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Germany's New Internet License Fee
PapayaSF writes "Beginning January 1st, Germany will require payment of a license fee of 5.52 euros a month on computers and mobile phones that can access TV and radio programs over the Internet. Like the current TV and radio license fees, the money will support national and local public TV and radio stations. German companies with many computers are predictably upset." I'm not sure if this is the same story we discussed in 2004. Did this original fee go through, and this is another fee on top of the original?
Like the current TV and radio license fees, the money will support national and local public TV and radio stations.
Shouldn't the money go to supporting internet related media, like podcasts? If I don't have a TV, why should I be forced to pay taxes that support it?
-Grey
Silver Clipboard: Time Management Tips
Why doesn't Germany license the internet like Car Driving. ie To use the internet you have to pass a Test and the pay renewal fees every couple of years.
Positives from a government point of view:
1)Eliminate/reduce clueless users supporting spam/virus writers/bot-nets.
2)YAT Yet another tax for the government
While the GEZ is a pretty annoying idea particularly since it was set up to support public broadcasting (i.e. no commercials) and furthermore does not enjoy a free giving (tax exempted) citizenry like the US, this additional fee isn't as bad as it seems: /r.
Firstly it's only EUR 5 and change.
Secondly 98% of housholds are paying it already because of their EXISTING TVs or Radios/Car stereos etc.
This new fee is only an EXTENSION of the appliances INCLUDED in that law and IS NOT charged over and above the ALREADY PAID fees.
Sadly the GEZ has outlived it's usefulness, since virtually all subsidized public programming nowadays SHOWS commercials.
That is the true outrage
Beginning January 1st, Germany will require payment of a license fee of 5.52 euros a month on computers and mobile phones that can access TV and radio programs over the Internet. They're working on something like that in America. Except instead of the fee going to the government, you pay it to Verizon corporation.
Push Button, Receive Bacon
They are called "europeans" - they are not stupid, they are victims!
The real reason behind these new laws is that many European countries are giving up analog broadcasting, and especially the people who use the Internet as a primary news source are threatening to ditch their televisions for good.
The state owned media relies on somewhat constant income through these fees. They are huge corporations with strong influence on politics and excellent means to spread their propaganda.
Take any madia megacorp, and it is politically small potatoes compared to some YLE or SVT.
That's got to be nonsense. BY that reasoning you should have to pay even if you haven't got a TV, as you could buy one any time.
I won't pay. I stopped watching TV cause it's evil. The world would be a better place without TV and advertisements. I don't watch TV, I don't listen to radio. All the information I need is on the net. And now these....fuckers....would like to collect from me anyway because I own a computer. Fuck you. I won't pay.
The fee is, in fact, not only the same as the one of 2004, it is also the same as the standard radio fee.
Which means that anyone who already owns a radio won't pay anything in addition.
The fee affects two groups of people:
a) Those who have neither radio nor television, but a PC or mobile.
b) companies, which usually fall into group a) if you want to be nitpicking.
Since I fall in group a) I will be engaging in civil disobedience next year. Many others will, too. It'll be interesting to see how that goes, because despite their advertisement, the GEZ (the company that collects the fees) does not, in fact, have any powers to actually do their job. They can send you nasty letters and that's about it. They can't enter your house if you don't let them in, for example. They can't return with police to force their way in, even if they claim they can.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
It's definitely better (the commercial broadcasters are categorically awful), while still not being very good at all. I've been living in Germany for six years now, having come from England. I don't pay GEZ fees for a number of reasons:
- They want money, but they still show (on the radio, play) ads. One or the other. If I'm going to pay a fee, I don't want ads. It's the ads that end up dragging state TV/radio down toward the lowest common denominator that the private broadcasters serve - they're competing for the same ad money.
- Their enforcement methods stink. Sending threat letters warning of "serious consequences", visiting people at home and pretending they have some right to come in and look for TVs (they don't), ringing people's door intercoms and pretending to be the postman/mailman so that people let them in. If you're trying to be the "civilised" state broadcaster, act like it.
