Dutch Pass iPod Tax 873
An anonymous reader writes "The Register is reporting that in a few short months a proposal to tax all MP3 players in the Netherlands will become law. The levy taxes 3.28 euros ($4.30 US) for every gigabyte of capacity. This means a 60GB iPod Photo will be hit for an additional 196 euros ($258), all of it going to the record industry's copyright collection agencies. And they call file sharers thieves?"
Just a proposal, hopefully... (Score:3, Interesting)
A lot of the "problems" the United States has the Netherlands shares, like immigration (the Turkish, etc.). I absolutely loved the two years I spent there and only hope that they don't buy into the US corporate way of messing stuff up.
This iPod tax seems completely absurd and I hope that this proposal is just that, a proposal and nothing more. Just my two euros...
Re:Just a proposal, hopefully... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Just a proposal, hopefully... (Score:5, Insightful)
But the whole thing is just utterly ridiculous. I don't download any music of p2p now, but I had to pay a tax like this I'm sure I'd start just to stir things up a bit.
Btw. or I could buy the iPod in some other country.
Re:Just a proposal, hopefully... (Score:5, Insightful)
We already have to pay a levy on blank CDs in most European countries today, same as it was with blank magnetic media before.
And of course, iPod sales in the Netherlands would suffer a huge drop... in such a small country, you can never be far away from the border.
Destroying their high-street shops (Score:5, Informative)
I think this is kind of academic as goods are allowed to be freely distributed for personal use within the EC, and anyone in Holland who wants an ipod will just buy it mail-order from the UK or somewhere without the tax.
Exactly the same thing has happened with the iTrip - it is illegal to sell or use here in the UK but so many have been imported, that they are turning a blind eye to the selling now.
It's a bit like trying to tax the super wealthy - if you try to do it too much, they just move somewhere else, and you end up with no money.
I am sure that the shop sellers of ipods will just arrange to have them delivered from another country, but will lose out big time to the intenet and mail-order sales. If they want to destroy their high-street shops, who are we to stop them?
Re:Just a proposal, hopefully... (Score:5, Insightful)
But think about the enormous economical losses of this tax. People will stop buying MP3 players in the Netherlands. Instead they will be buying in Germany or Belgium. Same thing for the DVD tax: I buy all my DVD_Rs from Germany, not in the local shop.
Most resellers are very afraid of this kind of taxes.
Re:Just a proposal, hopefully... (Score:5, Interesting)
1. This is just a proposal, and already heavily critized.
2. It is legal in the Netherlands to make private copies of any audio/video, EVEN IF YOU DO NOT OWN AN ORIGINAL! This means effectively that there's no such thing as illegal downloading of songs/movies in the Netherlands; it's legal. The levy system is the opposed measure set up to make this legal.
Re:Just a proposal, hopefully... (Score:3, Insightful)
If this tax comes live, I guess the Belgian and German MP3-player markets will suddenly flourish while the neder??? (how do you spell "something from Nederlands"?) will drop to death.
Good for germans & belgians, I guess...
Re:Just a proposal, hopefully... (Score:5, Informative)
"Dutch".
Re:Just a proposal, hopefully... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Just a proposal, hopefully... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Just a proposal, hopefully... (Score:3, Informative)
The United States did, and still does, have a tax on blank audio cassettes, with the proceeds of the tax going to the record industry. In pushing the tax bill through Congress, the record industry said that the tax was to make sure the artists got money for their work. However, little of the tax actually went to the artists, most went to the record labels and publishing companies.
Are you *SURE* about that? (Score:4, Informative)
How much you wanna bet? [cornell.edu]
This may come as a shock to you, but not only are you wrong, but the US was one of the first countries to introduce something like this.
Re:Just a proposal, hopefully... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Just a proposal, hopefully... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just a proposal, hopefully... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Just a proposal, hopefully... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Just a proposal, hopefully... (Score:5, Funny)
Those are p2p bars?
Yeah, it breaks down like this: it's legal to buy it, it's legal to own it and, if you're the proprietor of a p2p bar, it's legal to sell it. It's legal to carry music, which doesn't really matter 'cause -- get a load of this -- if the cops stop you, it's illegal for this to search you. Searching you is a right that the cops in Amsterdam don't have.
That did it, man -- I'm fuckin' goin', that's all there is to it.
You'll dig it the most. But you know what the funniest thing about Europe is?
What?
It's the little differences...
Re:Just a proposal, hopefully... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Just a proposal, hopefully... (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a lovely organization called Artisjus, which managed to put a tax on every cd, dvd, memory card (like the ones used it _cameras_). This essentially doubles their price, and they are doing this on the grounds that it's a compensation for the losses in piracy. Now, the further outrageing thing is, that this is only about music. They collect the money and check the current music market from _their_ statistics and distribute _some_ of the money that way.
