France's 'Culture Tax' Could Hit YouTube and Facebook

PolygamousRanchKid writes with this excerpt from BusinessWeek: "Should YouTube subsidize le cinéma français? France's audiovisual r.egulator thinks so. In a report this week, the Superior Audiovisual Council (CSA) says that video-sharing websites should be subject to a tax that helps finance the production of French films and TV shows. ... Although the CSA report says that videos posted online by private individuals should not be subject to taxation, it contends that video-sharing sites increasingly have become 'professional' content providers. ... Separately, France is considering a tax on smartphones, tablets, and other devices as another source of revenue for cultural subsidies. The proposed tax would raise an estimated €86 million annually that would be used to finance the 'cultural industries' digital transition,' France's Culture Ministry said at the time."

Comments

Kickback time

[MrDoh!]

"That's a nice video streaming business you have there, you should speak to my cousin, he runs a french language film production company, sure he can help you..."

Re:Kickback time

[Sqr(twg)]

...except when the state does it, it is legal.

I don't see a problem with the YouTube tax. According to TFA, YouTube would be subject to the already existing tax on video-on-demand. This means they would have to pay a percentage of whatever people pay them to watch YouTube (on paid channels), just like their competitors.

The tax on smartphones etc is more problematic. It may lead to smartphones that disable or cripple video streaming just to avoid the tax. If you're wondering why your cellphone or digital camera can only record 30 minutes of video, it is to avoid another tax on "video cameras" that was designed to compensate culture workers.

Re:Kickback time

[mysidia]

I don't see a problem with the YouTube tax

I do... Youtube's not a French company. The idea that any country in the world can levy a tax on you if you're an internet company, would be crippling.

How about a "Mohamed" tax from muslim countries, on any depiction of Mohamed in a video? The tax amount? $1 Million dollars, per viewer of each such video.

Re:Kickback time

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see a problem with taxing schools to help support research. Those pesky kinder-gardeners are always benefiting from "industrial research". They should help pitch in.

Re:Kickback time

[Sqr(twg)]

The idea that any country in the world can levy a tax on you
if you're an internet company, would be crippling.

No it's not. If you live in certain countries (or certain U.S. states) then you already pay sales tax on iTunes purchases. It's the same thing.

Of course some people are able to get around these taxes, using gift certificates, proxy servers etc, but most people don't bother.

Re:Kickback time

[mysidia]

No it's not. If you live in certain countries (or certain U.S. states) then you already pay sales tax on iTunes purchases. It's the same thing.

No; in that case you are buying something, and Apple has physical stores in your area, so they have to collect the local taxes, as part of their obligations resulting from having a physical presence in your state, and conducting the sale of goods there.

Re: Kickback time

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't see a problem because you're a liberal idiot and have no clue how businesses work. Every moron thinks they can put their hand in the pot and out comes gold from the mother goddess.

Re:Kickback time

[PolygamousRanchKid]

...except when the state does it, it is legal.

I'm wondering whether this is actually legal, under WTO treaties. Can the US put a tax on imported German cars, to subsidize the US car industry? How about the Germans taxing French wines, to subsidize the German wine industry?

Ironically, one of the French film industry's biggest stars and cultural icons, Gerard Depardieu, just recently renounced his French citizenship, and his now has Russian citizenship.

Why would a French actor dare do such an outrageous thing? Because of high taxes in France.

Re:Kickback time

[Sqr(twg)]

in that case you are buying something, and Apple has physical stores in your area

You would be buying something from YouTube as well, and Google has a sales office in your area, so this is different from Apple, how?

Re:Kickback time

[Sqr(twg)]

I'm wondering whether this is actually legal, under WTO treaties. Can the US put a tax on imported German cars, to subsidize the US car industry? How about the Germans taxing French wines, to subsidize the German wine industry?

They can, and they do. Of course they can't tax cars by country of origin, so they tax according to properties of the car instead. The U.S. levies a tax on the sales price of the car, to punish high-quality imports, while the Germans subsidize high-quality cars and instead tax the gasoline heavily to punish American cars with crappy gas mileage.

The French law doesn't apply to YouTube specifically. It applies to anyone who sells video-on-demand, as TFA clearly states.

Re:Kickback time

[mysidia]

You would be buying something from YouTube as well, and Google has a sales office in your area, so this is different from Apple, how?

I can pretty much guarantee Google has no sales office in my area.

When I click a link and watch a Youtube video, there is also: no sale taking place.

Re:Kickback time

[Sqr(twg)]

When I click a link and watch a Youtube video, there is also: no sale taking place.

You obviously didn't read my original post before replying to it. What we are talking about here are the paid channels,

Re:Kickback time

[Anonymous Coward]

Google should just respond that they'd be happy to pay a tax so long as YouTube can stream, for no extra fee, every subsidized production.

Re:Kickback time

[Anonymous Coward]

More like a Tariff than a tax. I would not be surprised this is advertised as a Tax cause of the youtube/google datacenters in France/EU--which hopes to hide the fact it is a tariff and needs gov't negotiations,.

Re: Kickback time

[Anonymous Coward]

YouTube can always stop doing business in France. YouTube makes that choice. France is a unified country with its own laws.

Re:Kickback time

[niftymitch]

...except when the state does it, it is legal.

I don't see a problem with the YouTube tax. According to TFA, YouTube would be subject to the already existing tax on video-on-demand. This means they would have to pay a percentage of whatever people pay them to watch YouTube (on paid channels), just like their competitors.

....snip....

Percentage of what people pay to watch ... sure 20% of zero

Tax on non french content sure... but how to measure.

YouTube could simply block France.... I see no problem
with that.

Which side should pay.
Should YouTube pay or should invoices to French customers
contain a Tax line item so French Customers can pay.

Who audits and who measures and invoices...

Part of me sees the issue but the part with a brain
cannot see how this is going to work.

If I was YouTube I would pull the plug and then
embargo any critical path patent and enforce
copyright laws in a reciprocal way. If they do
not pay we are free to use any French content
and also not pay.

I can see the issue I just cannot see a path
to a method to support the madness.

BTW: what is French for "Let them eat cake"?

Re:Kickback time

[Sqr(twg)]

Percentage of what people pay to watch ... sure 20% of zero

As I said, this is a tax on paid channels, which, as you could have guessed from the name, are not free.

99 % of those commenting here seem to think that TFA talks about a tax on something that is free (which wouldn't make sense).

Rule 35 of the Internet: When something doesn't make sense. Your first reaction should be to read it again more carefully, not to point out how stupid it is.

Re:Kickback time

[niftymitch]

Percentage of what people pay to watch ... sure 20% of zero

As I said, this is a tax on paid channels, which, as you could have guessed from the name, are not free.

99 % of those commenting here seem to think that TFA talks about a tax on something that is free (which wouldn't make sense).

Rule 35 of the Internet: When something doesn't make sense. Your first reaction should be to read it again more carefully, not to point out how stupid it is.

Paid channels... does the channel pay or does the common carrier pay?

The cable company here has "free" content and "additional fee" content.

Free to me on paid cable are many channels that are also free over the air.
But in both cases the channel pays for content and is in a position with knowledge
and contract terms and conditions. The channel may put content on the
air that has a negotiated terms and conditions for any number of markets.

Much of the "free" content on youtube has no union scale actors, directors, writers,
musicians, ... it is monetized well after the fact by attaching ad. content to
the "free" content.

Re:Kickback time

[Sqr(twg)]

Paid channels... does the channel pay or does the common carrier pay?

You pay, if you want to watch.

Frogs

[clarkkent09]

If French had any talent for making movies they would pay for themselves and wouldn't need to be subsidized. Name one French movie that isn't boring and pretentious crap.

Re: Frogs

[lord_rob the only on]

There are many names you can cite
Proof is when a good french movie ls released you americans make exactly the same movie but with american actors

Re: Frogs

[stud9920]

...and all the adult jokes removed / replaced by teenage wee-wee poop jokes, because the latter are ok

Re:Frogs

[SerpentMage]

Actually French films are rather good. But as another poster said, Americans tend to remake French films. With an example being the original French film, "Anything for Her", being played by Russell Crowe or one you should know... "True Lies". Or did you know about "The Tourist"? I am not going to espouse that French films are superior, they tend to drivel quite a bit at times. However, to say that they have no talent shows that you are ignorant on movies.

Re:Frogs

[Anonymous Coward]

If French had any talent for making movies they would pay for themselves and wouldn't need to be subsidized. Name one French movie that isn't boring and pretentious crap.

If energy companies had any talent for producing oil, they would pay for themselves and wouldn't need to be subsidized.

If... hey, this is fun, join in!

Re: Frogs

[Anonymous Coward]

Stealing culture and money is the way of the Hebrew. Have you noticed Hollywood is overflowing with Jews and Scientologists?

Re: Frogs

[Anonymous Coward]

There are many names you can cite
Proof is when a good french movie ls released you americans make exactly the same movie but with american actors

Hollywood not in here sindrome dates back to the early 20th century. That is one of the reasons if not the main reason why professional dubbing for cinema was never a viable industry in the US for a large part of the 20th century. And also why foreign films most of the time have had niche status relagated to film festivals. Contrast that to France, Germany, Italy or Spain who have a domestic film industry going back almost 100 years, and yet they import foreign films and dub them for their local audience. And this means we don't have to remake foreign films, we give them the original product.

Re:Frogs

[Anonymous Coward]

True Lies sucked ass. Unless everything about it was lost in translation, you should move that from the "refutes GP's point" to "supports GP's point" column.

I'd also point out that the 20 or so Brits I know all thing the American Office is drastically superior in every way to teh Brit one. Of course, the US Being Human is utter shit. So I guess the point of this post is that True Lies sucked.

Re:Frogs

[Anonymous Coward]

Swimming Pool, Brotherhood of the Wolf...

Re: Frogs

[tlambert]

Hollywood not in here sindrome dates back to the early 20th century. That is one of the reasons if not the main reason why professional dubbing for cinema was never a viable industry in the US for a large part of the 20th century. And also why foreign films most of the time have had niche status relagated to film festivals. Contrast that to France, Germany, Italy or Spain who have a domestic film industry going back almost 100 years, and yet they import foreign films and dub them for their local audience. And this means we don't have to remake foreign films, we give them the original product.

Clearly, you have missed out on the whole "Kung Fu Theatre" 1AM genre thing...

Re:Frogs

[Anonymous Coward]

Every good thing about that movie (La Totale, btw) *was* lost in the remake.

Re:Frogs

[TechyImmigrant]

As a Brit, yes, the US Office was indeed better than the UK once. The UK one was sufficiently cringeworthy that it was a chore to watch.

But the American Coupling was vastly worse than the UK Coupling. With the same script no less. The UK Coupling was possibly the funniest series ever in any universe.

YMMV

Re:Frogs

[Anonymous Coward]

"Le salaire de la peur", "le corbeau", "l'armée des ombres". There are good french movies. Unfortunately, all good french movies are old. Recent french movies are crap. It also doesn't help when americans do a shitty remake of a good old french movie ("Les diaboliques" cough cough).

Re:Frogs

[Luckyo]

I suspect it's a cultural thing. UK version of coupling was understandable to those who have experienced UK culture to significant amount. It was a very Western European show if you will.

US version tried to do the same thing and failed because it was too alien for US culture. They should have changed the script to match the local culture far more to succeed in my opinion. It's true that you can to extent sell another culture's product, but it either requires heavy and costly indoctrination (as hollywood does it) or it needs to be something special (like classic movies). It doesn't really work for fairly modern sitcom that is very much based on real life experiences, as these are different between cultures.

Re:Frogs

[Mashiki]

If French had any talent for making movies they would pay for themselves and wouldn't need to be subsidized. Name one French movie that isn't boring and pretentious crap.

Oddly there's quite a few Canadians who say the same thing about the government subsidizing movie and tv production here in Canada. Especially subsidizing things from Quebec...and it's gotten a lot more attention in the last few years, especially when large swaths of the media and publications have become anti-anglophone.

Re:Frogs

[_Shad0w_]

"Les cites des enfant perdu" is also good.

Re: Frogs

[Anonymous Coward]

Proof is when a good french movie ls released you americans make exactly the same movie but with american actors

Proof was a really good play. Never saw the movie. Oh, wait, now I see the rest of the sentence.

Re: Frogs

[Anonymous Coward]

benefits 'cultural industries'

now is this before or after the film industry in France sues or has there version DCMA, against those sites it "deems" to be pirating???

Re:Frogs

[Cederic]

Hollywood remakes of good foreign films generally _do_ lose what's good about the originals.

Re: Frogs

[ChromeAeonium]

Taxi and Le Dîner de Cons (called The Diner Game in the US) are two good French movies that got American remakes. I've never seem the remakes but they probably suck.

Re: Frogs

[staalmannen]

Both dubbing and re-casting with native actors take away a lot of the experience. I hate the brittish and american recasts of swedish films/series for example. For dubbing, it is quite clear that people in European countries not speaking one of the big languages (German, Spanish, French, Italian, ...) are on average better in English thanks to sub titling of the original movies.

Re:Frogs

[Attila Dimedici]

Actually, the "subsidies" that oil companies get are mostly tax breaks that EVERY company gets. Most of the remaining "subsidies" fall into three groups: Money spent to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, tax breaks received by farmers for the fuel they use to run farm vehicles, and Low-Income Home Energy Assistance. Which of these do you want to cut?
If we are going to discuss cutting oil company "subsidies", let us discuss the specific subsidies and the relative merits, or lack there of, of those subsidies. We need to be aware of who, besides the oil companies, may benefit from these subsidies and what effect these subsidies may, or may not, have on the behavior of various organizations (including the oil companies). All too often, we have this discussion about generic "subsidies to the oil companies." We need to discuss specifics. I agree that federal spending must be reduced, but all too often when I bring up some specific program, I am told, "You can't do that" by people who turn around and say we should cut spending in the generic area which that spending is part of.

Re: Frogs

[lord_rob the only on]

Les visiteurs (which would translate "the visitors" in English) has also been remade as "Just Visiting" in the US. Then it came back in France as "Les Visiteurs en Amerique" ("the visitors in the US" literally)

Re:Frogs

[misexistentialist]

France has at least its share of cinematic talent, but most films are mediocre with only a negative value to culture, and the losers who made them deserve to be bankrupted, not suckled by the public

Re: Frogs

[Anonymous Coward]

The only good french movie is Leon, and as far as I know there was no remake of that.

Re: Frogs

[lxs]

Yeah but then Tarantino makes a weak copy and all the critics collectively shit their pants for joy.

Re: Frogs

[mjwalshe]

you forgot the key thing "but not as good" :-)

Re:Frogs

[mjwalshe]

But all the Canadians who work in Hollywood north aka Vancouver love it - Must piss of the Welsh though as they dont get a government subsidy for Dr Who though.

Re:Frogs

[Anonymous Coward]

While I do agree that the UK Coupling was funny, the US version came first and was called Friends. The US version titled Coupling was Friends translated to British and then translated back to American.

