Slashdot Mirror
Dutch Pass iPod Tax
An anonymous reader writes "The Register is reporting that in a few short months a proposal to tax all MP3 players in the Netherlands will become law. The levy taxes 3.28 euros ($4.30 US) for every gigabyte of capacity. This means a 60GB iPod Photo will be hit for an additional 196 euros ($258), all of it going to the record industry's copyright collection agencies. And they call file sharers thieves?"
Well I'm an American that went to grad school in the Netherlands and in my personal opinion it seems that much is changing in the Netherlands for the worse. There is a lot of pressure being put on their government by the United States, which just adds to the current tensions.
A lot of the "problems" the United States has the Netherlands shares, like immigration (the Turkish, etc.). I absolutely loved the two years I spent there and only hope that they don't buy into the US corporate way of messing stuff up.
This iPod tax seems completely absurd and I hope that this proposal is just that, a proposal and nothing more. Just my two euros...
I hate to pay a "steal" tax. But if I'd pay 258$ steal tax, I'd "steal"....
The answer IS 42.
This means a 60GB iPod Photo will be hit for an additional 196 euros ($258), all of it going to the record industry's copyright collection agencies
I think SOMEONE didn't quite think this through. I don't doubt that consumers will simply revolt, either running across the border to purchase their electronics, or just not buying them, until some idiot politicians receive enough letters and this whole measure is canned.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
196 euro extra?! Does it even cost that much?
I'd just buy a MP3 player that has low onboard memory, but that takes removable memory. Voila! Less than 5 bucks o' tax, infinite memory.
"Plans are for fools! Oglethorpe, the plutonian (Aqua Teen Hunger Force)
Apple stores in Germany will probably welcome this law ;-)
wheres the details? sounds ridiculous and I wager it's not true.
because it takes like 2 and half hours from e.g. Amsterdam to drive to the next big german city, where a lot of people will be more than happy to sell mp3 players to angry dutch customers.
and: people will just buy them by mail order, because there is no customs check inside the EU.
IAAL
While this seems extravagent (it is), places like The Netherlands and Sweden, etc. have excellent copyright and IP laws. Its widely known that taxes in those countries are very high, but unlike some nations (cough), you see that cash put to work. It would be interesting to see how they handle iPods bought in Germany or France, and brought over.
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun the frumious Bandersnatch.
This is even more reason for an MP3 player to come with a drive bay. You buy it without a drive, then add your own. Makes upgrades a snap, and has no Dutch taxes!
I thought it was a joke. Adding $258 to the cost of a 60gb Ipod? Thats not a tax, that is the stupidest thing I've ever heard!
Like the article says, what happens when we get 100gb, or 200gb ipods (it'll happen eventually), then we're talking about not just doubling the cost of an Ipod but tripling it.
Don't they realise this amazingly exorbitant taxation will only lead to illegal importing? And I thought the U.S. Government had lost its way....
There's a similar levy on blank media, in my native Denmark.
But, I honestly don't see how they can justify having a levy on media that can be used for assumed copyright infringement, and at the same time seek redress for copyright infringement - isn't the levy supposed to be a sort of "shared" payment for the copyright infringement that occurs?
I mean, they can't have both. Either they have un-levied media, and sue copyright infringers. Or the other way around. Having both is getting paid twice for the same supposed loss.
And that looks like fraud to me.
- Peter Ravn Rasmussen
The concept of taxing something to offset the effects of illegal activity. I mean, it hurts those who use it for legit purposes. But I guess this is what happens when the special interest groups and the lobbyists get their way. Perhaps we need a higher rate of legislators per number of persons, which would allow grassroot campaigning.
1) Charge a ridiculous tax on iPods
2) Profit!
Wait a second, something's missing here.
It is very kind of the Dutch parliment to create this new business opportunity for the electronics retailers of Germany and Belgium. Let us hope that other EU member states approach this issue with a less corrupt attitude. Meanwhile, I'm going to invest in electronics outlets in Antwerp and Aachen.
