry officers are now so well equipped with the latest technology means that there is virtually no way to avoid detection... We can detect a TV in use, in any area. That's because every TV contains a component called the 'local oscillator', which emits a signal when the television is switched on. It's this signal that the equipment on our vans picks up." The websight also contains anecdotes that are presumably meant to humanize the inspectors, but which come across as rather chilling. Witness, for example, the one about the husband and wife who refuse the inspector entry, hurriedly shut their curtains, attempt to sneak the TV into the trunk of their car, and drive off.
So, which branch of the government has such terrifying powers as to send grown men and women scurrying into the night like common criminals? Is such mighty authority vested in the hands of Scotland Yard, or MI5? Nope: the men hunting through the mean streets of London for rogue local oscillators are employees of the BBC, which may be the only pay network in the world with the authority to forcibly acquire customers. And you thought HBO had a brilliant business model.
TV Licensing is merciful, though. Blind people who own colour TV's need only pay £56 a year. If that sounds generous, reflect that fully sighted people who own black and white tellies pay only £37.50. According to the wisdom of TV Licensing, it is a greater hardship to see a program in black and white than not to see it at all.
And in case you're wondering: blind people with black and white TV's only pay £18.72 a year. I'd ask why being unable to see a colour television costs more than being unable to see a black and white one, but an unmarked van just drove slowly by my flat, and I think I need to go hide.
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.)
This really is a bad thing. They try to apply an aged system to the internet.
;-).
The good thing is: If you don't tell them you have a PC, you don't have to pay. So I'll not pay. I know I have a DSL connection, but fortunately they are not allowed to use such data, due to privacy restrictions. Even if they know: You can have an Internet Connection, as long as you don't have an Internet capable PC. And I only have a VoIP phone, of course
Anyway, this law is plain stupid. Also, the so called GEZ, who collects the money, is almost Stasi-like. Well that maybe is a bit exaggerated, but they have nasty tricks to make you pay, and to find out if you have a TV set or not (which I don't have). So from next year on, I can't trust anyone coming to my door, it maybe is the GEZ. Some common tricks:
- Someone asks you if you could answer them some questions, for marketing or whatever. They'll ask you if for example you've seen some TV show yesterday. If you say yes, you'll hear from them again for sure.
- Someone says he needs to come in to read the water/electricity/etc. meter. When inside, they'll look around for TV sets or radios.
- There have been cases where they rent an apartment for example on the other side of the street and take photos of your TV !
So, I'll not pay because I don't use their f*cking TV service, and I don't want to pay this Stasi-like apparatus.
BTW, american copyright and patent laws are coming to Europe ! Hurray !
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
IX-conference Eclipse 3.0! Now book!
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)
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
-As far as I can tell, this is similar to the fee tacked onto CD burner sales
No, it's not.
Then please, by all means, elaborate.
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)
We used to have a system like that in the Netherlands, where you would have to pay a certain amount of money (~50 Euro??) per year if you owned a TV set. This was in a country where probably 95 percent of the people has a TV. The system involved TV ads that reminded you to pay and an army of inspectors to check if those who didn't pay were not secretly watching.
Occasionally politicians do have common sense, so they got rid of the system a few years ago. Now it's just payed by taxes, regardless if you are watching or not. This was a big win: no more bureaucracy, no more paranoia for the inspectors (we never payed in my student house) and the state saved around 20MEuro instantly on salaries.
karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
- 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.
- the German system is designed in this way specifically to give the government less power over broadcasting. If the government doesn't fund broadcasting themselves, they don't have a say in what's getting broadcast.
The whole point of the German system is to have a TV station that can afford to produce a high-quality program with balanced news coverage, without being influenced either by the state or by private sponsors.As a state gets corrupt, its laws multiply; the most corrupt states have the most numerous laws. (Tacitus, Annales 3:27)
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.
- Even if it doesn't have a TV tuner, it's easy to hook up a satellite receiver or VCR to the computer via video-in. With digital VCRs becoming popular, it's even easier to do so via FireWire.