Re:Frogs

[Ol Biscuitbarrel]

The Surprising Reason That Oil Subsidies Persist: Even Liberals Love Them - Forbes

Re:Frogs

[Attila Dimedici]

That was actually one of the sources I looked at to make sure I got my facts straight.

Re:Frogs

[Ol Biscuitbarrel]

Robert Rapier's a pretty solid researcher in energy matters, and not the type to whitewash topics like these, which got him branded as a shill for Big Oil (he's ex Conoco-Phillips) when he began writing about peak oil. On that particular subject he's been really on the money - he envisioned what he termed "Peak Lite" back in 2006, which means no actual decline in overall supply but little in the way of actual gains and persistent high prices, which is what has actually transpired in the intervening years. This won him no favors with types who latched on to the whole peak oil subject as a pretext for imminent collapse of civilization, of course.

Re: Frogs

[gordo3000]

no there aren't, there are a few. There is a huge difference between enough to keep an industry solvent on its own and what there is.

granted, it may just be a result of the ridiculous convolution of tax laws that exist in France. if you dig deep enough, you'll find that it may only be uneconomical because of tons of other one off taxes that are placed on the movie business.

Re:Frogs

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect it's a cultural thing. UK version of coupling was understandable to those who have experienced UK culture to significant amount. It was a very Western European show if you will.

US version tried to do the same thing and failed because it was too alien for US culture. They should have changed the script to match the local culture far more

They did change the script a lot more to match US culture, only this time they retitled it "Friends". Oh wait ... that version came first.

Look, I enjoyed the UK TV show (and am of an age to know who Britt Ekland was) but the bottom line (heh!) is that Coupling was just Friends redone with more "pervy" (as Moffat phrased it). That was tuning for UK audiences and simply not something that could be included on US networks or else Friends would already have done it.

Re: Frogs

[Alarash]

If you think having a movie made by Hollywood automatically makes it better, I don't think you know what cinema is. Hollywood is mostly about shock-and-awe, story be damned. I'm not saying all American movies are like this (some are amazing), but just because it's Made In America doesn't make it better. Usually they re-make it because they need to adapt to an American audience (who's not used to be 'influenced' by other cultures, what with being the dominant culture of our times, like France was 100 years ago), and also because reading is hard and people don't want subtitles (or dubbed versions).

Re: Frogs

[lord_rob the only on]

The only good french movie *I KNOW* is Leon, and as far as I know there was no remake of that.
There, fixed for you

Re: Frogs

[lord_rob the only on]

Of course there are only a few if you compare the number of French movies coming to the US to the number of movies released by Hollywood. Don't forget to take the number of inhabitants between both countries into account, and the fact that Hollywood also releases super-high-sfx (even if super-low-scenario) movies that sell very much.
I don't want to say that everything coming from Hollywood is pure cr@p I love US movies, I just want to compare the budgets allocated to both industries. In the US a movie is sometimes more considered as a product (how many theater tickets sold ?) than really an art.

Re:Frogs

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the "subsidies" that oil companies get are mostly tax breaks that EVERY company gets.

Sure. Which is why it says "energy" companies instead of "oil" companies, and wasn't meant as a diss against "big oil", because for all of the companies that anyone outside of Houston would know the name of, they are truly all around energy companies.

Re:Frogs

[Hognoxious]

the losers who made them deserve to be bankrupted, not suckled by the public

It's rather apt that you used that word, because I've never seen a French film without a metric shedload of boobs in it.

Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

The purveyors of cat videos should be taxed to support the production of works more substantive than cat videos.

Re:Yes

[Eunuchswear]

The purveyors of cat videos should be taxed to support the production of works more substantive than cat videos.

"Works more substantive than cat videos"? Heretic! Burn him!

Re:Yes

[IndieVoter]

Don't tell me.... you determine what is 'substantive'.

Well...

[jamstar7]

...you lost me at 'French culture'...

Re: Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

Classic problem from someone from US. Culture is not in their vocabulary.

Re:Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

...you lost me at 'French culture'...

Dont' worry, you just showed your infinite ignorance.
Have a good day.

Re: Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

They have culture. Unfortunately, it primarily consists of burgers, gangster rap and reality TV shows.

Re: Well...

[TechyImmigrant]

No, the cheese has culture. Literally.

Re:Well...

[Runaway1956]

Infinite ignorance. What a concept. Can ignorance be truly infinite, or have we merely failed to measure the limits of ignorance?

Re: Well...

[TheRaven64]

American cheese usually doesn't, that's why it tastes of plastic.

Re: Well...

[TechyImmigrant]

Touche

Re:Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

Try visiting a French fromagerie (cheese shop), and you'll understand two sorts of French culture.

Re: Well...

[jamstar7]

Damn, these people are seriously humor-impaired.

Re:Well...

[jamstar7]

...you lost me at 'French culture'...

Dont' worry, you just showed your infinite ignorance. Have a good day.

Turn in your Mensa card. You missed the humor attempt. Fucking idiot.

Re: Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

You want me touch what?

Not Culture

[mfwitten]

If you have to subsidize it, then it ain't culture; it's history.

Re:Not Culture

[SuricouRaven]

But everyone does it. The UK has a system of subsidies for movie production (Lottery money, mostly). Uwe Boll's financial success came from exploiting the German system of subsidies to make films that were subsidised for more than their production cost, making it impossible for them to do anything but profit. The US approach is less open subsidies than tax breaks, both official and a policy of openly tolerating accounting practices that would be considered illegal in any other industry.

Re:Not Culture

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have to subsidize it, then it ain't culture; it's history.

Wrong. I know that it's a difficult concept for an American to grasp, for someone that was raised in the paradise of quantitative finance; but some things you cannot put a price on. France (it's not the only country to do this by the way) has decide since a long time ago that CULTURE cannot be reduced only to a pure capitalistic profit driven enterprise.
Hence why a part of the taxes that are paid by the French go into subsidizing the production of local culture, be it films, literature, etc... It's a choice made by the French. Not everything has to be sold or evaluated on the altar of neo-liberal capitalism.

Re:Not Culture

[Anonymous Coward]

But everyone does it.

Do you actually think that is a reason? . . . or are you trying to hold everyone else accountable? I learned at a pretty young age that when I tried to use the phrase, "but all my friends are doing it," that I was *still* accountable for being responsible and doing the right thing - which meant that I reaped the consequences of the stupid thing I just did that I tried to use that excuse to escape.

Check your language - whenever you use that phrase you should seriously question your logic.

Re:Not Culture

[Anarchix]

YOU should clearly check your logic. He used a reductio ad absurdum. By arguing that everyone does it, the logical deduction is that there is no culture and that there is only history when it comes to movies, which is just stupid.

Re:Not Culture

[alexgieg]

It's a choice made by the French.

No, it's a choice made by the French government and imposed on French citizens. Those, when they chose, do so by way of opting to watch this movie and not that movie, by paying for this and not for that. No imposition is ever a choice, except by those who do the imposing.

If French movies were good, as in "something the French are actually willing to directly pay for", subsidies wouldn't be necessary because those movies would pay for themselves. Since the French don't actually want to pay for them what they'd cost to become profitable, then the roundabout way is to make them pay anyway just because. After all, what would happen to all these friendly filmmakers of ours if they had to, you know, make stuff people wanted to watch? Oh, the horror! Oh, the tyranny! No, no, no, much better to have everything decided by enlightened bureaucrats who, as every bureaucrat knows, are always and by definition superior in their judgment to the wishes, preferences and desires of the ignorant rabble, harumph!

Re:Not Culture

[erikkemperman]

And don't forget the Pentagon. Whenever you see a two bit tv show featuring, say, an aircraft carrier, it is subsidized by DoD. Strings attached of course, so it is effectively outsourced propaganda.

Re:Not Culture

[mwvdlee]

Imagine you want to make a movie.
One the one hand, you can fund it yourself or try to find investors who you'll have to pay back if the movie makes money.
On the other hand, you can just take some free government money and keep all profits for yourself.
Just because everybody does it, doesn't mean they can't do without.

Re:Not Culture

[SuricouRaven]

Actually I was arguing that if everyone does it, all must do it. As with any other area of protectionism. It's your basic game theory:

- If no-one does it, all achieve modest success (ie, cultural influence)
- If some do it and some don't, those who do achieve great success at the expense of those who do not.
- Therefore if some start doing it, everyone else has to join in to achieve an even playing field again.

Re: Not Culture

[BESTouff]

Do you have a reference for that ? I'm genuinely interested.

Re:Not Culture

[Runaway1956]

So, Alexgieg - you are merely defending America's capitalistic approach to "culture", am I correct? Basically, if it doesn't make a heap of money for Hollywood executives and investors, then it's not really culture, right?

Sadly, America has lost a lot of culture in the past century, because of Hollywood. There was a time when an American citizen could be entertained by Russians, Slavs, Africans, Asians, Mexicans, or any other culture they might choose. Today? We've lost almost all of that. The only entertainment that has survived is that which corporate executives approve of. Entertainment which they have harnessed toward the goal of milking Americans of their money.

As a young boy, and as a young man, I remember being fascinated by the diversity that was obvious in my own hometown, and in the surrounding region. Today - cultural diversity seems to be about dead. Everyone, no matter their background, flocks to the cinema for their entertainment. They all listen to music for which they have paid - music approved by RIAA represented companies. What has happened to our folk music, and our folk lore?

Culture?

I really don't know much about French movies, or French music, or French culture in general. I'm not a student of any of the arts. If I were a student, maybe my opinion of French art would be lower than Hindi, or Chinese, or Russian. Maybe. I really don't know.

What I do know, without a doubt, is that the shit that Hollyweird puts out is truly that - shit. Bang-bang shootemups, often times with less plot than little children could offer. "Action thriller" is just about synonymous with "brain dead".

If California experienced an earthquake that swallowed Hollyweird and all of it's execs, along with all of it's major actors - mankind would have lost nothing.

I would much prefer to sample a little culture from places like France, than to be forced to watch another idiot action movie out of Hollyweird, thank you very much. Not that I intend to start studying any of the arts, mind you. But, I do enjoy a little entertainment now and then. There is nothing on the airwaves in the US that entertains me.

Re:Not Culture

[phayes]

Also it's muuuuch better to create a new administration to manage the money as the management positions are a handy hideaway for politicians that have been voted out of office. We wouldn't want any politicians going unemployed, no, no, no. French politicians prefer that the rest of the economy be weighed down by these blood sucking vermin & now that the pool of french donors is insufficient for their increasing appetite, they are looking to the internet for new hosts...

Re: Not Culture

[erikkemperman]

sure. But this is just one of many relevant google hits for "Hollywood pentagon".

Re: Not Culture

[Anonymous Coward]

Top Gun.

They had recruiters ready outside when people left the cinema.

Re:Not Culture

[Alioth]

There are quite a good number of good French films. However, the French have an uphill struggle making a movie profitable even if it were the world's best movie, because they are in French.

Hollywood has it easy, the English speaking world that understands US culture is enormous (300M Americans, 30 odd million Canadians, 60 odd million Brits and Irish, several million Australians and Kiwis, plus a huge number of people who can speak English fluently as a second language). The French on the other hand have only 65 million French people as their potential audience and that's it and hardly anyone learns French (yes, British people tend to be forced to learn French at school, but probably under 1% ever actually go on to learn it well enough to enjoy a movie in French, I'd wager the number of British people who can even hold a basic conversation in French is in single digit percentages).

If the French want any French language films at all, they almost have no choice but to subsidise them.

Re:Not Culture

[isorox]

If you have to subsidize it, then it ain't culture; it's history.

Like the lord of the rings film? NZ$300 million in subsidies. Iron man 3 got $20m.

Re:Not Culture

[TheP4st]

If you have to subsidize it, then it ain't culture.

Isn't a lot of the US cultural institutions subsidized via donations and fund raisers so that rich folks to mingle and be seen with other of their ilk also pretending to be socially/culturally concerned by donating a tiny fraction of their wealth and then write off the donations on their taxes? The difference is that in socialist Europe we cut out the middle man by taxing directly and then distribute to directly to theaters, museums, art projects, movies and so forth.

Culture being subsidized is hardly anything new, be it via donations, taxes or a patron.

By your criteria Beethoven's compositions would fail to qualify as art as he were dependent on Archduke Rudolph's patronage to such a degree that he dedicated more than 10 of his compositions to Rudolph.

Re:Not Culture

[Any Web Loco]

"Culture" has to be commercially viable? Consign it to the dustbin of history of it's not? Nah - you're doing it wrong.

Re:Not Culture

[hugetoon]

I beg to differ: If you don't need to subsidize it, then "it ain't culture"; it's industry

Re:Not Culture

[alexgieg]

Basically, if it doesn't make a heap of money for Hollywood executives and investors, then it's not really culture, right?

That's a rhetorical way to put things. I can take your phrase verbatim and make it look as bad or worse for politically-backed productions by just changing the target:

"Basically, if it doesn't give a lot of power to politicians and the lobbies that support them, then it's not really culture, right?"

Everyone, no matter their background, flocks to the cinema for their entertainment. They all listen to music for which they have paid - music approved by RIAA represented companies.

It's their choice. Don't act like the Internet doesn't exist, you can obtain almost anything you want, it's all one or two clicks away. Take it, show others, cause them to notice there's better stuff out there, just don't impose any of it on them. Let them decide.

"Action thriller" is just about synonymous with "brain dead".

And that's bad because...? If people like to have some escapist fun, what's the problem? Aren't they entitled to their small doses of endorphin? People want fun, let them have fun. It isn't like they cannot pursue higher goals at other times. Nudge them in that direction if you feel you must, but in the end always, always let they chose for themselves. As long as they aren't imposing their preferences upon you, it's their prerogative and it should be respected.

Re:Not Culture

[Anonymous Coward]

By that logic there is no culture. Hollywood has been and remains a very heavily subsidized industry.

  At least if you don't differentiate between private and public subsidies which you shouldn't as both distort the competition and therefore attain the same goals and present the same problems.

  But more importantly : Culture is not a market. It's not about what sells, it is about what is smart and makes people smarter.

  What you are talking about is ENTERTAINMENT which is not the same thing.
(also careful you get owned 2 posts down.)

Re:Not Culture

[Runaway1956]

On the surface, your response looks reasonable. The factor that you've left out is, the corporations spend millions upon millions to brainwash the masses into believing that the corporate offerings are all there is.

More, the corporations actually have sent take down notices to block original content, posted by the owner. Intellectual Froglegs had an episode taken down, with his own song cited as infringing. The guy wrote the song, he sang the song, he used it in an episode that he produced, then he posted it to Youtube. Some corporate bitch told Youtube to take the episode down, because that song infringed on some imagined copyright.

Re:Not Culture

[alexgieg]

the French have an uphill struggle making a movie profitable even if it were the world's best movie, because they are in French.

