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."

Comments

The old Motto:

[rockclimber]

Tax whatever you cannot understand. The question is: would that legalize downloading / Sharing since the artists are supposed to get payed?

Re:The old Motto:

[Yvanhoe]

Of course not, as was demonstrated by our tax on blank CD/DVDs.
I think piracy is not the issue here. Sarkozy has tried to take control of most media in France. Now Internet he doesn't understand and he definitely doesn't like. Sounds like his mindset to attack the biggest visible gun in the "field" to try to gain some control : Google. But this bullet is a miss, like most French IT legislation this will be badly implemented and never used in court.

Re:The old Motto:

[Anonymous Coward]

I run an ad company that might be minuscule compared to google/yahoo, but does serve text ads worldwide, with web front-ends in America and UK.

Our office, back-end and banking are in Asia. Why would I give France the time of day?

Re:The old Motto:

[ShakaUVM]

>>The question is: would that legalize downloading / Sharing since the artists are supposed to get payed?

Of course not.

And would artists actually see any of this money?

Of course not.

Re:The old Motto:

[Foobar of Borg]

What I don't understand is: What is the connection between online advertising and illegal downloading of media? Those are completely unrelated. Aren't they?

You see, they are both done on the Internet. The internet is this scary thing that people like Sarkozy don't understand and want to control.

So, no, they are not at all related. It only seems that way to the ignorant.

Re:The old Motto:

[kemenaran]

There is no connection, of course. In France we *love* to tax unrelated business one for each other. Last year, to compensate the lifting of advertising on public TV channels, the french government decided to tax the telcos and the ISPs. Why ? Because they're making money, so why not ? The tax has not to make any sense, it has to tax successful businesses that make money. Oh, plus Google is evil and want to scan our beautiful books — you see, another reason !

Re:The old Motto:

[ta bu shi da yu]

I have a better idea. Impose a tax on undertakers because murder causes enormous harm and economic loss to society.

Re:The old Motto:

[JustOK]

I use CD Arrs for pirated stuff.

Re:The old Motto:

[Hognoxious]

This is exactly what I mean. You're thinking simply that because you are paying extra for subsidizing piracy, you somehow get the permission to pirate whatever. That is NOT the case.

I think one of you is talking legally and one is talking morally.

For me, if you've paid for something you're entitled to have it.

Re:The old Motto:

[TikiTDO]

If I pay for something, it is only logical that I have the right to do it. This has, is, and will be the basis of our economic system for quite a while yet. As such, since I have paid for this supposed piracy, I am owed a debt by those receiving this tax money. Note that this is quite different from paying normal taxes; in that case my money will go to improve society as a whole, which I consider to be my own repayment of the debt I owe for being a part of this society. By contrast, this money goes to a very small group of very well off people because they feel that they are losing out on something. In other words I am quite literally paying a fee because they said so.

You have stated that this is not the case, but as of yet have presented exactly zero valid arguments to support your point. Consider the fact that this piracy subsidy is based on a quite obviously flawed idea wherein every download equates to lost money. I will not even get into details about the intrinsic value of a pirate, such as the free advertising of good products potentially resulting in a sale that may not have happened otherwise. I have written a /. post on that before, if you are particularly interested. Regardless whether someone knows that piracy happens or not, this does not give them the right to charge me a fee that goes to provide no services for me, and no services to society as a whole. Once again, we return to the fact that I am owed a debt, and I will most surely collect.

Finally, your store example is incorrect. It is indeed the store that loses money. Pricing of products is a difficult game, and few consumers will accept an increase in price just because the store had a bad day with thieves. This is why you sometimes see stories of people losing their livelihood because they have been robbed. Granted, a store might potentially use a part of their profits to cover for stolen articles, but this is a whole different story from a government enforced tax on a product that only benefits one specific group of people that has nothing to do with the development, production, or sale of the product. So in other words, you are trying to compare a situation where a store might get 10% profit on an item, and use 2% to finance lost articles, and a situation where an unrelated third party gets 100% profit on an item, because they managed to lobby their way to such a subsidy.

Cause and Effect. Debt and Repayment. All things in the universe must be balanced. Asking people not to is like asking the sun not to shine. It is certainly entertaining to see you try, but sad at the same time.

Re:The old Motto:

[Earered]

You're not concerned.
Contrary to what the summary said, it's not a tax for artist.

The problem is twofold :
- Google France declares to the french IRS 40 000 000 of revenues, while 800 000 000 coming from french companies are declared in Ireland to evade french taxes. Basically, if french money is good enough for Google to open some offices in France, they should pay taxes.
- Content providers (the like of Slashdot lemonde.fr whatever) have seen their ad revenue decrease. There is doubts on whether it comes from Google abusing it's more thant 65% market share on internet ad network.