The bad thing about is that they are assuming that people are breaking the law in advance! The bad thing is that they don't assume people make backups of personal data, burn any other legal things, which _does_ happen. Also, if people burn software or movies to the cd/dvd, shouldn't the movies industry get compensation by the same logic? Or if i burn a linux dvd, shouldn't i GET MY MONEY BACK? It's all or none. Another outrageous event was when they added the memory cards, which are 90% used in cameras. Sure, someone will pirate mp3s in that...
The irony in that, people would assume that they can pirate legally then, since they got the price paid for it already, well, wrong. There is another nice organization in Hungary, called ASVA, which goes after even legal "piracy". In hungary you can download music and videos, as long as you don't upload. Still, this ASVA goes after people, not just those who for example run ftp servers, but the common downloaders aswell. They "teach" and "lecture" the police about the dangers of violating IP, and basically bribe the police. It is a sad and outrageous legal state.
This is honestly a fucked up system, which is there in Hungary, and i don't wish the dutch to have this, further more, when we have an example that some people have done it already, so don't discard that proposal on "it won't pass" or something right away. This thing needs to be fought, and burned to the ground. Also some EU action against that kind of thing happening in Hungary would be good.
Re:Just a proposal, hopefully... (Score:3, Insightful)
If you've already been to jail for 3 months for it, wouldn't you do the shoplifting?
Re:Just a proposal, hopefully... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Just a proposal, hopefully... (Score:5, Funny)
Ever heard of sheet music?
An idea.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:An idea.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:An idea.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:An idea.. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not saying it's something you couldn't get away with, but just see tax stamps on cigarrettes, lots of people try to avoid the insane taxes the gov puts on them, and lots of people go to jail for smuggling untaxed packs or for buying them.
The sad part is the costs associated with administering a tax like this soaks up most of the revenue it generates. Total freaki
Re:An idea.. (Score:3, Informative)
Ha! (Score:4, Funny)
Billary lover!!! Communist!!!!
If you don't love America and follow its leaders unquesiontionably, then get the hell out!
I'd love to stay and belittle you more, but I have to go to work my second shift. Health care ain't cheap, you know, and my WalMart job doesn't quite cover the $700/month health insurance I get rom my 9-5 IT job.
Re:Not in the US (Score:3, Insightful)
That said, I just don't get this. Lets say there's a tax on MP3 players. That's fine, there's a tax on cigeretts too. But the taxes on cigeretts go to support publicly funded health care systems like Medicade which are designed to assist people who are dieing of things like lung cancer.
See how that works? Buy cigeretts, pay a tax, help fund your care when you hav
Not quite. (Score:5, Insightful)
1. If universal health care worked as well in the US as universal education, I want no part of it. 2.You might have a point if the money from the iPod tax went to universal health care in any of those countries. It doesn't. It goes to the recording industry.
Anything else?
Re:Not in the US (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Not in the US (Score:3, Funny)
Thanks, my mistake. Wow, that's incredible though. How did that come to be, anyway? Did someone in Parliament with a brain trick the recording industry? Are there people who actually think there's a difference in the discs?
I wouldn't want to be a Dutch iPod salesman... (Score:5, Insightful)
My worry is that the UK will end up being forced to adopt similar levies in the name of "harmonisation", which would be ruinously expensive for those of us who only buy blank CD-Rs to use for data rather than music.
Re:Just a proposal, hopefully... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now I've paid for music, it's no longer illegal for me to go out and download it.
I know that's not really how it'll work legally, but I've always strongly felt that if any standard tax is passed on devices for listening to music, then anyone in possession of such devices are free to access all the music with out limit. Why else have a tax if not to remove the individual purchase rate.
I'd gladly give up $200 one-time for indefinate no-further-charge unlimited access to all the RIAA (or whatever it is in the Netherlands) music.
All that said, it is a mockery of justice to have ANY corporation able to levy a tax on citizens for any reason. If this was a tax so the government could afford to cover the legal costs that *it* is incurring, then it falls well within what most standard taxes are for. But if it's a tax that presumes purchasers of a consumer device are going to use it for illegal ends, and compensate the, erm, "victims" in advance, then you've just created a "Guilty until proven innocent" model.
Personally I have a 40g iPod which is about 2/3 full. Every single bit of data on it is something which I have a right to place there. I do believe in paying for music (though actually most of what I have on there is audio books -- which I've paid for). This sort of law would charge people like me, who are wholly operating within our rights within the law, for the crimes of others, with the presumption that I'm too weak minded to resist the temptation to break the law.
Re:Just a proposal, hopefully... (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, that's becoming a very popular model. It has been in use for traffic rules violations for many years now (you have to prove yourself innocent), and there are several other areas where the Dutch government wants to apply it. The most recent example is for "unwanted intimacies" (ongewenste intimiteiten) at work. If the secretary files a complaint that the boss is harassing her, the boss will have to prove he didn't or otherwise he'll be considered guilty.