- The lack of relation between the price and the quality. For a radio and TV, the GEZ wants EUR204.36 (GBP136.91, USD257.81). A colour TV license in the UK costs GBP131.50 (EUR196.28, USD247.62. There are no additional charges for radio). For my GEZ money, I get a few poor TV channels (with ads), a few (mostly poor) radio channels (with ads) and little original programme-making of any consequence. Were I still in England, I'd be getting from the BBC (at the last count) eight TV channels, eleven national radio channels and numerous local radio channels along with programme-making of international repute. (When was the last time you saw something from the BBC on TV, wherever you are? And when did you last see something from German TV?) The GEZ wants more money than the BBC, but provides significantly less service.
- This latest silliness. If you want money from people who use PCs to watch your service, issue each person who pays the GEZ with a subscription number, have them type it in before providing access.
As it stands, I'll keep ignoring the German state TV/Radio offerings and listening to the BBC services online and via longwave radio. If the BBC offers me an option to subscribe to receive a fuller range of their services via internet, I'll be happy to do so. (In case anyone gets the wrong impression, there are lots of things I like about Germany - their state TV and Radio just happen to be one of those that I very much dislike.)
PenguiNet: the (shareware) Windows SSH client
If you already own a registered radio or TV, you are not going to pay additional fees anyway. Only those who are not registered yet will be affected if they own an Internet capable computer. Firewalls, filtering ISPs etc. are very unlikely to help - the fee collecting agency GEZ has been (in)famous for interpreting such obstacles their way consistently in the past (1), and has been successfully suing unregistered TV watchers. This is all regulated by a public broadcasting law for which the Prime Ministers of the German states are responsible. Resistance is futile. :-(
In the old days when the public TV and radio stations offered more sophisticated broadcasts it was OK to pay these fees IMHO. But nowadays these public stations suffer from decreasing watcher and listener numbers, and try to resemble the private TV and radio stations more and more. There's less and less differentiators that warrant such fees - except maybe the news on ARD and ZDF and the folk music broadcasts if you like them. The radio stations play the same pop and chart crap as everybody else – so-called "Dudelfunk" (roughly translated "tootle radio"). In the Munich/Augsburg area, there is a single radio station that has all the good rock music – but outside of Augsburg you can receive them only via the Astra Satellite, i.e. not when travelling by car (no Sirius offering here, folks). I have stopped listening to the radio (except for the news at times) long ago. >8-(
(1) They aren't dumb. It's too easy to use a web proxy outside of the ISP's realm in order to bypass any firewall rules. Except if ISPs start filtering the actual content but this requires much CPU and is senseless once you start using SSL.
open (SIG, "</dev/zero"); $sig = <SIG>; close SIG;
If this tarrif existed in the states it would literally cost me about $200 / month. Between game consoles, clusters of mac minis, laptops, rack-mount machines, media machines, cell phones and whatnot... Yea, I am a little gadget crazy, but perhaps I am just an early adopter...
We are asymptotely approaching a time when everything is connected to the Internet. If my toaster is connected to the Internet and has audio capabilites (and therefore theoretically capable of receiving and playing audio streams), would I have to pay the license? What about my fridge (many people already have Internet connected fridges with displays)? My washing machine? My iPod?
This legislation is astonishing. People will stop buying gadgets in Germany if every gadget has a state imposed monthly tarrif associated with it. It makes much more sense to simply impose a household tarrif (or even an individual yearly tax).
This smells like an underhanded way to get the masses to come out in favor of DRM in Germany to me. DRM presents a solution to the gadget tax!!! Hurray for DRM!!!
Politicians and Corporate interests are evil when combined.
It is your personal duty to fight for what is right on a daily basis. Ignoring injustice is identical to approving
A "license" gives you some (more or less useful) liberties for what you pay. In contrast, the German government forces this fee on everyone that merely owns a radio, TV or "internet-capable computer" (which includes things like cell phones!). It doesn't matter if you want to actually access the contents, the mere possibility of doing so is enough for them to ask the money.
:-(
For me, a modern solution would include some settop-box for everyone that wants to access their contents, and they get a card to access it if wanted.
Comparably, I could put up the software I'm writing on the internet, and ask money from everyone that _could in theory_ download it.
This whole thing is hillarious!