- You can watch ARD and ZDF broadcasts over the Internet.
This way, the only people "unjustly" affected are the very small crowd of people who don't watch TV at all, but who do have a computer, albeit one incapable of watching Internet broadcast streams. It would have been possible to impose the fee on VCRs and TV tuner cards instead. As far as I'm concerned, this would have been the best solution, but I don't have much of a say in the legislation over here. It was probably too complicated for the average Joe, and it doesn't account for the internet streams. Most people don't get affected by this anyway, as they have a TV already.Copying broadcast material is legal already in Germany, as long as you clearly see it's from a broadcast (i.e. the station's logo in one of the corners). This led to an awkwardly complicated situation once where, basically, one guy was forbidden to sell a device that removes the logo from a broadcast, because that could have been used to make illegal copies of broadcast material. Not the best ruling, as far as I'm concerned.
As a state gets corrupt, its laws multiply; the most corrupt states have the most numerous laws. (Tacitus, Annales 3:27)
Mr German government man, why are you taxing the internet?
Shut up! Vee ask all zee kvestions!
Ahem... so, shouldn't I be able to choose if I want to pay for a public channel or not? Does government consider that I am not smart enough when I watch TV? Moreover, what is the percentage of Internet connected PCs which are used to watch german TV in Germany?
Here, in Spain, public TV and radio channels (three radio stations, two TV channels plus one satellite open channel, supported by taxes, and amounting a -1 Billon Eur deficit) are, by far, the worst available. Sponsor's aren't out of them, and most visible sponsor is always the governing party.
I don't know what 18 Eur represent compared to the German average salary, but as far as I can tell, that's 90% of the monthly fee of some ADSL connections in Spain. If public TV was to be paid by Internet users, I'm sure most people would drop their home connections and use office's bandwidth.
Great. Like I asked them to put their crap on the web. Like I ever watched their crap on the web. Like it's their web. Like they produce anything that's not crap. I like the internet because it's not TV. It makes it so much easier to not give in and watch TV. Yep, I should really pay for the privilege of being potentially capable to watch TV where I don't want it, and where they could easily restrict access to their GEZ-paying customers. But that'd make sense, can't let that happen now can we.
This is absoulutely INSANE.
The German State has, to a greater or lesser extent, discouraged ownership of Internet access.
Free dialup no longer exists in Germany. By setting the minimum possible cost of Internet access to 17 Euros per month, the very poorest have been excluded from the Internet.
What's worse is that this tax does not even fall upon those who consume the material the tax money funds - it falls upon everyone, indiscriminately.
And this has been done in the name of supporting a State run enterprise!
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Toby
if the government does not interfere with broadcasting at all, you get a media environment like the US
The government doesn't interfere with broadcasting in the US? Where can I get what you're smoking?! Ever heard of the FCC? How about the ol' digital broadcast mandate? or the 550k fine to Viacom over the superbowl incident? or the limits on broadcast ownership? or licensing of the broadcast spectrum?
Quantity of channels isn't everything. In Britain a majority of people have only five channels of TV. Two of those are BBC channels paid for by the license fee, one (Channel 4) is mostly owned by the government and the other two are entirely privately owned but have government controls that limit their advertising and control minimum levels of news and public service broadcasts. The programmes available on these channels is largely intelligent, informative, entertaining, and not repeated too often. We also can go for longer than five minutes without getting the attention span beaten out of us with advertising.
We also have Cable, Satellite and Digital Terrestrial TV available, with huge numbers of channels. With the exception of Digital Terestrial, it's nearly* all crap. It's filled wall to wall with American sitcoms, reality TV, and endless repeats.
Freeview (Digital Terestrial) TV looks like it might be a way out of this largely because it is limited in the broadcase bandwidth available but it still has quite a large number of repeats.
Given the choice between US style programmes repeated endlessly on hundreds of channels, or a few channels of quality programmes paid for through the BBC and other state-mandated (not controlled) expenses, I will go for what we have.