Another good reason to use OGG... *ducks*
Anyway, who is to say they won't turn around and start using this as a precedent?
After all, people use their ISP connections to "steal" their music, buy hard drives to store their "stolen" music, buy CPUs to run media player applications to listen to their "stolen" music.... etc
Where will they draw the line? When will they stop?
Besides, why do they just tax the iPod only? What about other mp3 players? What about cell phones with mp3 capabilities? Heck, what about pocket PCs and other PDAs even?
I think Apple's popularity has came back to bite Apple in their gonads...
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
not 'pass' tax. Hasn't been passed yet.
This is really great news!
It's always great to see how the recording industry penalizes a system that allows people to legally listen to music.
I'm sure that the record industry's copyright collection agencies will hand the money gathered through this tax to needy musicians.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for musicians being able to make a living, but penalizing a system that encourages people to buy music online is just plain stupid.
mmmmmmmm.....iPot.....
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
... how can people get fooled n-times. First you pay tax when buying DRM protected music, that can't be played on your player (remember the BBC story about britons being frustrated with DRM?), then you pay tax *just in case* the music you store on your player is stolen. I mean WT*!! Isn't it enough to have to pay a very similar tax for all storage devices?
You still can buy great hashish, marijuana, pre-rolled joints and space cookies in every other coffee shop in Amsterdam. And if you ask the right people, they'll point you in the direction of some dark alley where you can get an untaxed ipod. Just don't let the DEA catch you.
From the article...
The idea of all levy based legislation is that some form of copyright collections agency collects tax by imposing a surcharge at the point of sale for any storage devices that could possibly be used to store pirated works.
Already in Germany there is a levy on PC hard drives, that will soon become larger than the entire PC industry revenue if it is left in place. Within two years, as disk drive sizes move to terabyte class on notebooks, and petabyte levels on home DVRs, the tax will come to far outweigh not just the cost of the drive, but the cost of the device. Under this Netherlands law, if it were extended to the PC, the cost of 1,000 GB would be 3,280 ($4,300) and yet drives of this size will be delivered by 2007.
Sell the damn things without drives and have people buy the drives as DRIVES - separately. How asinine this is - especially for a Euro country!
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
However, similar regulations already exist for blank CD-ROMs, tapes, and photocopiers, because it is assumed that these are (partly) used for the copying of copyrighted material.
Such copying is legally allowed, the levy exists as a compensation for the copyright holders.
I think it is possible that a levy on MP3 players will come into existence but at much lower sums than now proposed.
Apple could sell iPods there with removable hard drives. Buy an iPod with 0 memory and then purchase a mini HDD as a separate item. Combine the two and evade the tax.
Yes, I understand that the tax applies to every mp3 player. Everyone could do the same thing.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
The only solutions are to reduce the power of the government, and/or to move these powers to more regional authorities (thus increasing the cost require to influence the entire nation).
If my entire use of my audio equipment is to record and playback music that I have written, performed, and recorded, is it fair to ask me to pay this tax?
It's not a hypothetical question. I use my musical gear exclusively for music that I write, perform and record myself.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Since this isn't an iPod specific law, why is this in the Apple section?
New York: Shady character standing in front of the Apple Store selling weed
Amsterdam: Shady character standing in front of the coffee shop selling imported iPods
Hear recorded Slashdot headlines on your phone! New service beta testing. Just call (248) 434-5508
pass v.tr
...
10. To discharge (body waste, for example); void.
It makes a bit more sense if you read it ("Dutch discharge body waste in the form of iPod tax") that way.
Actually this 'bill' is being initiated by the Foundation for the Home Copy and has not been passed yet. The weird thing is that there are a couple of those 'foundations' which are supposed to be not for profit. If you startup a new restaurant of something along the lines you will get about (no joke) 20 of such foundations asking for money.
BUT it is very difficult to find out were the money they make is going to.
- In Memoriam: Jeroen de Bruin (1972-2004), bye bro
Well, they "tried" to get a "per gigabyte" dollar value, but the CPCC got turned-down.
Personally, if it passed, I'd just buy in the US and bring it into Canada (Canada Customs does NOT apply levies to purchases, just taxes). This sort of thing makes Canadian Retailers scream bloody murder.
But the fact remains, the music industry can't have it both ways. If I pay the "MP3 player/media tax", then I have no moral issue at all with downloading or sharing files. If they want to revoke the levy, then I won't download. Simple as that.
If they try and increase the levy AND ban file sharing, I'll buy my media/MP3 players out of the country AND still share files.
N.
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
I'm from the Netherlands, and I can tell you first of all, that The Register is a bit slow when it comes to news reporting.. and second of all, yes, this is only an idea this organisation called "Stichting Thuiskopie" (Home-copy Organisation) had. They are a tool of the justice dept. in our government.
:) Not every silly idea actually makes it to become law.
Seriously guys, don't expect this to really happen, it's impossible
For more info (in dutch), this is a letter
There's dude, like, dude, TONS of germans, belgians and french, dude, hopping over the border to get hold of the more, like, exquisit Dutch agricultural products. And dude, I'm not talking, like fucking tulips here, right? So like, I guess the dudes just got themselves a whole new currency to pay with.
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
You are right, the Dutch article/news mentioned iPod in particular because it is the predominant player in the market.
But the news mentioned further that it goes for all players, and then it might also get applied to:
USB keys, hard disk drives, cellular phones.
But it is plain idiocy. I *CAN* use an USB key for storing illegal content, yes. But what about my recovery tools for systems I do administering for?
I swear, where the photo industry has seen new opportunities now that digital photography is a hard reality the music industry is still a bunch of clueless morons living in the early 1920's.
Jeroen Ruigrok/Asmodai
Well, this is old news in Holland (see article on tweakers.net, English version available too).
For now it is a prooposal only, but the current Dutch government is pretty good in 'silently' upgrading such things to law.....
In fact, the proposal is even worse than mentioned in the article.
The tax is not only intended for iPods/MP3 players, but for ANY device capable of storing copyrighted content for later playback.
That includes, computers, HD and DVD video recorders, even spare HD's, SD and Comapct Flash memory, etc.
All major computer manufacturers have already written letters to the Dutch prime-minister stating, that if this insanity becomes law, they will be forced to withdraw from the Dutch market.
Several members of the Dutch parliament (at least from the opposition parties) have spoken out their concern's about this too.
So far the government has made no attempt to actually get this "law" throught the legislation process.
I just hope they never will get around to it.
Current Dutch political climate is such that no Parliament member will vote against party policy. The parties of the ruling coalition will never vote against the government so any proposal is bound to be accepted.
Am I wrong in thinking the following?
Guy puts a song on his server, gets hauled into court and is ordered to pay the RIAA (or the equivalent in whatever country we are talking about this week) for the lost revenue ie "damages"
However, said country has a law in place that assumes all MP3 player owners will steal music and preemptively compensates the industry when the user buys the player. How then could the industry argue that people who share music are depriving them of revenue - they've already had it!
Within two years, as disk drive sizes move to terabyte class on notebooks, and petabyte levels on home DVRs, the tax will come to far outweigh not just the cost of the drive, but the cost of the device.
You're telling me that in two years, we'll have 1000GB laptop drives (~10x up) and 1000000GB desktop drives (~2000x up)? Man, Moore must have been a pessimist. Particularly since HDDs have been slowing down *greatly*. Since the first 3x83=250GB HDDs came in 2003, the GB/platter count has been inching along (as far as computers are concerned, at least) with Seagate leading the pack with 133GB/platter. The only real "growth" has been from pushing the number of platters back up to 5 (The IBM GXP75 series had 5*15GB), leading to 5*100GB HDDs. Even hitting 1TB in 2007 seems optimistic just about now. I'd guess more like 800GB, unless there's a "TB race" on the way there was a "GHz race".