Some info in french :
http://www.lemonde.fr/technologies/article/2010/01/08/nicolas-sarkozy-souhaite-que-google-paye-plus-d-impots-en-france_1289051_651865.html#ens_id=1280818
(Though, they're wrong on the practice being legal, it's just really hard to prove and estimate for the state)

Re:The old Motto:

[russotto]

Lots of pirates seem to think it's some kind of free pass for downloading whatever they like and it somehow makes it legal.

If you pay the penalty regardless, you may as well do the crime.

still not enough

[chichilalescu]

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.

Re:still not enough

[interkin3tic]

Exceptions should be made for the politicians and their supporters though, because those crazy laws don't apply to them.

Re:still not enough

[Hurricane78]

Oh, and how did one guy say: And you can put everyone in prison who has a penis. Because he has the necessary tools to commit rape.

In fact just put the road construction office and companies into jail, because murder, rape and many other bad things happened on the streets.

Or just put everyone into jail, because he has a brain... which means he has the tool to think about a crime, which means he can commit it, which means he will commit it. No? ;)

Re:still not enough

[RobVB]

So the only way to have cheap blank CD in france is to get it from UK or germany. ( without declaring it of course )

There's no need to declare anything.

Wikipedia:

Article 30 TFEU prohibits member states from levying any duties on goods crossing a border, both goods produced within the EU and those produced outside. Once a good has been imported into the EU from a third country and the appropriate customs duty paid, Article 29 TFEU dictates that it shall then be considered to be in free circulation between the member states.

It is perfectly legal to circumvent national taxes by buying goods in another European country. Many people in Belgium buy their electronics in Germany because the VAT is lower there.

Re:still not enough

[oliderid]

Being a Belgian, I confirm! :-) But I prefer to go to the UK nowadays...The sterling is still quite low. Well if the Eurostar works of course.

I want a tax too

[EyyySvenne]

I want a tax on every refrigerator that is sold since i can't sell ice anymore...

great idea

[cyborch]

Make companies who actually make money online pay for those companies which do not understand how to make money online...

</sarcasm>

Re:great idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh but they do understand how to make money. They just bribe politicians to give it to them. It's a business model, too.

A car analogy.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:A car analogy.

[Anonymous Coward]

The report was written by Patrick Zelnik, Guillaume Cerutti and Jacques Toubon. Zelnik is president of Impala, a network of independent record companies

He's also the founder of Carla Bruni-Sarkozy's - the president's wife - record label. The others appear to be part of the "club" too, based on Google results...

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.

What a bunch of losers - even with help from their corrupt buddies in Govt they can't make a successful business.

LMAO

[Rivalz]

"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?

Re:Music/Movie Industries

[Andorin]

The RIAA and MPAA will be satisfied when:

-You can't sing in the shower without paying royalties
-Digital formats move to a pay-per-view or pay-per-listen model, where your TV or computer can count the number of heads in the room and charge you for each
-Your Internet connection is fully monitored by your ISP (doubling your subscriber rate, but it's to stop piracy!)
-Content restriction software becomes mandatory on every computer (this will outlaw Linux as nobody will take the time to produce a version of this software for Linux) (alternately we could just make Trusted Computing mandatory)
-All your devices will connect to an authorization server and check a whitelist of "approved" content each time you try to play a song or whatever, and will not play any file that is not explicitly authorized (has the added effect of forcing you to buy RIAA music instead of competing indie music)
-Fair use is abolished (has sort of happened in the US with the DMCA) and infringement is a criminal offense
-Copyright terms are perpetual... maybe with "minus a day" put in to technically adhere to the Constitution
-Portable storage devices such as flash drives must connect with an authorization server if you try to copy a file from them (goodbye sneakernet)
-Use of a VPN, use of encryption, and use of Tor or any similar network is illegal
-Having Freenet, a BitTorrent client, a client for any other p2p program, an IRC client, an email client or an IM client is illegal, since you can use any of them for piracy

Etc etc.

Fix the original problem

[pev]

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!

Re:Robin's Hood is back

[Spad]

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).

Sarkozy's reichwing partei

[Nicolas MONNET]

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.

Re:Music/Movie Industries

[backwardMechanic]

Sometimes I think the Movie and (espeically) the Music industries won't be content until the government outright introduces a "media tax"

The funny thing is we already have something like this in the UK with the TV license, used to fund the BBC. The thing is, it actually works rather well. When the BBC remember who they are, and stop trying to compete with low-grade commercial TV, they make some very good stuff - everything from News and current affairs (including a very strong web presence) through drama and comedy. And without commercials. Just so long as we give the cash to a bunch of people interested in making good media, rather than the money-grabbing lowlife who are currently destroying music and cinema, it could work well.

Adblocking...

[SharpFang]

...will be a crime of tax evasion.

Piracy happens for a reason.

[Descartes123]

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?