The absolute best example to counter this line of reasoning is Japan. Their pop culture is so powerful that the almost unsurmountable fact of "it's in Japanese!" offers no obstacle for its spread all around. If French cultural production was culturally powerful people would be flocking to it, learning French for the sake of watching the original, organizing fansub efforts to illegally subtitle French movies, shows and comics into dozens of languages, create sites to host thousands of fanfics, fanarts etc. about their most beloved French shows, and so on and so forth. Nothing of this happens for the simple reason that French cultural production fails miserably at touching the hearts and minds of anyone but a small minority among even the French.

Also, while today almost no one is interested in learning the French language, until before WW2 it was the international language. Everyone everywhere learned French and talked with people from other countries in French. By capitalizing all that goodwill France had the opportunity to become not only the center of high culture and science it already was, but also of becoming the undisputed superpower in matter of global popular culture. It didn't want to, it still doesn't want to, and as such its cultural producers are reduced to begging the government for money.

As long as they continue accusing externalities such as the (utterly irrelevant) worldwide number of French speakers for their lack of success, they'll continue failing. No, they have no one other than themselves to blame. That's all there is to it.

Re:Not Culture

[alexgieg]

the corporations spend millions upon millions to brainwash the masses into believing that the corporate offerings are all there is

You're still talking like we're in the 1990's, and overthinking it at that. Anyone who ever browsed Youtube knows that's false and that the corporate offerings are a small part of what's out there. No, they still watch blockbuster movies because they like them. Then they get home (or open their mobile phones) and watch from dozens to hundreds of independently produced stuff per month.

the corporations actually have sent take down notices to block original content

An anecdote doesn't science makes. Yes, this happens. No, it isn't prevalent. If it were you wouldn't be citing one example to make your point, you'd be giving a statistic. If there's one it'll probably show such invalid takedowns amount to a small fraction of a percent.

What doesn't mean media corporations wouldn't love to be able to do it to everything they dislike. They just cannot. Whatever their power is, and it is certainly huge, it isn't that huge. And they're shrinking. Unless they change drastically to cope with the reality of an Internet that cannot be domesticated, in a few decades they'll have all but disappeared. And there'll be much rejoicing, for I'm with you in my dislike for them as corporations. As for the stuff they produce however, nope, those are neither "the" nor "a" problem. Both things are unrelated and shouldn't be mixed.

Re:Not Culture

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a choice made by the French.

No, it's a choice made by the French government and imposed on French citizens.

Imposed? France is a democracy. They elected those politicians. The french wants their tax-funded movies. They, like many europeans, like a system with a big goverment that has its fingers in everything. You get more stability that way, and lower prices at the price of more taxes.

The attitude may be hard for americans to underdstand - but nothing wrong with a big government - as long as it is ourgovernment. And it is, when democracy works as intended.

Re:Not Culture

[Anonymous Coward]

Is revenge possible? When that corporation release something (music CD, movie,...), is it possible to issue a takedown request to record stores or cinemas?

Re: Not Culture

[SpaghettiPattern]

Don't confuse "free choic"e with "responding well to carefully planned psychological campaigns". As long as even smart people maintain they exercise "free choice" mass communication specialists and the execs commissioning them continue to have champaign for breakfast.

Re:Not Culture

[alexgieg]

They elected those politicians. The french wants their tax-funded movies.

I'd believe it if these matters were voted upon individually in a system of direct democracy, but as long as one must chose between parties that group thousands of different policies on the basis of "which of those mixed sets is the one I disagree less with?" I'll keep being doubtful that population specifically directly favors this or that secondary or even tertiary policy. No, when they vote they focus on the major issues and in those alone. Everything else comes as an added set of impositions they have no voice over because the system is set this way and there's no changing it short from a revolution. And revolutions only happen when the really big stuff is deeply messed up.

Re: Not Culture

[alexgieg]

"responding well to carefully planned psychological campaigns"

Those work but not perfectly. If they did the media conglomerates wouldn't have been shrinking over the last decade.

Re:Not Culture

[Runaway1956]

An internet that can't be tamed? Where might such a thing exist?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber_Intelligence_Sharing_and_Protection_Act

I asked another individual today if they are paying attention to the NSA and Snowden. I have to ask you the same. Are you paying attention? If this particular law is passed, hundreds of thousands of us, maybe millions, will become convicted felons.

Re:Not Culture

[Anonymous Coward]

Or propaganda

Re:Not Culture

[Coeurderoy]

The idea that "movies should pay for themselves" shows a lack of understanding of the economy.
If for instance you make a movie for Catalan people and people of Catalan culture, you need to make sure that the 10M of Catalan speaker pay enough to make your movie work.
If you make a movie for the US market you can spread the cost over 400M people, So in practice you can spend up to 40 time for a Hollywood (or a Bollywood) movie than a Catalan movie.
And the way (far from perfect) things are done in France are not some "enlightened bureaucrat deciding on their own", but representative of the industry work with reasonably independent individuals to dole out rather small amount of "seed money", this helps getting the real cash needed from the banks, so basically it's the state as "venture capitalist" (only they do not get their cash back, at least not directly)...

So you can store your "outrage", and forget about it...

Re:Not Culture

[VortexCortex]

If you have to subsidize it, then it ain't culture; it's history.

Agreed. Anyone who says otherwise is a dumb ape who doesn't grok basic post-scarcity economics. Information is not scarce; It is in near infinite supply. What is scarce is the ability to create new information. You can charge for the work to create information, or the work to deliver information, but not the information itself: Economics 101 says that which has infinite supply has zero price regardless of cost to create; Thus you extract payment for the creation process. This is the Information Age, and all the dumb apes are having growing pains because symbols are not scarce. Look, your ancestors figured it out: In the Stone Age, stones were not scarce. If you put work into a stone, you could sell the stone tool, but you couldn't charge for each use of the stone and couldn't prevent anyone from copying your design (unless you wanted to get stoned to death).

The output of a stone tool maker or mechanic's work can be thought of as information: A change in the local configuration of matter. The mechanic does not charge each person each time they benefit from the output of their labor -- fixing the car. The benefits from their work are unbounded. So, instead the mechanic agrees on a price to do work, does the work, gets paid once, and does more work to get more money. This is the sane business model for all information creators. It's beyond ridiculous that so many think it to be a radical business method when applied to information and invention markets.

Artificial scarcity has never worked well for very long. It's economically untenable. Subsidizing breaks the contract between the customer and the service provider. It removes the customer's ability to select better service providers up front, precludes the customer's evaluation of the product, and eliminates competition between service providers; Thus you get a lot of crap that no one wants, with one or two gems despite the moronic model (not because of it). Variation and Selection is what got your molecular life out of the damn primordial ooze. When you subsidize you not only remove customer choice, it hinders progress. The Universal Law of Evolution is the reason competition is favorable than normalized methods of production.

Stone tools and mechanic work is a one to one production to consumer ratio; A customer pays for production of work once because benefit of the work is unbounded. Information and idea crafting is a one to many production:consumer ratio. Customers now have the ability to select what works they want to have created. That's why crowd funding works. The problem right now is greed: Even after being paid to do the work, the creators will charge for copies of the work: They're still double dipping because they didn't ask for enough money up front -- Subsidizing. Crowdfund raisers have a chance to ditch the parasitic publisher model whereby publishers increase price and add no benefit to the product. Market forces will drive the elimination of the publisher model; They will have to compete with those who do not leverage artificial scarcity and give their output away "for free" since it's already been paid for -- Thus decreasing the market's acceptable subsidized price.

A mechanic can accept payment via installments because the production:consumer is 1:1, and their labor is scarce -- Note that they can not extend payment to infinity. This does not scale with information and idea creators' 1:many, 1:millions or 1:billions ratio; Not because collection of payment over such distribution is taxing (it is), but because the output is infinitely reproducible. The publishing model created piracy. Stop leveraging artificial scarcity and you end piracy. Do not confuse distribution of initial payment with subsidization.

It's like we're talking to amoebas here. If subsidy was such a great idea, you'd pay for each strike of your hammer, fools.

Re:Not Culture

[mlts]

On the other hand, why does every single piece of art have to be solely judged by how much revenue it takes in? Is a documentary about some event far less important in history than a zombie movie just because it doesn't pack the cinemas?

This is why US movies tend to follow the exact same cookie-cutter plotline without deviation.

I hate to say this as someome from the US, but the serving of yogurt from Starbucks has more culture than anything the big, mainstream movie houses churn out these days. There are decent US films, this is shown by what sometimes pops up at South by Southwest in Austin each year, but the mainstream stuff coming from the US, not so much [1].

[1]: Although when at the Alamo Drafthouse, after a few good beers, almost anything on the big screen can end up watchable.

Re:Not Culture

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they want to keep their culture going instead of relying on the whims of other cultures. A lot of places, including the people and not just the government, are unhappy about how their culture gets overwhelmed by material from larger, more popular cultures. They don't want to change things so that it gets people more interested in other countries, they don't want to wait until their media becomes a fad in other countries, they want to produce it for their own country.

Re:Not Culture

[LMariachi]

Problem is that the only yardstick you’re using to measure quality is profit. Things can be valuable yet unprofitable.

Re:Not Culture

[Anonymous Coward]

Support of culture in France is in the French constitution, which can be updated by referendum. There is some pretty wide support of many of these measures, and if it went a different way, they could vote to change it. And there have been elections where cultural issues were one of the major issues.

Re:Not Culture

[Attila Dimedici]

I will enter the fray here. If the only reason it is made is because some bureaucrat decided it was "culturally relevant", it isn't culture, it is propaganda. Culture is that which people produce and take part in because they enjoy it. Now, people may make money off of producing culture, but if that money has to be forcibly taken from someone else (as opposed to that someone else voluntarily giving it to the producer) than the result is not culture. Any "culture" which is produced using tax dollars is propaganda.
You say that you would prefer to sample "a little culture from places like France, than to be forced to watch another idiot action movie out of Hollywierd." Well, you are free to do so, by spending your own money to do so. That is what freedom of choice is. The question you need to ask yourself is this, why should someone else be forced to pay for that to be produced? The reason that cultural diversity disappeared, to whatever extent it actually has, is because people stopped being willing to support the local culture and chose instead to take part in the stuff produced by Hollywood. The solution to that is NOT to use tax dollars to support the production of "culture" which no one is willing to pay for themselves. The solution is for people to start paying for some of that local culture. It may not have the production quality of Hollywood movies to start with, but if is something that people find to be good, that will change over time, either because people are willing to pay for it, or because people are willing to invest in it with no expectation of a monetary return on investment.

Re:Not Culture

[ganjadude]

Sadly, America has lost a lot of culture in the past century, because of Hollywood. There was a time when an American citizen could be entertained by Russians, Slavs, Africans, Asians, Mexicans, or any other culture they might choose. Today? We've lost almost all of that.

I honestly blame political correctness for alot of culture being lost. some for the beter most for the worse. go back and watch old movies, lets take a christmas story for example being its the time of year. The end scene in the chinese resturant where the "china men" are singing deck the halls, and mispronouncing the words. Today if someone tried to put that scene in a movie, they would be labeled a racist and the scene would have to be cut. This is just one simple example, but go back to movies from the 30s-40s, and then the 50s-60s, bump on to the 70s and 80s, and then look at the past 20 years you will see that we americans have in fact lost a lot of our culture all because of political correctness. Again, some for the better, most however was not for the better.

Re:Not Culture

[Attila Dimedici]

When was the last time someone who did not graduate from one of the Institut d'études politiques elected Prime Minister? Or for that matter who did not graduate from Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris?

Re:Not Culture

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have to subsidize it, then it ain't culture; it's history.

Ever hear of the Italian Renaissance? Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Botticelli? Thanks for the news that nothing new was being created back then.

Re:Not Culture

[Runaway1956]

Excellent point. Political correctness flat out denies any pride in your heritage, unless you are part of some select minority.

Re:Not Culture

[VortexCortex]

On yet another hand you can propose the idea directly to the consumers. If they think the idea is any good they can choose in aggregate to fund the production. Since you just got paid to do work, you let everyone download the product for free -- It's in infinite supply, thus has zero price regardless of cost to create (that's why you charged up front). You want more money? You create more works. Bonus: No piracy can exist, that's free publicity.

Now, you're not going to start out making a hundred million dollar production, you start small and work your way up, like everyone else. Once you gain two things: Good Reputation, and awareness that you're not charging for downloads, then folk will be willing to pay more up front -- AND! And you can conceal more of the story elements in your future proposals since you'll have trust. Just imagine all that money people pay to movie houses that the publisher rakes in, and the tiny little cut you got -- That could have been yours, but if you opt to use the antiquated information scarcity copyright futures market your brokers eat your lunch.

You see, the government hand-out can be denied to you, same as the Publisher can. However, no one can stop you from presenting your idea directly to the consumers and eliminating all the middle men.

Re:Not Culture

[khallow]

Uwe Boll's financial success

That settles it right there. If France doesn't subsidize culture, then they'll face the dreaded Uwe Boll gap. Can't let Germans win the culture war!

Re:Not Culture

[khallow]

Maybe they want to keep their culture going instead of relying on the whims of other cultures.

Your observation has already been accounted for. Recall the story of the culture that could (Japanese) and the culture that couldn't (French)?

And intent != outcome.

Re:Not Culture

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. Anyone who says otherwise is a dumb ape who doesn't grok basic post-scarcity economics. Information is not scarce; It is in near infinite supply. What is scarce is the ability to create new information. You can charge for the work to create nformation, or the work to deliver information, but not the information itself: Economics 101 says that which has infinite supply has zero price regardless of cost to create

BZZZZZTTTT My Techdirt alarm just went off full tilt. Someone has been consuming Mike Masnick's pseudo-economic blatherings at an alarming rate, or possibly this is MM himself I'm responding to. He has a following because all the rich kids who developed a habit of pirating MP3's and textbooks during their high school and college years needed an ideology to justify their thievery of other people's work.

Next time you read Techdirt, ask yourself this: when a pro sporting event (NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL) fails to sell out, why don't the team owners give away the unsold seats for free? Because of greed? Would you do that if you were the team owner? But the cost of providing access to those seats is zero - in fact (and here we see similarity to /. forum comments) the owners could actually MAKE MONEY by selling food and drinks to the people they let in for free. Well, the reason they don't do it is that lots of (former) customers would learn not to buy tickets in advance because they could get in for free. The business model would collapse and these fine Techdirt/Slashdot arguments about "not losing anything" would be exposed as self-serving prattle from those who have money, but want free stuff.

Re:Not Culture

[Oligonicella]

they want to produce it for their own country.

They want to produce cultural content for their own country? Produce it with their own money.

Re:Not Culture

[Oligonicella]

You get more stability that way, and lower prices at the price of more taxes.

European countries aren't exactly supporting your statement. Also, lower prices, lowered by more taxes, are the same or greater prices.

Re:Not Culture

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, while today almost no one is interested in learning the French language, until before WW2 it was the international language. Everyone everywhere learned French and talked with people from other countries in French.

Up until very recent history almost nobody spoke a language other than their own and if they did it was mostly a neighboring country's language because of border relations. The very idea that broad segments of the population and not just a small set of traders, translators, diplomats and travelers should need a world language is very recent, I'd probably say in the last 25 years. Whatever French was before WWII, it was like Latin through all the Middle Ages - a language only for a small elite. Globalization, tourism, computers and Internet means it makes more sense to learn English no matter where you are in the world and the closest would-be competitors like China has put a massive push for their students to learn English.

Re:Not Culture

[Anonymous Coward]

It looked like the previous GP was making a point about Japanese media being popular enough with other cultures to earn money. Others point out this as an option to get a bigger market and to make it more economical, but that comes back to relying on the whims of other cultures. Countries might not want to depend on their culture being popular in outside markets. And it appears Japan partially agrees considering the money the government spends on local television and cinema, although the Japanese government also spends money to advertise their movies and other media internationally. Not sure how that supports the idea that France should do stuff like this if Japan thinks it is still necessary regardless of the popularity of Japanese culture.

Re:Not Culture

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhh, that is what they are doing, with money raised in their own country. Unless you think businesses operating in other countries become enclaves of their home country. Don't like the laws of what countries do with money earned by businesses there, then don't operate there.

Re:Not Culture

[Anonymous Coward]

And don't forget the Pentagon. Whenever you see a two bit tv show featuring, say, an aircraft carrier, it is subsidized by DoD.

I would submit that there is a difference between "subsidizing" and "product placement".

Although I admit those could be two ends of a sliding scale.

Re:Not Culture

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you lament the decline of minstrel shows? How about the depiction of slavery being not so bad as in "The song of the South."? No culture is not being lost, culture is advancing! Depictions of racist/sexist/homophobic stereotypes used in a degrading manner are no longer culturally acceptable. You are looking from the perspective of your white privilege. If you have lived during that time and were a member of those groups, your memory won't be of "culture", but that of your oppression. But alas, you a are likely a white republican male who thinks they lost something by not being able to continue to call african americans niggers and the chinese, chinks in public and other overt displays of racism/sexism/homophobia. That is YOUR culture, but the rest of the USA and Europe has moved on beyond you and your centuries out of date world view.

Re:Not Culture

[Anonymous Coward]

Pride in your heritage? Or how about the unwarranted self importance in receiving the plunder from exploiting such so called "select minority". You arrive on a land, kill and oppress the natives, take their land, import "lesser" people from abroad, make them your slaves or nearly so, have them build your nation with their nearly free labor, then you pretend that your white male protestant ingenuity is responsible for your prosperity. Meanwhile, the people you oppressed over the centuries who legitimately have something to complain about your whitewashing of history are just a whining "select minority".

Re:Not Culture

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever French was before WWII, it was like Latin through all the Middle Ages - a language only for a small elite. Globalization, tourism, computers and Internet means it makes more sense to learn English no matter where you are in the world and the closest would-be competitors like China has put a massive push for their students to learn English.

Scene from a classroom in Beijing, ca. 2044: "Engrish! It's the lingua franca of the world!"

Re:Not Culture

[Anonymous Coward]

As soon as you start pitching your idea to people with money they begin to influence the art. Perhaps, you could get more money if you had Jar Jar Binks as a rogue but hilarious mercenary sidekick to push the plot along, one investor will suggest. Then someone else wants to push a freemason angle into the story. etc. etc. etc.

Good studios are not totally evil beasts. Good studios have produced great art. And it is not easy. Further, it shouldn't be free. Production artists work at a feverish pitch and they deserve to provide for a family the same as someone selling insurance or writing parking tickets. Furthermore, their work is currently stolen by freeloaders. Piracy is not publicity yet. You can't pirate food. You can't pirate a mortgage. You can't pirate a doctor's services. Some things don't slide easily down an ethernet cable.

You shouldn't be able to fashion a sense of entitlement when you are directly contributing to your cultural heroes suffering.

Re:Not Culture

[Anonymous Coward]

... and YouTube *is* subsidizing French culture. Every time a Frenchman uploads a video and an Frenchman downloads it, each for free, YouTube is subsidizing that exchange.

The French government wants money for its friends, nothing more.

Re:Not Culture

[khallow]

Countries might not want to depend on their culture being popular in outside markets.

Then they probably should depend on something other than their culture.

Not sure how that supports the idea that France should do stuff like this if Japan thinks it is still necessary regardless of the popularity of Japanese culture.

France and Japan do stuff like this. One is apparently more successful at it.

Re:Not Culture

[roman_mir]

But this has nothing to do with culture, these people are subsidised not for any reasons of 'culture', they are subsidised because that's just one way to steal money from some for your own benefit. If you are a politician, stealing money from a hated minority (the productive class of people, often known as "the rich") is a very cheap political manoeuvre. Why not do it, there is no pain for the politician - only gain. He passes a law to steal money from some minority to subsidise some type of real or perceived majority. It's political expedience, there are no cultural reasons behind it.

The correct response to "everybody subsidising their nonsensical culture" is not to play that game, the game of theft and shooting your own economy in the feet. That's not what politicians do, because they are not shooting their own feet in this process, they are shooting the feet of the rest of the society by creating more laws, stealing, redistributing, misallocating resources.

Re:Not Culture

[Anonymous Coward]

butthurt much?

Re:Not Culture

[ganjadude]

you have NO idea if i am white black or blue so stop with the new liberal catch phrase of the week, "white privilege" is just code for "i hate white people"

FTR, I am not white

Re:Not Culture

[robot5x]

Placing this debate in the geo-political context is important - the internal pressure in most EU countries to assert their 'national identity' (real or imagined) is becoming stronger. The perception of French culture outside of France is determined mostly by watching movies I imagine - 'hey, look at all those quaint cobble stone streets, the laid-back cafes etc - we have to go there on holiday next year!!'.

The same kind of thing has been happening here in NZ - although there is no 'culture' to speak of here, the revenue from attracting tourists is ginormous and important to local economy. The govt here recently increased a taxpayer rebate for movie makers with a 'good chance of commercial success' from 15% to 25%. Yes, from taxpayer money. Apparently this is reason James Cameron decided finally to locate the new Avatar movies here.

Nobody here is complaining about where their tax dollars are going - either because they support this move, or they just don't care. Either way, if the situation was changed to taxing youtube video consumption I'm sure there'd be a riot.

Re:Not Culture

[Spy Handler]

No, subsidizing would mean Pentagon gave them money to make the film. In reality what they're doing is giving them access to the military's planes/ships for filming.

You could argue that it amounts to the same thing, since this saves the studio money by not having to rent their own plane or make mockups. And you would've had a good point... 20 years ago. Nowadays they can just CGI pretty much anything for the same price or less of sending the cast and crew to the military location, setting up shop, etc.

Re:Not Culture

[Anonymous Coward]

Burn crosses much?

Re:Not Culture

[ultranova]

Anyone who says otherwise is a dumb ape who doesn't grok basic post-scarcity economics.

And anyone who leads a comment with a clumsy and obvious ad hominem is shooting themselves in the foot: even if the rest of the post is well-reasoned, they've poisoned their own well.

Re:Not Culture

[Anonymous Coward]

I get it. You are one of those white people who claim to be part Cherokee, so you can spew whatever racist shit you want and claim "I can do it. I'm a minority too!".

Re:Not Culture

[ultranova]

The factor that you've left out is, the corporations spend millions upon millions to brainwash the masses into believing that the corporate offerings are all there is.

Right. And is it actually accomplishing anything? At this point even the dimmest bulb has heard of Rule 34, and thus knows that fan works exist. Do you really think the average person is incapable of making the mental leap from "fan works exist" to "original works exist"? Especially since you can't take two steps in the Internet without running into someone referring to DeviantArt or their fursona or their tulpa or their Youtube music video or their webcomic or their fiction or whatever? Even copypasta counts as a creative work, and some creepypasta is actually pretty good.

And of course this is completely ignoring corporations like Valve, who are actively promoting indie content for sale through such little-used services like Steam. This is one instance where capitalism seems to have everything well in Invisible Hand.

Re:Not Culture

[alexgieg]

If this particular law is passed, hundreds of thousands of us, maybe millions, will become convicted felons.

And yet all it'll accomplish will be to slightly delay pirates, hackers and the like for a few days, if at all. :-)

Re:Not Culture

[alexgieg]

The idea that "movies should pay for themselves" shows a lack of understanding of the economy.

Not, it show exactly a clear understanding of economy. If your target demographics is 10M people, you do something withing the budget constraints of 10M people, not that of 400M people.

Re:Not Culture

[ultranova]

Political correctness flat out denies any pride in your heritage, unless you are part of some select minority.

No, it denies vilifying or ridiculing other heritages to make yours seem better by contrast. If you need to see "singing chinamen mispronouncing words" to feel pride about your non-chinese culture, and political correctness keeps you from broadcasting this fact for the entire world to see, then you should be thankful about it.

Re:Not Culture

[alexgieg]

On the other hand, why does every single piece of art have to be solely judged by how much revenue it takes in?

That isn't the issue. The point is that if you want to do art for the art, why do you expect to also make a profit or even demand a profit? Do it from the goodness of your heart and be done with.

And I'm not joking. I participate in fanfic circles and it's usual for extremely good novels and epics, sometimes with 1 million words or more, to be written by excellent authors who do it for fun and of it and to please a following of sometimes only 50 readers. The get $0 monetary compensation, in fact they're prevented from ever getting any compensation due to their usage of copyrighted original material, and they just don't care either way. Doing it for the sake of doing it is all that matters.

Artistic merit and profit are entirely different matters. They shouldn't be mixed at all, including by those who otherwise demand money because they feel entitled to it. They aren't. Either do something that's profitable and profit, or do something artistic and enjoy the artistic benefits that come from it. If you're extra lucky both things might happen simultaneously, but that isn't how things usually work, and it shouldn't be expected.

Re:Not Culture

[alexgieg]

Problem is that the only yardstick you’re using to measure quality is profit. Things can be valuable yet unprofitable.

No, I'm not. I'm saying that if the director or similar wants to profit from their art, they must make art that targets being profitable. It is no surprise to anyone except the entitled that art that is valuable as art isn't profitable, and the other way around. Both criteria are orthogonal, and it's a lack of understanding of this orthogonality that lead so many to think that artistic value can and should be exchangeable into monetary value.

Re:Not Culture

[Coeurderoy]

The idea that "movies should pay for themselves" shows a lack of understanding of the economy.

Not, it show exactly a clear understanding of economy. If your target demographics is 10M people, you do something withing the budget constraints of 10M people, not that of 400M people.

BS: That is what Hollywood would like to see happening, but the cost of production for a certain type of movie does not scale very well, even if you can plan on paying stars much less, you cannot lower the price of the extra, script, camera rental fee...
So either you say ok: let's forget about doing movies that are relevant to us, or you find different way of financing them....

Re:Not Culture

[ultranova]

On the other hand, why does every single piece of art have to be solely judged by how much revenue it takes in?

They don't. However, opportunity costs do need to be considered - every penny spent on a particular piece of art is away from something else, since there's only so much coin going around. Also, public should have some say about how public money is spent.

I hate to say this as someome from the US, but the serving of yogurt from Starbucks has more culture than anything the big, mainstream movie houses churn out these days.

This is, of course, complete rubbish. Mainstream movies transmit and reinforce cultural memes. You're simply already surrounded by said memes, so you don't necessarily notice.

Re:Not Culture

[theArtificial]

Here's another example from the mid 80s which wouldn't fly today. The scene is from Once Bitten (1985) with Jim Carrey.

Re:Not Culture

[mfwitten]

Culture being subsidized is hardly anything new, be it via donations, taxes or a patron.

Patronage and donations are voluntary funding. Taxation is involuntary funding.

This is the fundamental point.

Re:Not Culture

[alexgieg]

So either you say ok: let's forget about doing movies that are relevant to us, or you find different way of financing them....

No, you can adapt. Instead of making that super-duper scifi epic with real actors, sets etc., do it in animation, even Flash animation if needed. Adopt the means to convey the story you want told that are within your budget constraints. The story itself, and its cultural relevance, will remain intact and as meaningful as ever.

"Ah, but the target audience won't accept watchin this as an animation, they want actors etc.!"

Then you have a different problem that you need fixing first.

Re:Not Culture

[Coeurderoy]

If that would work, most hollywood movies would be done that way, why spend 1B us$ for avatar if
you can "convey" the same thing with 30K€ (it's called star wrecked: in the pirkenning ...)

Re:Not Culture

[alexgieg]

why spend 1B us$ for avatar if you can "convey" the same thing with 30K&euro

Because that's called "targeting profit". If your goal is art you do art and don't care about profit. If your goal is profit you do everything to increase profit, including extensive market analysis to make sure your audience will be the biggest possible, and that includes spending $1B to make a movie an unparalleled visual spectacle.

(it's called star wrecked: in the pirkenning ...)

Yep, I know and loved it when I watched it a few years ago. Good memories. :-)

Re:Not Culture

[gordo3000]

I think you are confused on the meaning of a subsidy (or in this case, a tax subsidy). The Archduke wasn't levying a tax on all people under Hapsburg dominion to pay Beethoven to compose. If a private individual decides to freely, not under threat of law, to give money to someone to make something, that is the definition of private industry. Beethoven found a buyer for his goods and sold them.

But as you said, many "traditional" cultural enterprises are supported massively through the US tax code, but this in general does not include any Hollywood produced movies, which are probably the closest thing we have to non-subsidized cultural works.

But there are large subsidies to Hollywood and each jurisdiction that offers these should be questioned. Most of these are compeitive, where Hollywood studios offer several locations the chance to "buy" where the movie is produced. Each state is free to offer nothing and usually the best offer is taken. this is usually in the form of "you don't pay state income taxes and other taxes on production if you agree to produce here and use X amount of local stuff". you can decide if that is the same as the state of north carolina levying a tax to pay for the production of ironman 3.

Re:Not Culture

[Anonymous Coward]

The absolute best example to counter this line of reasoning is Japan. Their pop culture is so powerful that the almost unsurmountable fact of "it's in Japanese!" offers no obstacle for its spread all around. If French cultural production was culturally powerful people would be flocking to it,

There's quite a lot of stuff you likely didn't know was French in origin: Spirou, The Adventures of TinTin, Asterix and Obelix, Lucky Luke, The Smurfs, Heavy Metal, etc. These were huge when I was a kid. There's the lesser known Gaston, Boulle et Bill, Marsupilami...

Then there's the high culture. Voltaire, Hugo, Rousseau, Moliere, Camus, Sartre, Compte, Descartes, Dumas, and countless others, French is such an expressive and nuanced language, so much gets lost in translation, it's just not the same... You have heard of The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo and Les Miserables, right? There is of course, the visual art from the centuries between the High Renaissance and the Second World War, when French culture was the epicentre of western culture.

Granted, none of this is quite compelling for a weabo, but I digress.

Nothing of this happens for the simple reason that French cultural production fails miserably at touching the hearts and minds of anyone but a small minority among even the French.

