Slashdot Mirror
German Court Sets Copyright Tax on New PCs
graemee pastes: "The District Court of Munich has ordered Fujitsu Siemens Computers to pay a copyright levy on new PCs. The landmark decision, announced on Thursday, ends a nearly two-year dispute between the largely Germany-based computer maker and the country's VG Wort rights society, which has sought compensation for digital copying. VG Wort had filed a suit against Germany's largest PC maker, Fujitsu Siemens, seeking 30 euro (US$41) for each new computer sold in the country. The court agreed to a 12 euro copyright levy."
First they tax CD-R(W) media by default because they assume you will use them for copyright-protected content and now they're also making you pay an additional tax on computers because they assume you will illegally be using copyright-protected content on your computer. They just assume mens rea without proving it on an individual basis. Guilty until proven otherwise is the premise Germanic law is based on. The German legal system as well as all other modern legal systems are based on Roman law, which is based on the premise that you are innocent until proven guilty. How this decision could have come about is totally beyond me. What's next? An additional tax on eyeglasses because you might use them to view copyright-protected content?!
Just as a reminder, the four levels of mens rea set forth in the MPC (Model Penal Code) are:
In Germany dogs pay tax (true), and TV and Radio receivers pay tax also (16EUR/month). There is a tax of 16% in just about everything you buy, including most food items, and there is also a solidarity tax that goes to rebuild east Germany. If you don't ask for it, you will get a deduction called "church tax" from your paycheck, and at the end of the year there will be even more tax deductions.
Those who live for creating new taxes will succeed on collecting them, and their money will be one legally collected, but somehow not really deserved, which will benefit them on the short run only. The problem is obviously an old set of laws that were not created with the new Digital World in mind. Hopefully governments will call young people to revise outdated schemes making impossible for old structures to predate on people's resources in such ominous ways.
For the rest of us, there is a law that says: "hecha la ley, hecha la trampa" ("done the law, done the trap" or, there is always a way around a stupid law). Hack your system.
I can add some perspective as someone who has received funds from VG Wort, because after all, this is all about people like me, right? The whole point is to protect the rights of copyright holders and ensure that they are adequately compensated for their work. So is it really worth it?
I co-authored some long-since-forgotten academic articles and a book back in my days as a graduate student. The articles appeared in some conference proceedings, and the book, as well as a couple of the articels, were published in the Lecture Notes series of the Springer Verlag. So my name got put on a list somewhere, and every year for about three or four years, a check from VG Wort came in the mail.
To put it briefly, I could have just as well done without it. I don't know how they determined how much money was dispersed to each individual, it was based on some formula that I never bothered to try to understand. At any rate, it was nothing to get rich on, maybe about a hundred marks or so if I remember correctly (this was back before the Euro). About enough to take a girl out on a nice dinner date, once a year. Which of course is nothing to sneeze at, especially if you're a student hustling to make ends meet and struggling for ways to impress a girl. But I could have just as well managed without it. (If she's worth it, you always find a way, you know; and one nice dinner in a year won't get you very far.)
More prolific authors get more money from VG Wort, since the money is based on how much you've published. But I doubt that the cash from VG Wort makes a whole lot of difference to people who make their living as authors; they have to get the vast part of their income by other means.
So if this is the benefit to society that is to be gained by making everyone pay an extra 12 Euros for each PC, I think it's obvious that we can just as well pass it up. Aside from all the philosophical debates about copyright law and whether it's fair and just to pay creators of content this way, the practical effects of the scheme are just not very significant. Why put this added burden on the buyers of PCs just so some student can take someone out once a year? It's better for everyone, economically and socially, to keep the prices of computer hardware down than to extend this meager benefit to copyright holders.
Always keep a sapphire in your mind
As a footnote: the movie industry has used lots of pressure on shops and video stores to forbid the import of non-RC2-DVDs (you can't buy/rent them anywhere anymore). There are sometimes price differences that you could order an RC1-DVD-player from amazon.com with your RC1-DVDs and pay less than buying the RC2-DVDs in Germany.
Example: just waiting for the 4th season of Angel;
RC1: ~42 Euros from playusa.com(+possible customs and German VAT (16%))
RC2: 110-120(!) Euros, depending on the shops..