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
that your computer with a 200+ Gig HD can play mp3s too.
1) Charge a ridiculous tax on iPods
2) Profit!
Wait a second, something's missing here.
Yeah, you're missing step 3:
3) ???
which represents the confusion and consternation of the general populace
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
As I (in the Netherlands) still have the right to make a copy for personal use, this is a ridiculous proposal. I have NO illegal mp3's. All the music on my player, I have already paid for.
There are allready taxes (small, but they are there anyway) on CDR(W) tapes etc... for the same purpose. People should start demanding those taxes back when they can prove that they burned data/audio on it they have either already paid for or does not require any payments (backups, linux distro etc). Better yet... remove these taxes altogether... as they are demonstrating the hideous way the world is turning into : a 'firewall' concept. Deny everyone, not only the 'bad' people, but also the good), and let the good people demand access, then grant them access.
People are not computers. Rules (Laws) should be trying to prevent or punnish bad things, not to hinder good things.
Put extra money into catching the bad guys, but don't get to much in the way of the good guys.
I don't have anything to hide, but that doesn't mean you can invade my privacy.
I don't have illegal music, so don't tax me like I do.
Good grief, if they applied that to regular hard drives, you'd be paying $160 for the drive and over $1000 in music taxes for a 250GB drive! Drives are up to 500GB now, and are expected to be up to a TB in 2006, that would be a $4000 tax!
While they're at it, why don't they just tack on a 10 cent tax per sheet of blank paper...maybe the book industry should claim that the reason sales of books are down is because of Internet file sharing.
Guess it's time to start marketing OGG players?
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
If you think an iPod tax is outrageous, since three years now France has levied a tax of around $1.50 on every blank CD sold. This money goes a the "copyright protection" organisation as well. I can see a music tax being levied where the music is, as most probably 99% of iPod users use their players for music - but CD's? Are there any other abusive laws like this in any other countries? This tax is still in effect here, but as usual, after an inital bout of protest, it's faded mumble-grumble from our minds...
No, no sig. Really.
ThePromenader
So, I bought my car in the Netherlands. They even have higher taxes on those, than here in Austria.
I paid my tax in austria and came away with a saving of somewhere in the 3000-4000 EUR (4000+ US$).
Since we can trade goods without problems and import tax, you can buy something for the price including tax in germany and ship it to the netherlands.
Friends of mine do that with blank CD's and DVD's thru ebay all the time. We also have a lot of tax on those, but when you already paid your tax in germany, you don't have to do so in Austria again.
It all just boils down to knowing what to buy where and how.
Course, Apple will loose a bit of sales in the Netherlands, but maybe that will leave us with "upgradeable" ipods with exchangable HD's? Sometimes even big cooperations get creative, if they fear they will sell less.
-- MicAttAck
Religon is an insult to human dignity.
To quote from the link: "Het bestuur van de SONT heeft nog geen besluit genomen over de hoogte van het tarief; de onderhandelingen zijn gaande. Berichten die suggereren dat er al enige duidelijkheid is over de hoogte van een tarief zijn onjuist.", which translates as, "The management of the SONT has not decided yet on the height of the tax; that is still being negotiated. Any statements that suggest that there is any clarity on the height of the tax are false." This message is from April 2005.
The tax on blank DVDs is something like a couple of cents. I suspect that the tax on storage space in MP3-players will probably not be much higher.
it was in the netherlands that i purchased the cheapest and coolest mp3 player i've ever seen.
..
5 euro's.
it didn't come with storage; it uses SD cards. so no tax applicable here.. because i just add my own 1gig SD cards, and away we go
all this means is, in the netherlands, mp3 playing capability won't be paired with storage.. it'll be a user-add.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
This logic is great. It works well for struggling third-world African nations, so it should work well in Europe and the US as well! If that's your solution to a proposed surcharge on iPods in the Netherlands, I'd love to see what your solution to a genuine concern would be.