Except that you're piss-drunk wrong on that one, friend. France's film industry is the largest in Europe, and the third largest globally in terms of admissions (behind the US and Bollywood) and revenues (behind the US and Japan). I'd say it touches the hearts and minds of quite a few, considering French titles dominate the French box office. Brigitte Bardot's bikini line has had a more significant influence on American cinema than Hollywood has had on European cinema, it's really quite sad when you think about it. Amelie, Rape me and Les Intouchables were making waves outside of the Francophone world, in the recent past, if I recall correctly.

Isn't it a tad bit pretentious to assume that because YOU haven't heard of it, nobody has and nobody has any interest?

Re:Not Culture

[alexgieg]

I'd say it touches the hearts and minds of quite a few, considering French titles dominate the French box office.

France has a restrictive system of screen time quotas. If the French were so in love with French titles forcing theaters, TV and other venues to show French titles wouldn't be necessary. The day France removes its quota system and French titles continue dominating box office is the day I'll believe in their strength.

As for your considerations on my knowledge or lack thereof of French cultural products, you assume too much. Or, rather, too little.

Re:Not Culture

[CRCulver]

The Archduke wasn't levying a tax on all people under Hapsburg dominion to pay Beethoven to compose.

Where do you think the Archduke's wealth came from? It was ultimately derived from taxation of his subjects. Many of Beethoven's contemporaries also received patronage from the church, and again the church (besides individual tithes) was able to receive some proportion of the taxes that the state imposed on the people, a system which still continues in many European countries. The OP is entirely right when he shows that historically, cultural works that are eventually recognized as masterpieces were the fruit of broad taxation. The idea that production of artistic works should be solely the fruit of private enterprise is simply alien to Western culture in general.

Re:Not Culture

[CRCulver]

Patronage and donations are voluntary funding. Taxation is involuntary funding.

When the patron is an aristocrat or a state church, whose wealth is largely drawn from taxation of the broad population, then the production of works now recognized as masterpieces and part of our society's canon was the fruit of involuntary funding. The idea that production of artistic works should be solely the fruit of voluntary funding in private enterprise is alien to Western culture in general.

Re:Not Culture

[Kubla Kahhhn!]

There was arguably a time when the arts relied on the state for funding; it used to be extremely difficult to produce and distribute art and performance. But now, thanks to advances in technology, anyone has the ability to handle every aspect, from creation to promotion. Furthermore, you exaggerate to an extreme. A film doesn't have to gross blockbuster profits in order to be made, or even to be profitable. At this point, artists and performers no longer need the government to collect taxes in order for culture to flourish. Now that media is universally democratized in the West, any film or TV show that can't be made is due to a lack of industriousness on the creator's side, or a lack of interest on the public's side.

Re:Not Culture

[Kubla Kahhhn!]

I just caught the unintended irony of your statement "I would much prefer to sample a little culture from places like France, than to be forced to watch another idiot action movie out of Hollyweird." It's ironic because no one is forcing you to watch any Hollywood movie. And in fact, if you can post on Slashdot, you have access to nearly every French movie ever made. And yet, you support a system wherein people *are* forced-- forced to pay for the production of films, whether or not they want to see them, or whether they are any good. It would seem as though you have a desire to tell others what they can and cannot watch, even though you don't appear to be watching that content yourself.

Re:Not Culture

[Kubla Kahhhn!]

I didn't know that French was the international language prior to WWII! I think that in trying to preserve it, The French and Quebec governments haven't helped, or worse, may have hastened the doom of their culture. English thrives mainly because it an ever fluid and ever-changing language.

Re:Not Culture

[Runaway1956]

Trumped with the race card, huh?

So, tell me, how long were you personally enslaved? How many times were you flogged for failing to pick your "fair share" of cotton? I don't do guilt trips for things that I didn't do, and none of my ancestors participated in. I just don't do them. You would have me apologize for not being black, or at least brown? Guess what - that makes YOU the bigot. Yes, it really does. You look at me, and because I'm not black, you ASSume that my family was complicit in the slave trade. Funny thing is, my ancestors in Europe weren't a whole lot better off than slaves. My ancestors in the Americas were one of the downtrodden peoples that you're referring to in your third sentence.

Tell ya what. I'll trump your race card with a video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGqlrVmVULc

Re:Not Culture

[Runaway1956]

You're about 80% correct. Like yourself, though, I am a member of a family. There's a television in my home. I don't watch it, but others do. It's right there in the living room, kinda central to life in the house. I could go all fascist, and just get rid of the damned thing because I hate it. But, I can't do that. It sits there and spews out the most mindless drivel. Ehhhh - no, I'm not "forced" to endure that crap, but what are my choices, exactly? I endure it for the sake of peace in the home.

Re:Not Culture

[IndieVoter]

Several years ago, I was in France studying their film business for a potential projector product. One of the heads of the largest chain of theaters in Paris laid out the issue. The target French (young, with money to spend in theaters) watch the same Hollywood movies that everyone else does. Then, only one out of 25 top movies in France was actually a French movie. The rest of the French movies were 'boring, obtuse, and generally distasteful' for the target markets of mainstream theaters. But, he had to collect a tax for each picture show. The money goes into a 'pot' where it is doled out for 'French' pictures. Another exec told me that generally money goes to productions that have stars who are mistresses of someone important.

Re:Not Culture

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a cultural competition thing it's an economic thing. There are a lot of countries in the world that don't speak a worldwide language like English. France, for example, has only itself (one fifth of the population of the USA) plus a largish bit of Belgium and a smallish bit of Switzerland that might be interested in reading a book, or seeing a play or a film, in the original language. The USA can sell its native language books, films and TV productions etc over its own (very large) market and several international markets.
Subsidies help to level the playing field. I'm sure the USA monitors the level of subsidies and would protest vigourously if it considered the protectionism was unfair.

Re:Not Culture

[Hognoxious]

the productive class of people, often known as "the rich"

Paris Hilton is rich. What does she produce?

Re:Not Culture

[Hognoxious]

I would submit that there is a difference between "subsidizing" and "product placement".

They're trying to persuade me to buy an aircraft carrier?

Re:Not Culture

[Hognoxious]

Go to the pub.

Of course they might have something even worse on there. Like Big Brother Jersey Shore Apprentice Boo-boo Baseball.

Re:Not Culture

[Hognoxious]

Heavy metal was invented in Birmingham. Not the one in Alabama.

Re:Not Culture

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't know that French was the international language prior to WWII!

Well if you didn't know then clearly it can't have been.

Behind the times.

[wvmarle]

FTS:

The proposed tax would raise an estimated €86 million annually that would be used to finance the 'cultural industries' digital transition,' France's Culture Ministry said at the time.

If they're now thinking of a tax (which probably takes years to implement) to fund (more time to implement) the digital transition of the cultural industry, those industries are really well behind the times.

They should be well on the way by now, if not finished already, with this digital transition.

Re:Behind the times.

[rusty0101]

You're making the assumption that french culture is independent of the french govornment. While this may be true for those artists that are earning a living on the art they produce, the govornment of france feels that they are responsible for maintaining french culture, and as a govornment agency have mandated studies that have determined that this is the cost of making this transition, and as a result have instigated other studies that have recommended that taxes on these artifacts of the digital transition should cover that cost. The fact that the cost has already been bourn by the artists and art viewers as they have made the transition independent of the studies of the state does not eliminate the requirement that the state collect those fees, to make the transition.

When all is done, every artist in France is likely to be given a 2 Euro digital camera that does not capture more than 6 images at VGA quality or lower, at a time, and does not support any of the various flash media storage formats that are in circulation, To allow them to transition to 'digital'. any remaining incidental funds recovered by the temorary taxation will be used to cover the costs of distributing those cameras.

Re:Behind the times.

[Panoptes]

The French (capitalisation) government (spelling) has (singular verb) initiated (not instigated) ... and so on. What price culture?

Re:Behind the times.

[Oligonicella]

What the hell was your point?

Re:Behind the times.

[rusty0101]

Oh, I understood him perfectly. He's French.

There are more french film than you would think

[Anonymous Coward]

5th elements was a french film. Leon was a french film. both from luc besson. And arguably both went beyond the "shootyshooty bang bang special fx" crapfest that seem to come out of holywood. But I am probably highly biased.

Re:There are more french film than you would think

[Eunuchswear]

And arguably both went beyond the "shootyshooty bang bang special fx" crapfest that seem to come out of holywood.

shooty shooty bang bang is Luc's speciality!

Taxi 1,2,3
The Transporter 1,2,3
Taken 1,2 ...

And that's just the letter "t".

Re:There are more french film than you would think

[Luckyo]

First taxi was hilarious though. Definitely one of the better movies.

Re:There are more french film than you would think

[JustOK]

It lost something when they created the TV series.

Re:There are more french film than you would think

[Rhywden]

Amélie, Delicatessen, Bienvenue chez le Ch'tis, Intouchables, Rien à déclarer, The City of Lost Children, L'Auberge Espagnole

Re:There are more french film than you would think

[Cederic]

Which kind of proves the point: If the material is any good, it will succeed and wont need artificial state support.

Re:There are more french film than you would think

[easyTree]

This explains why the Hollywood-government complex is suing virtually everyone's disabled grandma.

Re:There are more french film than you would think

[ShanghaiBill]

Which kind of proves the point: If the material is any good, it will succeed and wont need artificial state support.

The same could be said of American sports franchises, which receive billions of tax dollars, mostly as stadium subsidies. What the French are doing is stupid, but America is no better.

Re:There are more french film than you would think

[stox]

The 5th Element was a sci-fi'd remake of the Dean Martin Matt Helm series movie, "The Silencers".

Re:There are more french film than you would think

[Anonymous Coward]

Foolish you. State funds, from local taxes, spent in the state are local peoples issues. France would tax the world so they don't have to tax themselves. They are such a 'special' and 'unique' people after all.

They've been so damned inventive this last hundred years that they own all the IP ... well no ... not. They are so culturally inventive that all the movies and episodic television are rooted in French culture .... well no. I think Downton Abbey and Doc Martin are in England.

France is a dying culture. 90 million people just can't compete culturally with 300 million, 1 billion or 1.4 billion. Russia feels the same issue. Germany? Less so as they learned about cultural defeat at the hand of Russians. Now they just look to survive quietly. As the leader, economically of the EU, I think their path is working.
 

Re:There are more french film than you would think

[Stickerboy]

Which kind of proves the point: If the material is any good, it will succeed and wont need artificial state support.

The same could be said of American sports franchises, which receive billions of tax dollars, mostly as stadium subsidies. What the French are doing is stupid, but America is no better.

Not exactly the right analogy.

What the Americans are doing with state and local government and sports franchises comes down to scarcity of supply. There are only a finite number sports franchises within any given professional sports league, and beyond a certain point the talent level is diluted and the overall entertainment value and ticket sales goes down. There are any number of American cities and states that would love to host X sports franchise. A successful pro sports team can bring millions of dollars tax revenue or more to a locale directly, and provide a much bigger indirect boost to the city in business growth and prestige. (See: Oklahoma City after they wooed the NBA SuperSonics / now the Thunder away from Seattle.)

The sports teams realize the benefits they provide just by being there. And they trade those benefits for sports arenas, tax breaks, and other concessions from the locale. If a city gets bitter or bored of supporting the team, they can and will pack up and move elsewhere.

Taxes.

[Anonymous Coward]

There has to be a way to tax those corporations.

On everything I buy in a shop, there's tax.
My income is taxed.
If a brick and mortar store makes a profit they get taxed.

If google makes a profit they get.......oh wait. If you're a multibillion corporation you don't have to pay taxes.

Re:Taxes.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is due tax evasion by using tax havens and is not related to this at all.

All the biggest corporations do the same, their European head office in Dublin and all the national subsidies operate nominally in zero profit, thus avoiding income tax.

Tap this grieving injustice before fabricationg special taxes that potentially hinder competition.

Re:Taxes.

[Anonymous Coward]

There has to be a way to tax those corporations.

On everything I buy in a shop, there's tax.
My income is taxed.
If a brick and mortar store makes a profit they get taxed.

If google makes a profit they get.......oh wait. If you're a multibillion corporation you don't have to pay taxes.

I can't but help ask: Why, if you have a dick up your ass, is it more important to get a dick up everyone elses ass than it is to remove the dick from your own ass?

You have an obnoxious tax, and you solution is to obnoxiously tax people other than yourself, rather than stopping the obnoxious taxation of yourself? Why is it more important that other people suffer, than it is to stop your own suffering?

Re:Taxes.

[Luckyo]

No, it's important to make everyone pay by the rules. Anarchist bullshit you're spewing sounds nice if you have a strong anarchist bend, but otherwise, it sounds quite insane. Reality is that taxation is about preventing the suffering, rather than creating it. It creates safety nets, pays for medicine, police, fire protection and so on. It guarantees some income even if you lose your job, or get hurt. It lets you go to work when you have young children and gives you a place to put them in daycare. It provides centralized and functional education system. And countless other things.
Tax dodging is what generates suffering, heavy suffering at that. Much of the current budget problems in France are because traditional tax revenues are dying up - because of increasing paths of tax evasion being available to traditionally large contributors, such as large companies.

Companies that dodge this need to be taxed like others, both to prevent suffering and to allow competition to survive and adapt. They should not be allowed to effectively steal their contribution from taxation pool as they do now while destroying their competition though these unfair means.

Re:Taxes.

[phayes]

Some people visibly like having having a dick up their ass and will use any means to do so like conflating refusing an unjust tax with the refusal of the members of the EEC to harmonise their tax codes so that they could eliminate/control the double Irish. It isn't anarchy to denounce this manoeuvre by French socialists to finance their buddies by taxing everyone on the Internet. For the amount of money I already pay for my blank DVD, Internet access, Hard drives, USB keys, etc, I as a french citizen have received precisely nothing.

Re:Taxes.

[Luckyo]

Since you're such a fan of anal sex rape comparisons, let's do it your way.

Some people like getting a dick in their ass by large corporations, who take their money, rape their locale's competition leaving them without jobs, and export the taxation to tax heavens meaning there's no money for local doctor who would check if they got HIV from all the foreign dick in their ass.

Are we done with stupid comparisons yet?

Re:Taxes.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, could you do a car one next?

Re:Taxes.

[MeNeXT]

Introducing an additional "special" tax on one industry but not another does not equate to everyone paying their fare share. This is not about preventing suffering. This is just a pain money grab. The French do not have a special tax on the restaurant industry, nor the cheese industry, or the wine industry. This is a plain money grab. The funds go into the general revenue of the government and may or may not be directed to "culture". Culture is something that a group of people believe in, create and participate in. It is not something that is owned by an individual it is something that is shared. It does not mean that it is of no cost.

Government is about control and the perception about them vs us. If this was not about that then a French YouTube and Facebook would exist that would promote French culture and this would not compete with the US YouTube and Facebook because each would promote a different culture and not be about money.

Re:Taxes.

[LynnwoodRooster]

Play/pay by the rules, and tax avoidance. Those companies that people bemoan paying so little/nothing in taxes? They are actually playing by the rules. The rules set up by Governments that favor big/friendly donors. They are playing by the rules - it's just that those who wrote the rules wrote them so that the little guy gets squeezed.

