Booming Nigeria To Adopt One Of The West's Dying Ideas: 'You Must Be A Criminal' Copyright Levies
from the don't-follow-us,-we're-lost dept
Recently, we noted that copyright levies in Europe are looking more and more anachronistic for the high-tech world. It seems that Nigeria has not noticed this, since Afro-IP points out to us that the Copyright (Levy of Materials) Order 2012 has been approved there, which will bring them in for a very wide range of goods:
The Director-General who disclosed this in Abuja, indicated that the materials regulated by the levy imposed by the new Copyright Order include storage media like Audio Cassettes, Mini Discs, CDs, DVDs, Blu-ray, SD Memory Cards, Video Cassettes, USB Flash drives, I-Pods and Photocopying Paper. Others are equipment and devices like Photocopying Machines, MP3 Players, Digital Juke box, Mobile Phones, CD recorders, DVD Recorders, Blu Ray Recorders, Computer External Hard Drives, Analogue Audio Recorders, Analogue Video Recorders, Personal Computers, Printing Plates, Printers/Printing Machines, Radio/TV Sets enabling recording, Camcorders and Decoders/Signal Receivers.
The money is going to the usual places:
"The Commission is expected to disburse the funds to beneficiaries who are essentially approved collective management organisations (CMOs) subject to retaining 10 per cent of the collected levy for administrative purposes of agencies that would be involved in the implementation of the scheme", he stated, adding, "The Order also permits the Commission to retain 20 per cent of the fund for anti-piracy purposes; and 10 per cent for promotion of creativity", he stated.
It's particularly sad to see that exactly double the amount will be spent on "anti-piracy purposes" compared to the "promotion of creativity." That not only seems precisely the wrong way round but is regrettable in a country where it was piracy that helped build the hugely-successful local film industry.
It's obviously great to see African countries like Nigeria develop as an increasingly important player in the world of technology, but it's depressing to see its politicians repeating the mistakes of the West in this area. Imposing retrogressive levies do little to help local artists, but are likely to hinder the development of local hardware industries because of the extra costs they impose on purchasers.
Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: copyright levies, nigeria, piracy, taxes
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Actually, it's a "pirates don't pay" tax on everyone else.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Actually, it's a "pirates don't pay" tax on everyone else.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Actually, it's a "pirates don't pay" tax on everyone else.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Actually, it's a "pirates don't pay" tax on everyone else.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Actually, it's a "pirates don't pay" tax on everyone else.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Actually, it's a "pirates don't pay" tax on everyone else.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Actually, it's a "pirates don't pay" tax on everyone else.
Should we tax you to prop pizza hut up because people bought those frozen store bought pizzas instead?
Funny how you're outraged at people who fileshare and call them thieves but just shrug when actual theft happens? And not just any theft: theft approved by the goverment!
Intersesting morals you have there.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The real problem in Nigeria
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Question
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Question
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Question
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Question
No, the problem is being forced by law to support businesses that you may not wish to have anything to do with.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Question
Regarding the redistribution system, it is just the egg of the chicken that "music needs levies to compensate for lost sale from copyright exemptions".
Subject: "compensation"
Tool: "levies"
Secondary tool: "levy industries"
Reason: "To compensate artists for copyright exemptions"
Critisism: "Distribution mechanics are bad and the compensation will not reach the targets"
Just taking out the levy industries changes absolutely nothing. It is the lack of a good distribution mechanic that makes the reason impossible to fulfill.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Question
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
This looks like free money taken from others and given to any douche that has some influence and find it to hard to actually do some work.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
but to be expected, given the influence that is exerted here, as everywhere, by the US, the financial 'incentives' that are given to politicians and the lack of 'being able to think for themselves'. if they were to worry more about what detrimental effect this sort of thing has on their own people and society, rather than on how much it will benefit the US entertainment industries, perhaps they would see sense, but i very much doubt it!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
I don't know. The US does a lot of this sort of thing, and arguably wields more influence over other nations.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
Europe has a tradition for this kind of nonsense and are generally very committed. Germany are so far out in this area that they don't have a list of levies. Let litigation decide! Benelux has very long lists. Finland is well on the levy train as well. France... Well nobody really understands any of the french systems to be honest so it is up for grabs.
Denmark and Sweden have relatively short lists and good clarity. It is ironic since these countries are hailed as being the best at compensating creators!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
The US has a 2% tax on all home recording equipment and 3% on media. This includes tape, CDs, DVDs, etc.
There is a loophole for CDs/DVDs/etc., though: if the media is labelled for "data" storage, the tax is not applied. If you go to the CD aisle int he US, you'll see some packages of CD labelled as "music" CDs and some as "data" CDs. The actual media is identical, but only the "music" CDs incur the tax.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
On governments and death
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It isn't that bad
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
'You Must Be A Criminal' Copyright Levies
Another one of those ‘You Must Be A Criminal’ ideas came up in the various proposals for a copyright “small claims” court.
Responding to the Copyright Office's First Notice of Inquiry, M. Tom Craig commented that there ought to be a tax to open a blog.
“A tax to when openning a blog... distribute the tax revenues to artists” !
M. Tom Craig claims to be “an American Citizen living in France.”
Amusing. Very amusing.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Ha!
At least they were honest enough to call it what it is-- a scheme!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]