Slashdot Mirror
France Considers 'Pirate Tax' For Online Ads
angry tapir writes "A report commissioned by the French Minister of Culture, Frédéric Mitterrand, urges the introduction of a tax on online advertising such as that carried by Google, which would be used to pay the creators of artistic and other works that lose out to online piracy."
Tax whatever you cannot understand. The question is: would that legalize downloading / Sharing since the artists are supposed to get payed?
I sincerely believe that they should tax mp3 players more, because we all know people use them to listen to stolen music. And they should tax headphones more. And they should tax trains and buses and the subway, because that's where people use mp3 players. And I think the best way to handle it would be to tax all people who are not deaf, because they can hear music. Also, deaf people who can read, because some books talk about music, and you never know.
new sig
I want a tax on every refrigerator that is sold since i can't sell ice anymore...
Make companies who actually make money online pay for those companies which do not understand how to make money online...
</sarcasm>
In related news, France has decided to tax car dealerships to help cover the losses insurance companies suffer as a result of car theft.
A report commissioned by the French Minister of Culture Frédéric Mitterrand urges the introduction of a tax on online advertising such as that carried by Google, which would be used to pay the creators of artistic and other works who lose out to online piracy ... The report was written by Patrick Zelnik, Guillaume Cerutti and Jacques Toubon. Zelnik is president of Impala, a network of independent record companies
Yeah, no conflict of interest there.
In their report, the authors also called on the French antitrust regulator, the Authorité de la Concurrence, to look at whether Google has a monopoly on search engine and search advertising services in France, and whether the problems faced by online publishers could in any way be related to Google's business methods.
IOW, the report explored various ways of screwing a foreign company for being too successful in a local market, having previously failed to create a successful competitor even though it had funding from the government to help it along.
Sometimes I think the Movie and (espeically) the Music industries won't be content until the government outright introduces a "media tax" and gives it directly to the industry, regardless of whether anyone wants to actually buy what they produce.
I've got this crazy (and probably stupid) vision in my head of the RIAA and related organisations that no longer even pretends to produce something, and yet is shoveled money by the government as a way of "protecting artists" or something. Doubt it would ever get that far, but I'm sure some people in said organisations has had a similar, more sinister vision.
Hmmm. A government agency that doesn't actually do anything, yet continues to be fed billions in tax dollars that no one wants to pay. There's a joke in there somewhere.
"The report was written by Patrick Zelnik, Guillaume Cerutti and Jacques Toubon. Zelnik is president of Impala, a network of independent record companies." They didn't even bother to get a 3rd party to write this toilet paper of a report. Isn't this basically like making the average tax payer insure a business against the possible theft of an intangible object?
My perpetual motion business is doing very badly. I propose that in order to maintain this valuable source of employment, schools, laboratories, universities and libraries are all taxed. They keep discouraging my investors...
Well, that's good, but lets address the original problem - roads have been used for smuggling for many years so lets tax billboard advertisers for the losses incurred by overland smuggling. Petition your local lawmaker NOW!
1. Write a few cheesy pop tunes on my own label.
2. Complain to the French Govt. that no-one is buying them -- no doubt because of all the pirates.
3. Wait for cheque.
I look forward to this as a fantastic money-making opportunity.
How about taxing run-on sentences.
But what about the watchmakers? After all, I get loads of spam through my Google Mail account offering counterfeit designer watches for sale, so surely some of this tax should go to them. Then there are all the other designer goods; clothes, handbags, perfume - and pirated software, that needs to be accounted for as well. Not to mention the banks, they have suffered losses due to phishing sites that are often made available through paid Google adverts, so they need a cut as well...
You see where I'm going with this - piracy and the death of the creative arts may be a current hot topic, but (as much as I hate to use the phrase) it's a slippery slope if you allow the government to levy punative taxes on successful companies in order to "compensate" those who haven't found a way to stay profitable (or, in actuality, are extremely profitable, but not as profitable as they *want* to be, which is certainly the case with the big music and movie labels).
When he's not stirring up racism to try to up their votes, he's busy gazing admiringly at China. But he's not alone. Bush's best friend, Bono (of soup-elevator music boy's band "U2" fame) has the same idea. "Great" minds "think" alike.
What you don't know is that the fucktard also wants to tax inkjet cartridges(*), because he heard books are being pirated, and he obviously thinks people print ebooks. After all, that's how he reads 'em fancy newfangled electronic males.
--
(*) I'm not kidding.
Most of the measures they want to implement are simply unconstitutional.
...will be a crime of tax evasion.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
The key question is if this tax will in fact be used to help the artists or will it be yet another way for media conglomerates to suck on the government's tit while the artist itself, the creative mind responsible for creating a work of art, will continue to get the shaft and continue to be relegated as simple temporary worker, receiving nothing more than a symbolic compensation for a one-off job. This is particularly sickening due to the fact that media conglomerates, which are thriving, are using their power and influence to not only avoid compensating any artist but also to screw the entire world out of their culture and their rights to access works of art without being subjected to the whims of a totalitarian gatekeeper.
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
I get tired of the focus on music and video. Piracy takes place in all industries and is something everyone else just has to deal with.
Consider any company that has invested millions of dollars in building a brand or educating the consumer on their product (let alone the R&D) and along comes someone who decides to market a knock-off. The knock-off is pirating the marketing of the original company. The MP3 is a knock-off of the original media. Sometimes the knock-off designer purse or golf club is exactly the same material and quality as the original. It's the same issue.
I have spent millions marketing products before and have had to deal with 'copy' products. No one has offered to implement a tax and reimburse me for my losses.
I hate it when it happens. I could make considerably more money if it didn't happen. In reality though the fact that it happens is actually in the consumer's best interests. If I spend lavishly on marketing, that doesn't improve the quality of the product the end user buys, it merely means more people will pay more money for the same product. The piracy factor puts a cap on the marketing dollars I spend on a product and it puts a cap on the premium I can charge. If I spend lavishly on marketing or make my profit margin too high, the piracy gets worse. The piracy forces me to cap my marketing costs and profit margin and keeps in check the end price paid by the consumer. I'm forced to provide a product of 'value' where the margins between manufactured cost and sell price aren't too high to invite pirates and that pressure actually works in the consumers best interest.
Want to end music piracy? Drop the price of a download from $0.99 to $0.25 or $0.10 even. The increase in volume will make up for the reduced margins. 50 Million sales at $0.25 is still some good revenuce for a single track. Rampant piracy is symptomatic of consumer gouging. If these forces make all other industries respect consumer value, why should the music industry be any different?