I also enjoy how you can't say copying other's copy-righted works without paying is "stealing" without 5 or 6 angry replies, but putting a fully-disclosed surcharge on a luxury item is an obvious example of thievery and stealing. Not to say I support the surcharge, but this manipulation of language to suit the group-view strikes me as a bit ugly.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
The single market in the European Union means that people living in the Netherlands can just buy their iPods, blank CD-Rs etc from a country like the UK, which doesn't impose taxes like this. Which is one reason why I bet the proposal will end up either being dropped, or else watered down sufficiently to create less of an incentive for shopping around.
My worry is that the UK will end up being forced to adopt similar levies in the name of "harmonisation", which would be ruinously expensive for those of us who only buy blank CD-Rs to use for data rather than music.
While the proposal is real, the register's claim it will be Eur 3.28 per gigabyte is not correct. The website of the Stichting Thuiskopie explicitly states (loosely translated): "Reports stating there is any agreement at all about the level of taxation are incorrect".
He who laughs last, thinks slowest.
I think this is kind of academic as goods are allowed to be freely distributed for personal use within the EC, and anyone in Holland who wants an ipod will just buy it mail-order from the UK or somewhere without the tax.
Exactly the same thing has happened with the iTrip - it is illegal to sell or use here in the UK but so many have been imported, that they are turning a blind eye to the selling now.
It's a bit like trying to tax the super wealthy - if you try to do it too much, they just move somewhere else, and you end up with no money.
I am sure that the shop sellers of ipods will just arrange to have them delivered from another country, but will lose out big time to the intenet and mail-order sales. If they want to destroy their high-street shops, who are we to stop them?
Humorous signatures are over-rated.
It is not reasonable at all...
I am being falsly accused and fined for violating someones copyright everytime I buy a CD-R even though the contents I burn on them are perfectly legal. (i.e. the last CDs I burned were linux distros)
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
I can play mp3s on every single computer I have, and collectively, my computers have over 1tb of disk. Does that mean that if I lived in The Netherlands, I'd need to pay US$5000 in *TAX* to the recording industry on my *COMPUTER* storage?!?
Next, someone will propose a tax on raw hard drives just because someone might put MP3s on it???
Come on!
They do not tax blank paper just yet.. But they *DO* tax *owning* a copier as well FAX machines! The reason being that you *could* use these to copy books or magazines with copyrighted material.
I get more and more discusted by these MAFIA organisations, who are somehow legalised by the Dutch government. It's totally *SICK*
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
The fact that many people may use illegally copied music on their iPod is utterly irrelevant. My MP3 player is populated with songs ripped from my own CD collection - if I were to buy a new player this would still be the case. Why should I pay what amounts to a fine for a criminal act that I haven't committed?
Assumption of innocence is the founding principle of the legal system in all vaguely civilised countries. This tax (and other like it) are based on an assumption of guilt. For this reason alone they should appal anyone who has even the slightest respect for an individual's liberty.
Did you know the Dutch are allready paying this type of tax on Cassete tapes, DVD-ROMS and CD-ROMS? Effectively, if you are just using DVD's as storage space, part of your money still goes to the movie industry (or so the dutch taxes make you beleive). I guess they still don't have enough money, so now they'll blindly start taxing storage space as well. In a few years you could actually be paying taxes on your harddrive because you potentially could store music or movies on it. It is allready going there. On top of it all, the music industry is trying to cripple discs to keep you from copying them, and by doing so also keep some customers from actually playing the music. Also: Legal movies have 3 minutes of warning screens before the thing starts. Most illegal copies are stripped of these screens (thank god) and start immediately. "Nice way" to reward people for buying legal DVD's... And do you like the WMA DRM scheme where you can only play the music you bought on just the PC with which you bought it? You own it, and still you can't play it It just shows how much feeling the dutch governement, and the music/video industry has with the real world... Meanwhile, the players which take smartmedia cards or alike are the way to avoid these taxes, until Apple starts selling iPods and their drivers seperately: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000 04RG6K/102-6743478-3663353?v=glance
Because they were the ones who paid the politicians to draft, advocate and pass the law. Don't make the mistake of thinking that only the US suffers from this problem. Any country with a large, highly centralised government (which is pretty much the entire Western World) is going to suffer from the same issue.
