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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."
"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..."
Waiting for an amusing sig.
If you have to subsidize it, then it ain't culture; it's history.
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
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.
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
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.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
They could just post videos on the web just like everyone else. Last time I checked its not exactly expensive to do.
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.
You never know...
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.
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....
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".
Watch this Heartland Institute video
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!
Watch this Heartland Institute video
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...
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.
It lost something when they created the TV series.
rewriting history since 2109
"Les cites des enfant perdu" is also good.
Yeah, I had a sig once; I got bored of it.
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.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
"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.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
American cheese usually doesn't, that's why it tastes of plastic.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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.
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.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
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."
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
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.
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.