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That sounds like a relic left over from a bygone era. Like the digital storage levy we still pay despite music and movie piracy only being rampant from 1990s-20
by jorvi 2y ago
That sounds like a relic left over from a bygone era. Like the digital storage levy we still pay despite music and movie piracy only being rampant from 1990s-2000s :)
I love the EU but it certainly has its idiosyncrasies.
- c120 2y agoThis levy is not meant for piracy, but for legal access - like copying the CDs you already bought to your phone. Compared to what we used to pay on blank media it's not so bad. If the alternative is that you are not allowed to keep private copies of anything...
- ErneX 2y agoIn Spain every device you buy that has some kind of storage is taxed for piracy, the money goes to the local equivalent of the RIIA or book editors associations.
- JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 2y agoSame in France where the money goes to the local RIAA. Even if it’s a hard drive meant for Linux, or to store public domain stuff. It’s basically a mafia that gets our money despite copying for backup purposes being completely legal.
- Joker_vD 2y agoI wonder if the artists see any share of that money...
- JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 2y agoIn France it’s called the SACEM and I know a few bands that are affiliated to this association because it’s pretty much mandatory if you want to sell anything. Those bands are not famous but despite making sales, they only get a few bucks every year, or it’s the SACEM saying "we forgot to send you the check lol, no biggies." It’s the biggest legal mafia I can think of right now. Most of the money collected is sent to huge artists (like what Spotify is doing), there is nothing indie about it even if they pretend it’s for the glory of French music.
- TeMPOraL 2y agoTaxation has overhead. If they were to actually track everyone's use and intention on a case-by-case basis, everything would get massively more expensive, just to offset the amount of extra bureaucracy needed to handle this. It's the same idea as to why reducing the amount of means-testing and other hoops to jump to get social benefits would save taxpayers money - sure, more people who don't need benefits would get them, but that's more than offset by what would be saved by eliminating the workload of (and government jobs dedicated to) gate-keeping those benefits.
- sam_lowry_ 2y ago> If the alternative is that you are not allowed to keep private copies of anything The alternative is that we download torrents pretty much everywhere except Germany which developed a private industry of lawyers extracting money from leachers and seeders alike. Germans instead have VPNs set up in Poland or Ukraine and use their streaming websites.
- dspillett 2y agoOddities in German copyright or related law don't just have that effect on piracy, they make certain forms of “copyleft trolling” by third parties (who may be in no way linked to the content creator) possible, or at least far easier. This isn't the only route to copyleft trolling, of course. Refs: https://doctorow.medium.com/a-bug-in-early-creative-commons-licenses-has-enabled-a-new-breed-of-superpredator-5f6360713299 https://doctorow.medium.com/a-bug-in-early-creative-commons-... https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Copyleft_trolling https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Copyleft_trolling
- immibis 2y agoFun fact: Stack Overflow possibly violated Creative Commons licensing by putting a Mullenweg-style checkbox in front of downloading the quarterly data dumps. They were notified more than 30 days ago. Therefore, almost all content older than 30 days on Stack Overflow is there illegally. Any lawyers reading? Go nuts.
- sam_lowry_ 2y agoUm... I am tempted to to file a 5000€ claim in the small claims court against SO in my jurisdiction for violating the licence to my contributions. Easy money...
- vasco 2y agoI reject this view of the law completely at least in Portugal. The law was introduced to add a tax to every storage media one can purchase with the premise that a percentage of that storage media will be used for what they call piracy. This in effect means everyone is assumed to be breaking the law in advance and paying for it in advance. As for your point about alternatives, if they add a tax on oxygen you breathe, will you also then say "it's not so bad if the alternative is you are not allowed to breathe at all"?
- cfn 2y agoAnd the funniest part is that when you buy from Amazon (ES, DE, etc) that tax is not applied further hurting the local shops.
- stavros 2y agoThe alternative should be that you can backup the stuff you own for free.
- jampekka 2y ago> If the alternative is that you are not allowed to keep private copies of anything... That's of course not the only alternative. But the recording media levy isn't that bad at least in Finland. The income from those is distributed directly to authors and artists, skipping the labels and publishers altogether.
- JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 2y ago> This levy is not meant for piracy, but for legal access Backups are already legal in France. It’s pure greed. Why should we pay twice? Also this levy goes to major labels, why should I fund the local Taylor Swift if I want to backup my computer? > blank media But we still pay that levy on blank media, phones, tablets, computers, hard drives, and USB keys. They even wanted to put that tax on refurbished items. > the alternative is that you are not allowed But it was already legal for the past 50 years. They added this tax, it’s not a gift for us, it’s yet another restriction on what was previously legal.
- fmbb 2y ago> I love the EU but it certainly has its idiosyncrasies. This issue does not appear weird. There is some legally technical difference between a video camera and a still photo camera. Probably different tariffs or something. Not weird at all and it is not uncommon anywhere in the world for different classes och products to be classified differently, infallibly because of industry lobbyism to reduce their costs or to reduce their prices for their specific product. The manufacturer chose to limit the product for the consumer for their own economic benefit. Nothing is stopping them from playing ball except their own profit motive.
- alibarber 2y agoSo American and Asian consumers can pay the same price for the same device that can do more, but to protect me, the European, my device must do less? It is I the customer who will pay the tariffs (they are always paid by the importer) - the manufacturer gets the same amount per unit.
- jampekka 2y agoTariffs aren't to protect you. They are to protect domestic industry. https://www.reuters.com/article/technology/eu-to-hit-some-digital-cameras-with-import-duty-idUSL17772718/ https://www.reuters.com/article/technology/eu-to-hit-some-di...
- tempaccount420 2y agoAnd "domestic industry" in EU means German :)
- TeMPOraL 2y agoDon't be too jealous. Your industry won't win with German anyway, but at least German industry won't lose to China like the rest of the world, so as long as you're in the EU, you're still ahead :).
- master-lincoln 2y ago
- dingdingdang 2y ago> I love the EU but it certainly has its idiosyncrasies. That is an acceptable position and you will likely nor require further investigation as long as the criticism remains vague and is offset by positive sentiment. I too love the EU.
- dnh44 2y agoI have a family member of retirement age who got into the habit of anonymously expressing their love of the EU in the comments section of a local newspaper. After a few months of this they received a phone call on their landline warning them that such public expressions are inappropriate and that there could be consequences should they not find a new hobby. I too love the EU but I loved it much more 15 years ago.
- rsynnott 2y agoMore or less all tariffs and sales tax systems are like this; the rules are _always_ kind of all over the place. My personal favourite example is when the Irish Supreme Court determined that Subway bread was not bread: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/01/irish-court-rules-subway-bread-is-not-bread https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/01/irish-court-ru... (Bread had advantageous treatment for VAT purposes, but Subway's 'bread' has too much sugar to qualify.) There's also the famous Jaffa Cake case, of course: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffa_Cakes#Legal_status https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffa_Cakes#Legal_status , but I think the Subway one has an extra element of absurdity because it went all the way to the _Supreme Court_.
- hulitu 2y ago> My personal favourite example is when the Irish Supreme Court determined that Subway bread was not bread Because it is not. Cola is not water either.
- TRiG_Ireland 2y agoImportantly, Subway bread is not bread for tax purposes. For food standards purposes, it is.
- aredox 2y agoThe very raison-d'être of the EU is to remove all tarriffs between 20+ countries. Without the EU, there would be a worse patchwork of rules and exceptions.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- hylaride 2y agoPatchworks of rules and exceptions can be beneficial. It allows for experimentation and/or competition as well as the fact that regulations can often enough not keep up with change and they can be more entrenched if done at a higher level. Where, when, and what is better harmonized across a whole market VS allowing variation is a matter of debate.
- _fizz_buzz_ 2y ago> I love the EU but it certainly has its idiosyncrasies. Tariffs around the world have weird stuff like that. Very little to do with the EU itself. Expect a lot more weird things like that to happen in the US now with the new US government implementing new tariffs.
- mixmastamyk 2y ago> music and movie piracy only being rampant from 1990s-2000s Huh? It may have dipped at the time Netflix had everything streamable, but there's been a resurgence in the now years since it hasn't.