It doesn't happen that way here in Sweden. And I'm sure there are many countries where that is not the case. I think what's important is that there is some choice, the fact that we have seven governmental parties puts some pressure on the top ones, if they would appear to sell them out to corporate interests, they'd instantly lose lots of votes to smaller parties with similar politics.
Don't make general conclusions out of some few countries. Not every western country has such bad political system as USA have. It is, for sure, possible to not let the large companies rule the country as they wish.
Since this is not an EU tax all they have to do to avoid it is go to another country to buy it. The train fare is less than the tax and you get a vacation out of it... Itdiots.
"It's because they're stupid, that's why. That's why everybody does everything." -Homer Simpson
Put a insanely large tax... on what may be your future primary income source. Genius DOH.
That would be true if this "tax" is supposed to support the welfare state. Instead it's there to subsidise the record companies who lobby to get these ludicrous taxes in place. They use the artist's benefits as an excuse, but in the mean time forget to mention that it's *them* who write killer contracts for the artists when those are no match in negotiations yet.
The same record companies refuse to acknowledge that their over-inflated profit rates from an ancient distribution model are about to melt away. So they revert to these outrageous methodes to extort money from customers and businesses *THAT ARE NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS*. They use the incredible money-pile they collected over the years to make that possible.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
I mean, there's no more customs between countries in "Europe" so what's to prevent people from having their iPods shipped from Belgium or Germany or Dänmark???
There's really no need to use profanity.
Yeah, the city government in Chicago weren't corrupt. And the corruption at our federal level is nothing compared to many county and city governments in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana,... The corruption in Florida was so bad that we passed a 'Sunshine Law' to prevent out-of-the-public-eye meetings of government decision makers. There is some question as to whether three city councilmen are allowed to have breakfast together.
Our national politicians are pandering to corporate interests, but most of this is above board, "We worship your ability to earn money, let us kiss your ass." rather than actual corruption (aka pay-for-performance). As long as campaign contribution caps are not being violated, is it right to call this 'corruption'?
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain
am i paying for the media or the quota of the media ? if i buy 'x' amount of storage, why not associate it with the amount of space? since, in case if the ipod or whatever goes phut or stolen, my tax money goes waste. so why not pay it for the 'x' number of gbs. create a license for the same. that ways - i buy 200 gbs of quota from the government. and the tax stays for whatever number of years. or does it ?
it opens up new avenues. what if the storage becomes cheaper ? does the tax stay uniform ? one of these days samsung or such volume players, decide that holographic storage is the way to go, and offers 150 terabytes on disk space from, say, the coming xmas season. how much tax do i pay then? this whole tax thing is crazy. this whole tax scene for something intangible as this is really, really crazy!!!
I'm going to run down to my travel agent this afternoon and book a plane ticket to Munich. While I'm there, I think I'll max out my credit card buying iPods, and jump on a train to Amsterdam. I should be able to make enough in black market sales to pay for my plane ticket home.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
Billary lover!!! Communist!!!!
If you don't love America and follow its leaders unquesiontionably, then get the hell out!
I'd love to stay and belittle you more, but I have to go to work my second shift. Health care ain't cheap, you know, and my WalMart job doesn't quite cover the $700/month health insurance I get rom my 9-5 IT job.
Yeah, right.
Actually, it's more like:
2) Profit??