Don't blame MegaHyperMaxiCorp for playing by the rules; blame those in Government who wrote and enforce the rules. It's not the players in the game, it's the rules committee and referees

.

Re:Taxes.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, could you do a car one next?

NO! Let's go with another sex variant, S&M. Let's tie up all the politicians and their John's who pay them to create and maintain the laws that allow them to rape and pillage the world's public and take a buggy whip to the whole lot till they change their ways or there is nothing left to whip!

Re:Taxes.

[khallow]

Anarchist bullshit you're spewing sounds nice if you have a strong anarchist bend, but otherwise, it sounds quite insane.

Complaining about taxes is "anarchist bullshit"? If that's true, then everyone aside perhaps from a few idiots and/or elites have a strong, anarchist bend.

Reality is that taxation is about preventing the suffering, rather than creating it. It creates safety nets, pays for medicine, police, fire protection and so on.

Intent != outcome. Taxation has, despite your wishful thinking, a substantial opportunity cost. It takes money from people who would have spent it on hiring people, on investment, and generally on improving the welfare of the members of their society and gives it to people who might do that, or might just be really good at taking money from other people.

Another opportunity cost is that one can't fund all desires to the fullest extent. The more things that you decide to tax for, the less money that will actually go to any given item on the list. That's not so bad if the desire that is getting cut back on is park maintenance, but it's different, if you're cutting back on police and fire protection instead.

Whether that opportunity cost is actually "suffering", I guess depends on your religious outlook. But you're ignoring the costs side of taxation.

Similarly, the benefits aren't that hot. The big stinker in your list is the "safety net". It's not even an honest term since many of the problems it's supposed to fix aren't even real problems (such as the alleged need for corporate welfare).

Also, I consider the "safety net" stuff to be bribes to the voting population to look the other way while the politicians and their cronies loot the wealth of the country in question.

My view is we should through out the world pare back on what you call "countless things" to stuff that we actually need like police and fire protection (notice I didn't include medicine!).

Re:Taxes.

[udachny]

Reality is that income taxation is theft, actually it's organised armed robbery. You can't have a real society built upon theft, imprisonment and threat of murder (which is what can happen if you oppose the mob, if you fight against the armed gov't thugs).

Taxation is about short term political benefit, it's about promises to win elections, it's about theft and control through the promise of great violence. It has nothing to do with reducing the suffering, it increases the suffering, it destroys productivity and increases poverty.

There are no viable gov't solutions that can work in the long term, because all gov't solutions are based on violence and rely on misallocation of capital and eventually the reality catches up and then violence gets a violent response, once the misallocation of capital ends up destroying the economy of the society.

There can be no gov't involvement in education, medicine, police, fire protection, any form of infrastructure, there can be no welfare state. If this is implemented, it's a short term high, that the system gets from the theft and mis-allocation of scarce resources and eventually it destroys the system. When I talk about short term, I am even talking about 100 year stretches - it's still a short term when the long term reality is in thousands of years.

Re:Taxes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Reality is that taxation is about preventing the suffering, rather than creating it. It creates safety nets, pays for medicine, police, fire protection and so on.

Empty rhetoric. Give us something substantial. Show us how the taxes are being used. How about a break out of the total French budget showing us how much is spent on essential services of government, and how much is spent on other things? Then come up with a way to estimate the efficiency of those expenditures.

Typically, the essential functions of government -- things that the majority of human beings can agree a government should provide -- are a tiny portion of the budget.

Re:Taxes.

[phayes]

Not all people refuse having someone shove a dick up their ass & clearly you enjoy having the socialist dick up your ass (so in your case it isn't rape).

The subject is governmental abuse which is a lot harder to escape than is google, facebook or youtube, some people take the position that we should bend over & enjoy it. That may be to your particular taste but not mine, nor the mods.

The landslide starts

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of you will say it has already started. And in some ways, it already has. However, as these 'small' little seperators wiggle their way into the legal framework, country by country, the Net is going to become a legally convulated hell for personal media, personal information, and copyright. It's pretty grey now, however this is just going to murk up the waters more.

Net neutrality was a half-assed attempt to stopgap it in the US, but the FCC, however contadictory politicized and impotent, sure as hell isn't going to consider that now! With Italys' recent win over Google, and now France's 'tax' hitting the major players, this feels all to familiar that it's just the beginning of a landslide of legislation to reign in information sharing, and to insure capitalizing from it.

Nice try.

[nospam007]

Just like last time when they tried to save the french film industry from the pirates, they created a new agency to stop piracy.

After a couple of years and a for a budget of 13,7 million dollars a year, they actually had exactly 2 users convicted, 1 user slapped on the wrist and 1 user who got a fine of 150 Euros.

This will work exactly the same, not at all.

http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/1483616/frances-hadopi-2-convictions-1-fine-125-million-warnings-since-2009

Re:Nice try.

[Anarchix]

Comparing Hadopi to a tax... The failure of Hadopi is no argument to presume the failure of such tax. I don't see any logical deduction here.

Re:Nice try.

[Anonymous Coward]

And no users were hurt.
That was actually (probably) exactly what they wanted.
France is on the legal side of copyright, while not hurting individuals. :)

Re:Nice try.

[Bearhouse]

Very true. The French constitutional court gutted most of the legislation regarding "illegal" downloading and streaming so they've basically given up.

Re:Nice try.

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish they wouldn't give up.

Sounds terrible, but I wish it would evolve to a full blown war.

Just like the body produces antibodies for an infection, the world can develop new technologies for privacy and darknets for communication as a response to government regulations and tyranny.

Not everybody knows it, but I know that a sizable population here knows that that our ability to communicate freely in real life is incredibly important, and the Internet is very quickly evolving towards a primary means of communication and interacting with the real world.

I really think that's why they are giving up too. They know this response and want to delay it as long as possible so they can develop counter technologies first.

Whoever can control that flow of information has the ability to manipulate entire cultures, economies, and sociopolitical agendas.

It's absolutely critical that as a free people we figure out how to protect it from such manipulation now, not later. We need all the motivation we can get.

Translation

[clarkkent09]

In more general terms, what they are saying is that successful businesses should be taxed to pay for their unsuccessful competition to catch up.

Re:Translation

[DrEasy]

Because the quality of art and culture can be measured by its financial success?

Re:Translation

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the quality of art and culture can be measured by its financial success?

All you have to do is see how well McDonald's is doing! From this, we can see the level American art and culture.

Re:Translation

[phayes]

Macdo, as they are colloquially called here in France is doing quite well here. It is the biggest purchaser of french beef, all of which is consumed locally. For all the Egghead Intellectuals that complain about fast food while sponging off governmental programs, there is rest of France that tries to work for a living, and yes, goes to Macdo occasionally.

Re:Translation

[Attila Dimedici]

No, but you seem to be saying is that bureaucrats are capable of determining what is art and culture and thus funding it. Have you seen any of Uwe Boll's movies? They exist because the German government decided to subsidize art and culture.

Re:Translation

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, but even Quick is better and cheaper than McDonalds...

There is another option

[Charcharodon]

They could just post videos on the web just like everyone else. Last time I checked its not exactly expensive to do.

Stronger copyright laws - not "culture tax"

[Phoeniyx]

Some of the posters are saying that France produced this and that movie and Americans just ripped them off - and that somehow makes this culture tax justifiable. Well, if these movies "were" ripped off, then what you need are stronger copyright laws. The various countries have their own copyright laws that are connected with international treaties - lobby to have them strengthened. My "guess" is that while there may be a "few" movies that were "ripped off", this culture tax would try to "recover" much more than what was taken from these few movies. And what the hell does Google/youtube have to do with some American studio ripping off some French movie? These "stealing" American studios try to keep their produced content from youtube also and youtube has a good take down system. This whole episode reminds me of the blank DVD tax saga in Canada - where to support the Canadian music industry that are "negatively effected" by music piracy, the stupid government allowed a blank DVD tax where every blank DVD costs a few cents extra to go to the coffers of the Canadian music people. WTF. I don't even copy music. They tried to do the same nonsense with USB sticks - but failed.

Re:Stronger copyright laws - not "culture tax"

[Eunuchswear]

I think you're misreading the talk about remakes - they were in response to the claim that France has no culture, not an excuse for the tax.

The remakes are not "rip offs", Hollywood is pretty serious about not getting involved in "Intelectual Property" disputes with anyone with enough money to pay for serious lawyers. I think you'll find that the people who own the rights to the original film get paid before the remake is made.

Re:Stronger copyright laws - not "culture tax"

[Runaway1956]

Good God - don't encourage ANYONE to strengthen copyright law! Outrageous, draconian copyright law already inhibits artists. Real artists that is, not the media whores who sign those big corporate contracts.

Re:Stronger copyright laws - not "culture tax"

[phayes]

Indeed. The people who sell the rights often make more off the bad Hollywood makeover than they do off the original.

Re:Stronger copyright laws - not "culture tax"

[Phoeniyx]

Which aspect of the current copyright laws don't you like? Fair dealing doesn't go far enough? Too much statutory damages? Double dipping in recovery? Or uncertainty as to when copyright infringement has actually taken place? (i.e. the works are similar enough to invoke copyright) Please be more specific in your criticism. I for one as a general rule don't have an issue with a content owner not wanting others to steal their content. I am not some kind of communist.

Re:Stronger copyright laws - not "culture tax"

[Runaway1956]

First and foremost, the term of copyright protection is wrong. You want ten years, fifteen years, or twenty years? We can argue that forever, and you can make good points for any of those figures.

You want life of the author, plus? Totally frigging unreasonable. 75 years? Still unreasonable. 50 years? Well - that's at least within the realm of rationality.

Let us undo all the work done by Disney and Sonny Bono, let's get the copyright terms rolled back to something reasonable, then we can talk about any problems remaining.

We already have this in Sweden.

[Anonymous Coward]

Here the fee for owning any device with a CPU is 200 EUR/year. Owning any programmable device without paying for this "licence" is illegal and will result in a visit from the police.

Re:We already have this in Sweden.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, seriously? Not even one-time sale tax, but annually?

Could somebody elaborate on that, please? Is that correct? How's that reported/calculated/audited?

Re:We already have this in Sweden.

[kthreadd]

He/she is talking about the television fee. Since a couple of years ago public radio and television in Sweden is broadcasted on the Internet, and as a result any computer capable of connecting to the Internet is license bound. The license fee is collected once per year per household. This has of course been somewhat controversial and the topic is currently under heavy debate. The entire funding system is likely to change in the future, probably to a more traditional tax-like system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_Sweden

Re: We already have this in Sweden.

[Anonymous Coward]

He is talking about the Swedish broadcast fee. Swedish public service radio and tv is financed not by tax, but by a fee. The fee is, by law, for any device able to receive tv broadcasts.

Since Swedish Television are now "broadcasting" (you can watch the channels on their homepage) on the Internet, the agency responsible for collecting that fee has decided fee that any device capable of browsing webpages on the Internet make the owner liable to pay this fee. Thus, anything with a cpu and a network connection, including smartphones.

The fee is per household though, not per device.

Re:We already have this in Sweden.

[Anonymous Coward]

Worth it. SVT is awesome.

Re: We already have this in Sweden.

[tomhath]

Swedish public service radio and tv is financed not by tax, but by a fee. The fee is, by law, for any device able to receive tv broadcasts.

I suppose calling it a "fee" means they don't count it against the Swedes' tax rate. But what you describe is a tax.

Re: We already have this in Sweden.

[Anonymous Coward]

Kind of. It's called a fee for historical reasons. The idea is that the state should not be able to control it directly, since it would be inappropriate if the state controlled the funding of the entity that has journalistic responsibility to examine the state.

Re: We already have this in Sweden.

[c5402dc53929211e1efb]

wow. that's insane. they should burn down the government and kill everyone in charge.

Re:We already have this in Sweden.

[gordo3000]

similar to the UK. is it like the UK in that it is for certain channels (BBC in my case) but if you want to watch any channels (i.e. receive any transmission) you have to pay it? When I moved here I went through a long series of back and forth culminating in not hooking up an antennae to my TV or getting a decoder for the non-public financed channels I wanted to watch sometimes so that I didn't have to pay for the government subsidized channels I thought were absolutely useless.

Re:We already have this in Sweden.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, not "broadcasted". You can not broadcast outside of your own segment. It is multicasted after a special request has been received from the receiver.
I no way or form is this fee legal according to Swedish law... but sadly none of that people who make the decisions have any technical knowledge and the keep believing that the data is broadcasted since all the people they listen to have zero technical knowledge too and keep saying that it is. (Just like like kthreadd)

Oh, quelle catastrophe!

[Confused]

What a catastrophe, Youtube and DailyMotion are supposed to pay a tax of 1% or so on the business involved in France! I'm certain, this 1% of their revenue will make the difference between going bankrupt or being the pride of capitalistic success.

Seriously, to corporations like Google or Amazon, taxes and tariffs are just regular business to be dealt with as appropriate, just like road traffic is to be dealt with when driving around the city. It really doesn't matter whether its called VAT or some other name or if the money is used as bribes for corrupt politicos - sorry lobbying money - to avoid costly laws. It's never a matter of freedom or or up about fairness. In the end only one thing count and that's how much money is left after all expenses are paid.

Re:Oh, quelle catastrophe!

[VortexCortex]

So, if I make an indie game, and I self publish, and someone in France pays me to download a copy over the Internet we both already pay to access... I should pay the French government? For what? For their ability to farm their citizens? No, if you want to farm people, then tax the purchasers. If you want more French gamedevs, just because I made a game, it's my fucking fault -- All the resources are free and available online: Compilers, Engines, Assets, Tutorials, etc. Just like anyone else. It's like saying: Men don't want to be romance novelists! Help! We need more male romance novelists!

If the French produce content the rest of the world wants, then they get paid for it. Why should they also get paid when other peoples create content the French want? You can't have your cake and eat it too: Either distribute all French film for free to the whole world (yay! eliminate piracy!), and charge the rest of the world to access your French chattel, Or you have citizens who pay taxes on what they buy. I'm not "doing business in France" when I sell a game online. The French are coming to the US and doing business with me here, change your citizens a duty tax if you want to play that Fascist censorship game again.

Next thing you know they'll be wanting to charge the bittorrent protocol for distributing the game for free to... Preserve French culture! Fuck right off. This is the Earth, we're in the Information Age. Cultural borders don't exist anymore, only pens for your human taxable livestock. Another name for culture manipulation is Fascism.

Classic France

[pablo_max]

Seriously, this is classical French behavior. Over the years they have put various taxes on this or that to protect this or that industry. Think taxes on blank media which should go to the record companies. Not a cent to artists mind you, but I digress.

Actually, the only real way France will learn is to simple ignore them. By ignore them, I mean completely pull out of the France. No french versions of websites. No, french youtube, no French google or bing.

I wonder how long it would take for the French people to freak out for being cut off from any meaningful content?