*Note that I said nearly. Sky One happens to show some things I want to watch, like Buffy, the Simpsons and Stargate Atlantis and it doesn't put too much advertising in it's frontline shows. It does however repeat them each about 8 times across two channels, with much more advertising.
A latent existence
in germany the publich broadcast channels you have to pay for (öffentlich-rechtlich) are showing commercials almost all the time. i think from 8p.m. on they are (as of now) not allowed to show any advertisements anymore...although they always try to expand this. my question on this: why the heck are they forcing people to pay for their program - watching it or not - when they fill it with commercials just like the private stations?
... you get the point... (so you als have to pay for a VCR even if you don't have a TV!)
my second thought on this:
these channels (e.g. ZDF - the second station) also spend huge amounts of money to advertise for themself: driving through the streets around here in germany you will find lots of highly paid celebrities covering one eye and smiling down from road signs and huge advertisements telling you that "you better see on the second" (meaning you should watch ZDF).
so if you think about it they take the money from everybody who owns a TV, produce a commercial or advertisement with this money, just to make you watch their program, which you have to pay for anyways - if you watch it or not. WTF? by the way even the GEZ (the organization knocking on your door trying to peek into your flat to spot a TV set and making you pay for it) also spends a lot of money on commercials urging you to pay...
third thought on this:
there have been some wrong statements on this in different posts. i'll try to clarify the whole thing:
1. you have to pay this fee for every device that is technically able to receive the broadcasts. meaning you have to pay for every TV, VCR (which normally has an own tuner), radio - also car radio, alarm clocks, TV-Tuner-Card
2. if you own 2 TVs, the socond one is free. but only if it's located in the same house/appartment. if you have a second house with a second TV - you have to pay twice (why? idunno - i can only watch one TV at a time right?)
3. if you pay for a TV (about 13,50 $/month) you don't have to pay for a radio - otherwise a radio costs about 4,50 $/month
in my mind the fee is much too high - i pay 13,50$/month whereas i pay about 12,00$ fo rmy cable connection...ok this fee is used to fund about 60 radio stations, 26 orchestras and big bands...but hey, is this the "basic service"??
also consider the print area - there are no "öffentlich-rechtliche" papers out there - still nobody would say that people get misinformed and everybody agrees that there are many good and thrustworthy newpspapers ot there (all private): Spiegel, Die Welt, Die Zeit...
need an appartment or house in bavaria?
We get first class TV for £10 a month.
THat includes hits like "Walking with dinosaurs", "The Blue Planet", the Athens 2004 Olympics broadcast and webcast, critical journalists that keep politicians in check, a classical music only radio station.
All this and more for a meagre £10 a month.
No, it does not bother me.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
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)
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.
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...
Their argumentation was that all PCs can 'easily' be upgraded into receiving TV and/or Radio. It holds no water because it's equally easy to go out and buy a TV set or a radio.
Their license fees stem from times when there was only terrestric TV broadcast - there is no way to control who receives and watches them, and thus the general public is paying. I can give them *that*, but there's no way they should be allowed to extend it to internet broadcasts, simply for the reason that those *can* be controlled. No one is forcing the public stations to offer web sites and video/radio streams. They came on the internet, and it's their choice. Either they introduce restrictions on that content, so only those who paid the license fee can watch the streams (because they ultimately pay for the production), or they decide to make it public, but cannot in turn demand everyone pay a fee, no matter whether they use their site or not.
There's public protests starting. Let's hope they succeed.
follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/moeffju
If you don't pay your insurance premium, the insurance company will cut you off, and the government will stop you from driving your car. If caught, you'll be sentenced in a government court, attended by government lawyers (including a government lawyer for you, if you can't pay your own). The fines are enforced by government cops, with government guns, and refusals to comply are met with government jails. The US has all kinds of mandatory government fees for private corporations. This German fee happens to support their private/public broadcasters.
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make install -not war