Because I doubt they will see more than $10,000 of this iPod tax.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
It's not a good idea. It's a horrible idea. Just like I don't like paying tax for the healthcare of people I don't know, and just how I don't like putting money into someone's else's "retirement fund," I don't want to pay for other people to download music. It's not going to benefit me, so I, along with a lot of other people, would want no part of it.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
Now remeber children, once you've paid your pirate tax, it's OK to download anything you want. Go a head, you already paid the fine. If they try to sue you, just argue that if they can do that, then there is no point for the tax. They either have to choose one or the other.
I'd be all for that too, but you'd never get an iPod [aka luxury] tax tossed through congress to pay for something populist like health care.
That said, I just don't get this. Lets say there's a tax on MP3 players. That's fine, there's a tax on cigeretts too. But the taxes on cigeretts go to support publicly funded health care systems like Medicade which are designed to assist people who are dieing of things like lung cancer.
See how that works? Buy cigeretts, pay a tax, help fund your care when you have lung cancer. Have health insurance (through the government after your funds are exhosted) when you are dieing.
But when I pay taxes for an MP3 player (hypotheticly speaking) what do I get? Nothing. The money goes to the music people and I'm left out in the cold.
So let me rephrase your quip.
-shrug- I'd accecpt an iPod tax if I was given blanket copyright immunity for the device.
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
1. If universal health care worked as well in the US as universal education, I want no part of it. 2.You might have a point if the money from the iPod tax went to universal health care in any of those countries. It doesn't. It goes to the recording industry.
Anything else?
Thanks, my mistake. Wow, that's incredible though. How did that come to be, anyway? Did someone in Parliament with a brain trick the recording industry? Are there people who actually think there's a difference in the discs?
And we thought it was only Goldfinger who was a crazy dutchman...
Still, given the location of the Netherlands, would you rather spend Eu. 258 on the tax, or Eu. 100 to go to Belgium or Germany and buy it there?
Hell, wait til you're on holiday anywhere else in the european union.
I toggled a toggle and buttoned a button, but when I got done, I was done doin' nothin'.
Those are items that are illegal in Britain. Unless iPods become illegal in Holland then your barking up the wrong tree.
Under EU law, you cannot stop someone from buying something in one country for use in another. Of course, if it's actually illegal to possess that something in the country that the goods are going to then you'd have to be an idiot to do it, but the flow of the goods must be unimpeded in terms of trade restrictions - that's what the whole single market is about.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
1) Smuggle iPods into the Netherlands and trade them for weed.
2) Smuggle weed out of the Nehterlands and trade it for iPods
3) ????
4) Profit!
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated up.
Which we have in the US too, and same result.
I actually got a home stereo CD recorder (free), but I have never hooked it up as it will only work with audio CD-R discs, and I see no advantage.
It will make a digital copy if the source is a pressed CD, but if the source is a CDR it will go through a digital-analog-digital conversion first.
Stupid stupid stupid.
Honestly, universal health care scares me a bit. I had cancer last year, and I'm on an email list of people with the same cancer. The people on the list from Canada have huge waits just to see doctors... Some of them had to wait a month to get a biopsy, then another 2-3 months to actually start chemo. I had my biopsy the same week the xrays found tumors, and I started chemo less than 2 weeks after my biopsy. My cancer was already at a very, very advanced stage - if I'd had to wait another 2-3 months to start chemo, I could have died. If universal health care comes with those kinds of problems, I don't want it.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
Taxing the people for the benefit of industry? That is fascism, by definition: government and business working together (the U.S. military-industrial complex is another example).
Of course, fascism is easier in socialist nations, when you have a large, powerful, well-funded-by-already-high-taxes government to implement such fascist policy... A more-limited, smaller government is easier to watch over and thus, easier to prevent from doing such things...
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
The US doesn't have a CD-R/MP3 player tax like other countries.
How much you wanna bet?
This may come as a shock to you, but not only are you wrong, but the US was one of the first countries to introduce something like this.
The iTrip is banned as part of a general law making all FM transmitters illegal without a licence (which only Radio stations can get).
My Dad has one for his iPod and plays 60/70s tunes on it. He is the criminal!11one