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Spain Adds 'Copyright Tax' to Blank Media

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the angry-geeks dept.

Poker Forums writes "Just read on Zeropaid that Spain has recently voted in compulsory copyright licensing, levying a tax on all blank media. This includes cd-r, dvd-r, flash media, printers, scanners, cell phones, everything. The tax will be collected by the government and 'given to the copyright holder.'"

5 of 348 comments (clear)

  1. wow by PacketScan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They just legalized copyright infringement.

  2. okay, then the result should be by yagu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Okay, if laws are in place to fairly compensate the copyright owners by taxing recordable media the offshoot of that should be continued "enjoyment" of what we've come to know as fair use. Ostensibly this tax should cover disbursements back to the artists for any copying and/or sharing consumers do.

    A question from The Fine Article: "Is this an example of what is to come in the United States or other parts of Europe?", isn't this already a tax in place on recordable media in the United States? I seem to remember that a while back, or was it Canada?

    Regardless, the entertainment industry can't have it both ways, they either tax in advance and anticipation of our "abuses", or they implement draconian DRM. Unfortunately it's looking like they're getting both.

  3. Re:Some light by AvitarX · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I would hope you get some of the money with your personal photos.

    Seeing as your the copyright holder of the content of the DVD.

    I hope the people wrking on Linux Distros get the pay too, that's what I use my DVD's for.

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  4. Re:does that include by m874t232 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm curious to know how the money is divvied up among copyright holders.

    Generally, it's apportioned based on the number of lobbyists each copyright holder pays for, as well as the campaign contributions of copyright holders to current holders of elected office.

  5. FSF and Linus should get tons of money in Spain! by Morgaine · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Since the SGAE represents *all* copyright holders and collects funds on their behalf, we should expect the FSF (as the copyright holder of vast amounts of GNU software) and Linus (as the primary copyright holder for Linux) to receive a proportion of that income.

    And the SGAE can't easilydodge that responsibility either, because to do so would be to accept that much media gets used for things other than music and videos, and that therefore the tax should not apply to all media.

    Can't have it both ways.

    --
    "The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra