4 ms·
Really! My respect for France has gone up a few notches.
by simondotau 5y ago
Really! My respect for France has gone up a few notches.
- namdnay 5y agoDon't get too excited, in France there's a tax on all storage devices (sd cards, usb sticks, hdds, laptops, phones etc) to help subsidise the record and film industry...
- carlob 5y agoWe have that in Italy too, but at least that means that ripping CDs or DVDs is entirely legal. It's actually called private copy contribution.
- nephanth 5y agoYep it actually came from Germany, and was afterward adopted by a lot of european countries
- drw85 5y agoGermany has that too. Even on paper, since you could copy pages under copyright.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- nephanth 5y agoNote that internal HDDs aren't taxed under this tax, only external ones. (So if you don't want to pay it, you can just buy a SATA HDd and an adaptor). Phones are taxed though (yes this doesn't make any sense technically)
- simondotau 5y agoIs the tax on a phone's storage capacity or its overall retail price?
- nephanth 5y agoOn the storage capacity
- simondotau 5y agoHonestly, I'd take that trade. A narrow, stupid tax is definitely the lesser of two evils here. (Especially as it means I'd have a moral license to pirate whatever I wish!)