Alternatively, for French versions of websites, you have have a "pay to enter". On youtubes page, there can be a sign saying due to the ridiculous cost of operating in France, you will need to pay 5€ per month in order to watch any videos.
The same on google and bing and yahoo. Want to search? 15 cent per search.

I say call their bluff and pull out of France. Now, if we could just get those surrender monkeys out of the EU....

Re:Classic France

[Anarchix]

We are a sovereign country. Why do we care of what we do in our country? If Google doesn't make any money in France, I am sure they will pull themselves out of France.

Re:Classic France

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure Google pays as much tax as anybody else in France for the part of their business they conduct in France. That should be enough. There's no reason why they should pay culture taxes for their entire business just because some stupid little country (which may or may not include France) wants them to.

Re:Classic France

[Runaway1956]

You're sure, huh? Maybe you haven't been reading any damned thing about corporate taxes. Or, maybe you've been reading but suffer some comprehension problem.

NONE OF THE MAJOR CORPORATIONS PAYS MORE THAN A PITTANCE OF THE TAXES DUE IN ANY NATION!!

I hope that is clear enough for you. When Google, or any other major player, has a million dollars in tax liability, they just shuffle numbers on ledgers, move some money around, and hide that liability wherever convenient - like Ireland.

Google is your friend. Look up "tax haven".

Re:Classic France

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no reason why they should pay culture taxes for their entire business

A tax is a tax is a tax. Money is fungible. My taxes support my country (as well as this other one I live in these days), for their healthcare, their wars, their state dinners and their homeless shelter programs. I don't get to choose individually what the money is spent on. It's how the world works if you want to live in a civilized society.

Re:Classic France

[Anonymous Coward]

Well that's cute. So let all of us in the entire world go together and pay tax to this French culture company.

Re:Classic France

[jareth-0205]

Actually, the only real way France will learn is to simple ignore them. By ignore them, I mean completely pull out of the France. No french versions of websites. No, french youtube, no French google or bing.

I'm trying to think of a more subtle way of saying 'fuck you', but I can't. You realise how outstandingly arrogant you sound? That you would have foreign corporations put such massive pressure on a government to act in a way that they want?

I don't particularly think this tax is a great idea, and it's likely to limit what gets offered to France, but guess what, it's up to *France* to make their decision on the tradeoff and then *Google* etc to decide whether it's worth it to do business in that country. And you can bet your life that they still will. Just because you have an anarchist / libertarian / bully hardon for making governments do your bidding, doesn't mean the real world works like that.

Re:Classic France

[Anonymous Coward]

In the U.S., if we Americans move overseas, we still have to pay income tax. Why shouldn't American-born countries? Perhaps require them to pay tax for 10 years after moving, with a rate adjustment. If the other country has a higher tax rate, nothing. if lower, the different in the rate is paid to the IRS. Just an idea.

These technology companies that do that, how about national data center taxes? At the state level, not so much. But at a country level, I think it would be inopportune to move data centers around. Too far away, and I assume it could create service reliability issues, but that's an assumption I have, and I base it on nothing.

By the way, I don't like the idea of taxing communication services with some exceptions. But if they're going to do it, they should restrict the tax to professional-type media. YouTube gets revenue from the ads, so, no, not on that basis. But any video that somehow generates income individually of the ad-supported site. I assume there are some official channels and whatnot, and some popular individually created channels by people who brings in revenue. They need to do it careful as to not tax people just uploading videos. They need to go after those who are content creators on a scale large enough that it would make a difference. I think the better question would be... Does YouTube transfer money to any of the YouTube users? If so, tax that revenue. (I'm American by the way.)

Re:Classic France

[Anonymous Coward]

shut up you worthless fuck.

Re:Classic France

[Anonymous Coward]

hey shithead, what is with your statist hardon for making everyone else do your bidding? you must really get off on arbitrary coercion.

Re:Classic France

[jareth-0205]

Do you live in France or do business in France? If you do then respect their laws. If not then there is nothing you need to concern yourself. There are other valid forms of government that don't necessarily follow how you would prefer to be governed.

Re:Classic France

[Oligonicella]

When the French log in and view something from another country, that is not a business doing business in France. There's no rational reason for that business to pay a stipend to the French for the French logging in.

Re:Classic France

[LynnwoodRooster]

NONE OF THE MAJOR CORPORATIONS PAYS MORE THAN A PITTANCE OF THE TAXES DUE IN ANY NATION!!

And you know why that is? It's not because the major (and even minor) corporations declare it, it's because the Governments of those nations set up the rules that allow it. Direct your rage where it belongs - not at the players in the game, but at the rule-makers and the referees - the Governments

.

Re:Classic France

[Anonymous Coward]

And here we see how libertarianism, despite its claims, is as coercive as any other political camp. It is as intolerant of dissent any other group that claims to have found the solution for politics.

Re:Classic France

[jareth-0205]

When the French log in and view something from another country, that is not a business doing business in France. There's no rational reason for that business to pay a stipend to the French for the French logging in.

Indeed. Though I would imagine (we don't know from the article but it generally works like this) that because Google has a business presence in France and collects advert sales revenue there, they *are* doing business in France, and that would bring them under French tax law.

Re:Classic France

[callmetheraven]

Solution? Ditch france. Decommission the office. Unplug the frogs. Who would care? "French culture" = "smells like feet".

Re:Classic France

[XcepticZP]

Just because you have an anarchist / libertarian / bully hardon for making governments do your bidding, doesn't mean the real world works like that.

Well, I'm not going to bother to be subtle about my response to you. Fuck you. No seriously, what in the world does being libertarian or anarchist have to do with a corporation making a government do it's bidding? Have you been listening to your statist propaganda so much that you can't even hold a coherent definition of the ideologies you are against?

You know, it's one thing when you disagree with an ideology and debate against it. But it's a completely big douchebag thing to present positively incorrect definitions and associations about that ideology. It's intellectually dishonest, it shows that you have no valid arguments for attacking that ideology and that the only way you can do so is by demonizing it. Like your insinuation that anarchists/libertarians and bullies are interchangeable terms. Like your ridiculous insinuation that anarchists/libertarians believe that governments should be at the beckon of corporations. Sorry, buddy, but we believe no such thing, and you'd be hard-pressed to prove it if we call you out on your non-sense. Guess what, I'm calling you out.

Re:Classic France

[Anonymous Coward]

"Actually, the only real way France will learn is to simple ignore them. By ignore them, I mean completely pull out of the France. No french versions of websites. No, french youtube, no French google or bing."

Exactly.

That is the BEST thing for you to do. Just get OUT with your NSA google, NSA bing, etc. We would have then Dailymotion, that is a french site older than
youtube!

Jacob Navia
Paris, France

Re:Classic France

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it sounds like a great idea. Call their fucking bluff.

You want to tax my operation for your local failing industries? Fuck that.

I'm outta here and I'm taking my toys with me.

Want to see stuff, you're gonna pay - and you'll be paying to a foreign government and not a single cent will come to your own local government.

It's not arrogance, it's defense against a fucked up country's idiocy.

Re:Classic France

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you run the French government? If so, then don't change your laws to penalize successful companies, kick the failing companies in the ass to make them work harder and smarter.

Don't punish successful companies for your own ineptitude.

Archive.org: MAME 0.151 ROMs (November 2013) 42.8G

[Anonymous Coward]

Archive.org: MAME 0.151 ROMs (November 2013) 42.8GB zip/torrent

#

that's the jingle bell
that's the jingle bell
that's the jingle bell rock!

https://archive.org/details/MAME_0.151_ROMs
https://archive.org/download/MAME_0.151_ROMs/MAME_0.151_ROMs.zip

MAME 0.151 ROMs (November 2013)

MAME (an acronym of Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) is an emulator application designed to recreate the hardware of arcade game systems in software on modern personal computers and other platforms. The intention is to preserve gaming history by preventing vintage games from being lost or forgotten. The aim of MAME is to be a reference to the inner workings of the emulated arcade machines; the ability to actually play the games is considered "a nice side effect".

This item is part of the collection: MESS and MAME
https://archive.org/details/messmame

Identifier: MAME_0.151_ROMs
Date: 2013-11
Mediatype: software
Year: 2013
Publicdate: 2013-11-23 12:59:45
Addeddate: 2013-11-23 12:59:45
Language: English

#

Internet Archive releases hundreds of classic game console ROMs

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/12/internet-archive-releases-hundreds-of-classic-game-console-roms/

Confirms what I know about France

[vikingpower]

Last week, there was news that, although economic growth is picking up nearly everywhere in the EU ( the 2008 crisis seems finally over ), France is lagging behind, and we hear more and more often the epithet "sick man of Europe". I studied and worked in France, hence I know that society pretty well. The problem has always seemed, to me, that the average Frenchman expects the French state to provide him with anything he needs: health, safety, a job, a pension, vacation. Add to this the curious "cultural exception" France has always demanded for itself to be made within Europe and, indeed, the entire world; add to this its isolationism, and its lack of true opening to what is now the modern world - and you have the recipe for driving an entire country to insignificance. France, indeed and as a culture, is no more.

Re:Confirms what I know about France

[Anarchix]

Economic growth is picking up nearly everywhere in the EU? I have missed that, can you provide us some sources? France isn't doing well, but calling it the sickman of Europe is rather blunt to me (http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/09/more-notes-on-france-bashing/, http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/12/les-not-so-miserables/, http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/13/more-on-not-so-miserable-france/). Also I don't see the link between the state of our economy and us wanting health/safety... To me the euro currency is to blame.

Re:Confirms what I know about France

[Runaway1956]

I'm sure that Vikingpower means Greece. The economy in Greece is really kicking off. Oh yeah, I have a really nice bridge for sale that would look great in your back yard!!

Re:Confirms what I know about France

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem has always seemed, to me, that the average Frenchman expects the French state to provide him with anything he needs: health, safety, a job, a pension, vacation.

I'm a European and have lived in several European countries and visited even more and would say that that's fairly universal. However, I don't see what the problem is? Isn't the state supposed to be the people's bitch and not vice versa? People pay taxes to the state, elect rulers and in some countries are personally involved in its defence through conscription. So why shouldn't citizens expect the state to do things for them? Note: I'm not saying country but state since you can do something for your country without doing something for the state.

And no, I'm not advocating or defending socialism. I'm only giving my perspective on the relationship between people and the state since all states (including the US) are socialist to a degree and capitalist to a degree and it's impossible to find the optimum balance due to the virtually infinite number of variables - some of which neither the state nor the people have any control over. Furthermore, in case you wish to bring up the argument that taxes are a transfer of funds from those who have more to those who have less or that progressive taxation is unjust, I'd like to point out a couple of things for you:

1.) Several functions of the state benefit you more when you're wealthier; such as the police force and fire departments, if you have more property (and technically the military as well since they deter a foreign invasion).

2.) Just because social programs can seem like rewarding "doing nothing" it can still be a more cost-effective solution than leaving everyone to fend for themselves and then incarcerating those who fend for themselves through crime. The latter option is not cheap - especially not in the long run. Thus the total cost to those who can pay taxes can be lower even though it means that some of those who cannot get taxpayer money for doing nothing.

3.) What taxes provide you with is not linear and thus a linear instead of a progressive tax structure would make no sense. And furthermore, marginal utility makes it hard to argue that the tax burden is fair if it's linear.

Finally, I definitely want people to accept as much personal responsibility as they can but being the only one in my family to have "made it" I can only shake my head at what I hear people in my current social circles (nice people but born with silver spoons up their asses) think the lives of "freeloaders" are like. Those who fully live off what the state provides them with have absolutely miserable lives and would do anything to get out of their misery, if only they could. I have two cousins in such a condition that if I could offer them a million if they got a job and worked for one year and stayed sober the entire time, I know they would fail in less than a week. Thus it's just a matter of providing such people with a bearable existence to keep them off the street. The harsher side of me would, however, mandate sterilization of people in such a condition (one of them has, unfortunately, reproduced) but I know that saying that openly would give me a Nazi-like label. It is unfortunate that any fertile pairing can reproduce. We can regulate almost anything except the most important aspect of a human life; the biological parents an infant gets.

Outrageous.

[AdamColley]

Yeah, and I hope if the French do that, Yougle's action is to simply block their site in France.

The internet should not be subject to extortion by what is these days a minor country producing little of worth outside its own borders and it's not the first time either. Search engines can be prosecuted in France if they don't block access to Nazi content (Historical memorabilia included!) and let's not forget they were the first country to ban PGP.

They want to live in the stone age, fine, let them.

Re:Outrageous.

[Anarchix]

"The internet", I am not sure what you mean by that. Google is making money in France, we are a sovereign country, we should be able to tax it. Now if you think that taxes equal to extortion, it is your problem, but don't blame the French for that. I don't see any reason why we shouldn't be able to tax a company just because it operates on the web.

Re:Outrageous.

[spongman]

They don't need to block the site at all. They just need to move the ad sales transactions out of France.

Re:Outrageous.

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe I'm not getting it, but my reading of the article gave me the impression that this French thing want to tax Google for the business they do all over the world just because it might impact French citizens. I don't know if Google has an office in France, but if they do and all France is doing is tax that office for the business they do in that office then I think all would be fine with it.

How about we agree to it for French videos?

[tlambert]

How about we agree to it for French videos originated in France (not Quebec, Louisiana, or elsewhere)?

If it was uploaded from France, it's subject to the tax, otherwise it's not? If it's a French Culture Tax, then obviously, it's because of the value to the world of the French Culture, right?

How the invisible hand of the market ...

[Coeurderoy]

People will whine about how the French government should not tax stuff to support local culture.

But any movie produced in any country larger than France (for instance US, India, China) can be paid for in the local market and then basically given away for free or as close to free as needed to kill the local production.

Add to this that the US is rabidly promoting "patriotism" which is a form of nationalism so that anything "foreign" is automatically suspect.
The various programs promoting this are ways to close the US market against "foreign influence".
(And BTW US "Patriotism" is being "Proud of being American", and unless you are a wet back Latino who on peril of his or her life crossed the border illegally than worked for many years with fear of deportation in his or her stomach and then finally get citizenship it is being proud of being born and nothing else.)

So the market is "not free and fair", and taxation is one way of offsetting the fact that it is inherently easier to make money when your market starts with 400M citizens instead of 65M.
And it is "nicer" than resort to propaganda, like forcing small children to "pledge to the flag", militarization of the society and such things.

And to finish, you can play a "fun game", look at "family oriented" blockbusters and try to read the "sub text" and what it says about your society.

Re:How the invisible hand of the market ...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why you have import tax. You tax that, not videos on the Internet because that would just be stupid.

Re:How the invisible hand of the market ...

[Coeurderoy]

That's what it is, an "import tax", the vidéos are "imported" through the Internet....
And BTW the "freemarketer numbskulls" are trying to explain to the world that "import taxes are bad and naughty
and should be forbidden...." so it is only because in the 80s Français Mitterand insisted on an "exception culturelle" for cultural content ... against of course the outraged protest of the US representatives...