- Hubert
"This seems to me to very nearly mirror Canada's blank CD tax"
No, most European countries have the blank media tax (we have had it since the casette days, AND we have the TV tax. Recently there was an absurd proposal for a tax on hard disks, flash memory etc. The German tax on computers as TV receivers sounds reasonable within that context. That's whey there's a good chance of that law being accepted and that it will spread to other EU countries.
This all conforms to the principle of a multitude of small taxes. Ask any regular European how much thay pay in taxes and they will say "about 30%". In actual fact, for the average citizen, it's about 80%, if you include all these other taxes and automobile-related taxes.
*Because* of my computer, I haven't watched TV in months or listened to the radio in years. Why the hell are they pulling the money from one source to fund another? Why not use that money to build faster and/or more universal internet access? This makes as much sense as having a cigarette tax fund Alcoholics Anonymous.
That's not possible in Germany because a fee that every citizen has to pay is a tax and only the states can raise taxes - however, the states may not raise the fees for the public broadcasters because if they would they'd be able to influence them, which is not desired. (And I think it's rather obvious why we want the public broadcasters to be as independent as possible.) Thus the public broadcasters have their own organisation, the GEZ (Gebühreneinzugszentrale; "fee collection center"), which attempts to get money for as many kinds of telecommunication as possible to finance them.
Of course by now the entire thing has devolved into a question of semantics as the GEZ can more or less get money out of everyone so the TV fee is more or less a tax.
Oh, and note that while the private broadcasters are usually financed solely through advertisement (pay-per-view and subscription channels are uncommon in Germany) that doesn't mean that the public broadcasters can't show ads in addition to being financed through the GEZ. They are restricted to not showing any ads before 20:00, though, IIRC. But still one onders how much they are independent from their sponsors anymore...
The real hoot, of course, is that while we have to pay a broadcasting fee for our internet access there is actually little broadcasting done by the public broadcasters on the 'net. The only thing that would qualify as broadcasting would be live streams; websites and MP3s are not broadcasting. Live streams, however, are rarely available and when they are they tend to perform poorly as the public broadcasters' servers and pipes can't handle many connections. Thus the internet GEZ fee is mainly for something that doesn't exist.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Instead of punishing everyone in these countries by taxing them for the few people who actually want to receive the free government programming like the BBC, why not just move this programming to an encrypted over-the-air format and require a special access card and receiver to decode it? Then the only people who could watch these channels are those who actually pay for them? That's what the whole tax is about in the first place right? They just assume anyone with a TV MUST be watching the high quality programming on the BBC like reruns of Benny Hill so they have to tax everyone because anyone with a TV can receive it for free. So, just make them buy a special receiver and you guarantee that only those interested in the programming can receive it and you can eliminate the tax!
Well, let's count the German channels (not including regional services):
- Das Erste ("First")*
- ZDF ("Second")*
- ARTE (German/French cooperation)
- 3sat (German/Austrian/Swiss cooperation)
- Phoenix (Parliament/Politics)
- KI.KA (Children's Channel)
- EinsPlus
- EinsExtra
- EinsFestival
- ZDFdokukanal
- ZDFinfokanal
- ZDFtheaterkanal
If I remember correctly, twelve is more than eight. In addition, there are more regional channels ("Third programmes", except BR-alpha) than in the UK (and they are "full" programms, not just time slices):- Bayerisches Fernsehen (Bavaria)
- BR-alpha (Bavaria)
- hr-fernsehen (Hesse)
- Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (Central Germany)
- NDR Fernsehen (Northern Germany)
- Radio Bremen TV (Bremen)
- rbb Fernsehen (Berlin, Brandenburg)
- SR Südwest Fernsehen (Saarland)
- SWR Fernsehen (Baden-Wuerttemberg, Rheinland-Palatine)
- WDR Fernsehen (Western Germany)
Unless you're stuck with an analogue terrestrial antenna (only Das Erste, ZDF, the local "third" programme and maybe a few commercial programms), you can also watch at least two (analogue cable, DVB-T) or all (DVB-C/S) of these regional programmes.Well, only those channels marked with * (yes, that's the two main channels) actually do show a few ads (up to 20 minutes per working day, not after 8pm, not interrupting programmes).
Hm, the last thing I remember from the BBC was a coproduction of the BBC and ZDF...
Of course, BBC programmes are more easily exported to other English- and even American-speaking countries.
Claus