4 ms·
Plot twist: digital assets cannot be duplicated for free. They require storage and transfer. French plot twist: There are already extensive laws to cover copyi
by user5994461 7y ago
Plot twist: digital assets cannot be duplicated for free. They require storage and transfer.
French plot twist: There are already extensive laws to cover copying and in fact every storage medium is (heavily) taxed to cover losses from copying. You're actually paying few cents per GB on ALL storage mediums like DVD/disks/SSD/usbkeys.
- chipperyman573 7y agoHow are the taxes distributed so that the people who are affected by the copying are the ones who receive the benefits? Do they get tax breaks equal to the amount they are "owed"?
- user5994461 7y agoUnless I am mistaking, that goes into organisations that manage royalties for movies/music/etc, they take care of redistributing it. Originally, this was intended in the era of audio tapes and VHS, where people would typically record off the radio or the TV. It was known exactly which titles were played when and how many times. They'd estimate some distributions from there, I guess it's more complicated today.
- Fnoord 7y ago> Plot twist: digital assets cannot be duplicated for free. They require storage and transfer. Digital assets have zero marginal costs. That is to say, yes, storage and transfer is not free as in beer, but it is very cheap. Which is why we have that tax to cover losses from copying. Not just in France, also in Germany, The Netherlands, and probably many more countries in EU.
- user5994461 7y agoI can be wrong but I doubt that Germany has anything similar because one way to avoid the tax in France was to buy from Germany. The French tax is pretty high. It could be something like 50€ out of a 150€ hard drive.
- anoncake 7y agoIt's a lot lower in Germany but in principle it does exist.
- pixelpoet 7y agoI'm German and only just heard about this now. I wonder where the money goes, both in theory and practice...
- anoncake 7y agoGEMA
- kaybe 7y agohttps://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauschalabgabe https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauschalabgabe You're paying 10€ per laptop and 3€ per mobile phone. The money is distributed to several organizations (GEMA, VG Wort, VG Bild-Kunst,..). The right to private copying is derived from that. Apparently they're working on an update though, we should keep an eye on it.
- zaarn 7y agoIt goes to GEMA. If you're not signed up for GEMA you don't see a cent, otherwise you get a fraction of a fraction of the money.
- shados 7y agoI think Canada does that too, right? I'd be surprised if Valve saw any of that money though.