In practice it works this way : the "first world countries" go to poorer countries, and explain that if they ask import taxes for products we want to sell to them, we'll put import taxes on their natural ressources, and since the top dogs are sitting on that well they agree and help us screw their citizens, you do not need that many jobs to export petroleum...

Re:How the invisible hand of the market ...

[Oligonicella]

That's what it is, an "import tax", the vidéos are "imported" through the Internet....

Good thing you put air-quotes around those words, otherwise we couldn't recognize the double-think claptrap as satire.

this FP for GNAA

[Anonymous Coward]

minutes now while kill myself li4e be oN a wrong be forgotten in a startling turn

France

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty soon they'll find a way to tax the air you breath..

Google finds on your mil/art funding question

[AHuxley]

"The Pentagon’s strengthening grip on Hollywood"
http://www.salon.com/2011/08/29/sirota_military_movies/
"The U.S. military's Hollywood connection"
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/aug/21/entertainment/la-ca-military-movies-20110821
http://movieline.com/2013/02/06/military-entertainment-complex-hollywood-pentagon-relationship-battleship-zero-dark-thirty/
Operation Hollywood
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2004/09/operation-hollywood
A script often self corrected until the use of mil equipment works out.
The UK, Australia, Germany, France all have their funding mixes for their own culture. The US mil movie/script 'corrections' aspect is well known, has been reported for years.

Just abandon this communist butt hole and live on.

[Anonymous Coward]

France become a communist butt hole.
Time to abandon it.
There is no place for business in a country of Marxism.
Let them live their 'fair' and poor^Wwealthy lives, surrounded by such worthy immigrants.

Dubbing is hardly "original product"

[Anonymous Coward]

Dubbing - original product. Pick one. Frankly I'd rather have subtitles than dubbing.

Re:Dubbing is hardly "original product"

[Merls the Sneaky]

I hate subtitles with a furious passion. Even if I'm watching an english movie with foreign subs they draw my eye and take away from the experience. I can only tolerate with them for small periods where they are translating foreign speech into english text.

Forced culture

[Anonymous Coward]

Forced culture. Gotta love it, but who's culture will forced upon them?

In the other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Removal of France could hit the Googleverse...

Boring

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do people play for cultural victory, it's so boring. Everyone knows the only really satisfying way to win is by dominance!

The US car industry

[Vincent77]

If you have to subsidize it, then it ain't culture; it's history.

Don't bring up the US car industry her. That's mean.

I don't read movies

[Anonymous Coward]

subtitles = you have to read the movie and so are not able to watch the movie.

Re:I don't read movies

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate calling people names but for you I'll make an exception.
Dumbass.

Re:I don't read movies

[Hognoxious]

I can read not just one but two sets of subtitles and still watch the movie.

Then again I don't have to move my finger under the words...

France already has a 20% tax! Give me a break

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm hurting from Frances huge sales taxes already. People complain our companies laptop prices being too high. And the real reason is France's taxes are too high. It's not just France, but France is one of them. 20% on an already expensive item like a laptop just makes it worse. How are we suppose to make money? If we can't make money we might as well exit the market.

Re:France already has a 20% tax! Give me a break

[Thiez]

Oh my god that's so unreasonable, especially compared to the rest of Europe!

Jurisdiction

[rossdee]

While this might affect youtube.fr or whatever, it can't affect the main youtube site, or one costed in Canada, which could still be french-speaking

Maybe it's the language

[msobkow]

Maybe it's the language that causes brain damage, because here in Canada, we have the Quebecois with that same perverse "protectionist" mentality about their language and culture.

Or maybe they just can't accept the fact that the days of empire are over, and that they no longer matter all that much on the world stage compared to when they were in their glory days.

What I do know is that protectionism and isolationism don't save anything; they just create isolated backwaters that aren't connected with the global culture and the rest of the world.

Stupidest example I can think of: In Quebec, you're supposed to yell "Quatre" on the golf course. The problem with that is "Fore" is short for "Forewarned", not "Four."

Re:Maybe it's the language

[Anonymous Coward]

Stupidest example I can think of: In Quebec, you're supposed to yell "Quatre" on the golf course. The problem with that is "Fore" is short for "Forewarned", not "Four."

Nice! :-)

Re:Maybe it's the language

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't know that about 'fore' and forwarned. Perhaps they men forte, something to do with fencing (as in blades).

Re:Maybe it's the language

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it's the language that causes brain damage, because here in Canada, we have the Quebecois with that same perverse "protectionist" mentality about their language and culture.

Everyone here in France knows that you don't speak French there. We seriously put subtitles on movies coming out of French Canada.

Re:Maybe it's the language

[HalAtWork]

Holy shit, that's pathetic!

Global companies and tax

[sjbe]

Youtube's not a French company.

Yes they are. I guarantee you that Google (who owns YouTube) is incorporated in France and can be taxed there. The fact that the parent company is in the US is not important here. France absolutely can tax the French subsidiary of Google. There probably are taxation angles via the EU as well.

The idea that any country in the world can levy a tax on you if you're an internet company, would be crippling.

It would be if they could collect the revenue. If you don't actually do any business in France they cannot tax you even if they pass laws which try. They simply cannot collect the money.

Re:Global companies and tax

[Anonymous Coward]

But only if the money is sent through that subsidiary.

Since all Google's money flows throw Ireland and then one of the carribean islands, nothing is ever sold *IN FRANCE* - so nothing to tax.

Re:Global companies and tax

[sjbe]

But only if the money is sent through that subsidiary.

That's the argument that Google (and Apple and others) will make but that argument is disingenuous at best and outright fraud at worst.

Since all Google's money flows throw Ireland and then one of the carribean islands, nothing is ever sold *IN FRANCE* - so nothing to tax.

Wrongo there buddy. If a company incorporated in France advertises through Google to French customers (which they do) then there is a sale that happens in France. Google can try to duck and weave all they want but if the French taxation authorities decide to play hardball Google will lose sooner or later. The sales contracts are written in French, handled by a French sales staff, and the money originates in France and typically benefits a French company. If it looks like a duck, smells like a duck, quacks like a duck...

Re:Global companies and tax

[Anonymous Coward]

They won't be for long, if they are at all. Why would they stay in France? High taxes, high salaries, not many people who speak English (seriously, 50% of the taxi drivers in Paris don't speak English). They'd be much better of trading from Ireland or the Netherlands, also EU countries. Of course, those Google subsidiaries would be taxed, but that would be at Dutch or Irish levels.

It's the same idea as the USA: California can't just tax Texas companies.

Re:Global companies and tax

[Hognoxious]

If it looks like a duck, smells like a duck, quacks like a duck...

... they'll force eat to eat till its liver explodes?

Re:Global companies and tax

[Anonymous Coward]

High taxes, high salaries, not many people who speak English (seriously, 50% of the taxi drivers in Paris don't speak English).

High taxes -- okay... but just for people with large incomes. For most people, the tax rate is not so different from the US.

High salaries -- uh, no, not in France. Salaries are low compared to most other places, otherwise I'd be looking at staying here longer.

Speaking English? -- it's not England. I bet you that 50% of Paris taxi drivers speak Arabic, though. And Spanish or Italian is more common than English, in all likelihood. Anyway, what long conversations do you need to have with your taxi driver? You write down the address, you give it to the driver, they point to the meter with how much money you give them -- it works in any country (and I've tried it in China and Greece and ... many countries whose official language is completely unrelated to any that I speak).

Tax to support culture?

[LynnwoodRooster]

When you have to force people to consume your culture (via taxation), perhaps your culture really isn't as important as you think it is...

Taxation

[easyTree]

The proposed tax would raise an estimated €86 million annually that would be used to pay for groups of lawmakers to sit around thinking of new taxes.

erm

[Anonymous Coward]

"Or maybe they just can't accept the fact that the days of empire are over, and that they no longer matter all that much on the world stage compared to when they were in their glory days."

Are you talking about France or the UK? Because I know many anglos who like to cite the battle of the Plains of Abraham as a reason we should all speak white (english), and still display quite a lot of affection for that old lady who wears a flower pot on her head. All that aside, I should think the ROC has enough problems that you needn't concern yourselves with us.

Translation

[Anonymous Coward]

Translation: Tax new media to subsidize old media. Sounds like vevendi has been spending more money on lobbyists lately. Very fascist.

How about...

[Anonymous Coward]

How about every Internet company moving (only on paper of course) to the Cayman Islands and thereby avoiding any tax anywhere whatsoever?

Maybe taxing a company where it operates (in stead of where it is founded) isn't such a bad idea.

Re:How about...

[Wootery]

Wow AC, I bet Google never thought of that.

Their team of world-class tax-avoidance-lawyers will be kicking themselves.

Greed: meet axe

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, Youtube and Google provide very nice things. If France tries to impose this, its half a step from Google yanking Youtube from France. Suddenly the French have 1) No Youtube, and 2) No money for their content, which was exactly were they are now. If the end game was to end Youtube in France (no more of those foreign language videos polluting la francoise), then good job sparky, ya done good. Its a kind of censorship though. Many news sites use Youtube to stream video content. Without it, France becomes more backwards w.r.t. the rest of the world. So go ahead France, take le' dump all over a good thing, and instead of watching flowers bloom, watch that thing go away. If I were running Youtube (a free service) and France tried to pull this, I know my response would be in the form of an Italian arm gesture in which one hand crosses over the chest and catches the other arm at the elbow, causing the elbow to bend and the second forearm to become vertical.

Frogs!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not good eat. Not good for the world. France is a worthless country that can't produce
anything. If it weren't for historical sites there isn't a single product of France that is
worth the toilet water we are forced to wear when around them.

What a new idea! Tax non-citizens

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd love to say this was a new idea. Taxing non-citizens to support you failing cultural pet projects. YouTube is a corporation. Tax a company, any company, all the same. For their business done in your country, not their business done outside your country. Then what your governments spends the tax money on is their business. I see no reason why Americans, Canadians or Mexicans need support cultural films in France (with respect to France, I use the term 'culture' loosely), Russia, India or Vietnam.

Of course this also speaks to the weakness of government officials in France. They want to do so much, but are afraid of their electorate, which doesn't want to spend their hard earned money on government officials pet projects. So how to get the funds? From non-electorate peoples; foreigners.

Re: There are more french film than you would thin

[Anonymous Coward]

Retard.

http://www.fieldofschemes.com/2013/04/01/4822/nine-out-of-ten-economists-agree-sports-stadium-subsidies-are-dumb/

Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

But Google did think of that. And many other global companies did as well.

Which means they set up shop (only on paper, not in real life) in a very tax-friendly country but get their revenue from the rest of the world.

Very clever, that goes without saying. But is it right, is it what-should-be-done? I think it isn't. If you play on a certain field, you should abide by the rules of that field. If you get your revenue from France, you should play by the rules of France: i.e. pay their taxes. You, as a company, are welcome to not do business there if you don't like those rules.

But you can't have the best of both worlds.

Re:Huh?

[Wootery]

But you can't have the best of both worlds.

Well, no, you shouldn't, but companies certainly can.

Which means they set up shop (only on paper, not in real life) in a very tax-friendly country but get their revenue from the rest of the world.

Indeed. Amazon's headquarters in Europe is in Luxembourg City, which has the additional advantage of being nicely out of reach of most European consumers' lawyers. This stuff is a damn joke.

A publicly-shared company is duty-bound to blindly chase profits and, therefore, to disregard what is right. This is not a world of B-corporations.

Ideally the tax laws would actually work when it comes to international corporations, but either that's too hard, or the people coming up with the laws don't want that to be the case (or some combination of the two).

It's not a tax to promote french content

[gadget junkie]

This is not a tax to promote French content. If anything, over the world youtube has done more to promote local content than any government institution, simply by being there.
BUT, it is a convenient tax to promote government institutions, stuffed with well paid bureaucrats, that as an hobby and with no prospect of return on capital, spend money on politically approved content.
One convenient riposte could be "sure, we'll pay this tax. But let's do it this way. first year, you get the money you want. The year after, promoted content should gross on the open market at least the institution funding. if it does not reach the objective, all salaries will be capped at the median wage. if that's not enough to reach parity with gross sales,wages at the institution would be proportionally cut."

Italy has both government approved TV channels, and a similar institution promoting Italian film productions. This content gets rave reviews, especially by involved parties, and it never produced anything that any foreigner (or Italian, for that matter) would remember. BUT, If I whistle some Sergio Leone soundtrack in Tibet, anyone would recall the film.

There is no requirement to play

[kawabago]

Example: 8 years ago we moved to a small town where no one picked up their dog crap in the park except me. The local ascetic said, "That won't do any good. No one else does that." When people saw me picking up after my dog, they started doing it too. Soon there was no dog crap in the park. There was no requirement to pick up, but people did it because it made a better park for everyone. Just because some people steal, doesn't mean everyone will join them. Most people will do the right thing because it usually makes everyone better off.

Oddly? No.

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone in their right mind who lives in Canada would say that. It's complete bullshit. And yes, Quebec is horrible and racist, bordering on nazi-like behavior. Instead of the "one true race" it's the "one true culture", although they have PLENTY of discrimination based on race. You have to be an uncle tom to get anywhere in Quebec, let me tell ya. Posting as AC because dissent is viewed that badly.

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

So they're still influenced by Anglo culture whether they like it or not, too funny :)

Block Youtube from France

[gelfling]

Problem solved. France is now in that elite group of evolved countries of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran, China, North Korea, Malaysia, Zimbabwe and Belarus.

Kiss Noise.

Another one (and hot grits)

[Anonymous Coward]

Nikita http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikita_(film) is another very good French film that was remade with American actors (and again as an American TV series). Of course the French damn that film maker with faint praise by saying he has a "Hollywood" style, so maybe that's not the best example.

On the other hand that director also gave us a French film shot in the English language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lon:_The_Professional that introduced the world to Slashdot's favorite hot grits gal Natalie Portman. So maybe the French film industry isn't the best judge of quality.

Another possibility

[jargonburn]

They could take a chance, analyze their markets, find a niche, craft a workable business plan, and invest in it. Or just beg their government for money. Right. My bad.

When will people say "Enough"?

[Lord Kano]

When will people just say "Thank you France but we'll take our goodies elsewhere."
Let the Belgians and Germans get all of the benefits and leave the French out in the cold. The only way to stop this bullshit is to opt out of it and let them suffer the consequences.

LK

This tax

[Alarash]

I hate this tax. They tax TVs already. Just owning a TV makes you subject to pay the tax, even if you don't watch public TV. I never watch public channels - I mean, never, ever. I use my TV for Bluray, XBMC and Xbox. But I still have to pay the tax. They also tax PC monitors, because you *might* be watching public channels on them. In the past public channels used to be interesting because they were less money driven. You wouldn't have stupid reality shows or Hollywood movies (I have a Bluray player for the later), it would be more "culture" oriented, but even that is going out the window.

CSA translation wtf?

[grinder]

CSA == "Superior Audiovisual Council" wtf, who made this up? Didn't strike them as sounding somwhat peculiar ? Audiovisual High Council would make more sense.

taxation

[Anonymous Coward]

Want to destroy something? Tax it.