Consumer Electronics Firms Fighting Against Copyright Levies In Europe

from the how-far-will-they-get dept

While US copyright law has its problems, one path we have not gone down that many other countries have is the concept of copyright levies on various technologies. These taxes on various technologies, consumer electronics and media storage devices are supposed to "compensate" for any copyright infringement that is done on that equipment (though, it should be noted that, even with these levies, such infringement is still illegal). Think of it as a "you simply must be a criminal" tax. In the US, the entertainment industry has mostly fought against these levies fearing (perhaps reasonably) that they would lead people to think that such copying was, in fact, legal -- or much, much worse, convince a court of that fact (by saying "hey, I paid for it via this levy, thus I should be able to do it.") Still, they do exist in many places, and they generally serve to harm the consumer electronics players by making their devices significantly more expensive. In some cases, the vast majority of the price of certain products is made up of the levy, rather than the price of the product.

Over in Europe, they've been fighting about this for years. Back in 2006 there was a proposal to get rid of these levies, but it got shot down due to intense pressure from the collections societies who make a ton of money from them. In 2008, there was even an effort to expand these levies. Copycense points us to the news that in the latest "negotiations" around these levies in Europe, the consumer electronics companies have given up trying to reason with the collections societies, and instead are looking to the EU to put in place some regulations to at least get rid of the worst abuses of such levies that massively hold back the ability of consumer electronics companies to sell products at a reasonable price.

Filed Under: copyright, europe, levies

Digital Britain: Few Surprises As It Looks To Prop Up Content Industries

from the government-doing-what-government-does dept

The final version of the UK government's Digital Britain report, its blueprint for updating the country's tech-related laws and infrastructure, has been released today, and it doesn't look like it holds too many surprises. Like the interim report that was released earlier this year, it's full of a lot of vague language, and as the UK's opposition party points out, seems most interested in propping up failing old-media business models. Two aspects of the report are grabbing the most attention. First, the government will start a 50p (about 80 cents) monthly tax on landline phones in order to build out broadband networks in rural and other unserved areas. Second, and more controversially, the report says the UK's communications regulator must cut file-sharing by 70%, and calls for ISPs to help accomplish this by keeping tabs on their users, sending them notification letters when they download infringing material, and giving up their details to content companies (with a court order) so they can be sued. It stops short of creating a rights agency run by the copyright cartel, as had been rumored, and while it doesn't endorse the use of a three-strikes policy, it does say that regulators will have the power to force ISPs to use other technical means (such as throttling connections, traffic shaping, and even blocking certain sites, services and protocols) to try and stop persistent infringers.

The report pays a lot of lip service to the fact that content businesses need to update their business models to the changing digital environment, but it really does very little to help facilitate this, instead preferring to make stopping piracy the central focus. The government seems to have fully bought into the entertainment industry's propaganda -- that it can't do anything until piracy stops, that it can't move forward as long as there's file-sharing. The reality isn't that the industry can't move forward, but rather that it won't. And, after all, if the government is willing to get involved and offer the industry special protection to prop up its ailing business models, why should it?

Filed Under: copyright, digital britain, file sharing, isps, levies, recording industry, uk, universal access