Re:Just a proposal, hopefully... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Just a proposal, hopefully... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Just a proposal, hopefully... (Score:4, Insightful)
So whilst the conspiracy theory might not make sense...it is one which is correct (just ask senator disney or the **AA).
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
258$ "stealing" tax?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate to pay a "steal" tax. But if I'd pay 258$ steal tax, I'd "steal"....
Re:258$ "stealing" tax?!? (Score:5, Funny)
2) Profit!
Wait a second, something's missing here.
Re:258$ "stealing" tax?!? (Score:5, Funny)
2) Profit!
Wait a second, something's missing here.
Yeah, you're missing step 3:
3) ???
which represents the confusion and consternation of the general populace
Re:258$ "stealing" tax?!? (Score:3, Insightful)
2) Profit??
Because I doubt they will see more than $10,000 of this iPod tax.
Re:258$ "stealing" tax?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
But the news mentioned further that it goes for all players, and then it might also get applied to:
USB keys, hard disk drives, cellular phones.
But it is plain idiocy. I *CAN* use an USB key for storing illegal content, yes. But what about my recovery tools for systems I do administering for?
I swear, where the photo industry has seen new opportunities now that digital photography is a hard reality the music industry is still a bunch of clueless morons living in the early 1920's.
Re:258$ "stealing" tax?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Good grief, if they applied that to regular hard drives, you'd be paying $160 for the drive and over $1000 in music taxes for a 250GB drive! Drives are up to 500GB now, and are expected to be up to a TB in 2006, that would be a $4000 tax!
While they're at it, why don't they just tack on a 10 cent tax per sheet of blank paper...maybe the book industry should claim that the reason sales of books are down is because of Internet file sharing.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not too far from the truth! (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't get sick from it. Quit giving them money.
As an ISP's technology and security officer, I've had to deal with numerous Harry Potter intellectual property owner demands. These people have repeatedly disregarded the actual law, e.g. notification through registered agent and specified process, and routinely strong-arm ISPs as follows:
o provide an IP address that was the alleged offender, without naming the file, evidence that the file was their property, nor the actual TIME of the event. As if the whole damn Internet is static IPs! (we have 60% of our customer base obtaining dynamic allocations via PPPoE, so a single IP address is meaningless without other data).
o demand immediate termination of the customer using that IP address. Per the previous point, this would most likely shut down a completely unrelated customer, causing them serious impairment to their business and subjecting the ISP to liability (not to mention lost revenues). This, btw, is probably how all the 85-year-old grandmas are getting named in RIAA/MPAA DMCA suits. Someone please give them an Internet for Dummies class quick.
o demand naming the customer's name, business, address, etc. Again, this is not in compliance with the law that they clearly are aware of yet disregard (if they are so willing to ignore the law, why should file sharers care either?)
o threaten your upstream NSP with legal emails saying if you don't comply with their demand, the upstream must shut your entire network off. Usually they provide 48 hours until they claim they'll escalate it.
Our response has always been legal back to them (that is the only language these people understand). We remind them of the law, the registered agent they ignored, the liability they now may possess having ignored that, and a CLEAR specification of the information required in order for us to identify the alleged party. We send the reply via email and cc to registered mail (very much recommended as it puts them on notice that you're tracking this). Be sure to do this on your attorney's letterhead (sent from your attorney) as this means you're being advised by someone who ought to know the law. Finally, make sure you notify your upstream provider of all of this communication, along with language from your attorney that reminds them that they may be liable should any harm come to your network given how you have complied with the law in your response. As always, if you can push a matter out of some clerical techie's hands and into an upper manager (who is probably fearful of screwing up), you're more likely to prevail.
But back to the point: if you want to keep this RIAA and MPAA nonsense up, keep spending money on their movies, books, music, etc. My son is a big Harry Potter fan, but our family will not spend one dime on anything related to that franchise due to them being placed on my ban list. If an inquiry can cause lost legitimate sales, it'll get their attention. Right now, they believe they have nothing to lose.
Re:258$ "stealing" tax?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
The only solutions are to reduce the power of the government, and/or to move these powers to more regional authorities (thus increasing the cost require to influence the entire nation).
Re:258$ "stealing" tax?!? (Score:3, Interesting)
This logic is great. It works well for struggling third-world African nations, so it should work well in Europe and the US as well! If that's your solution to a proposed surcharge
Re:258$ "stealing" tax?!? (Score:3, Informative)
The fact that many people may use illegally copied music on their iPod is utterly irrelevant. My MP3 player is populated with songs ripped from my own CD collection - if I were to buy a new player this would still be the case. Why should I pay what amounts to a fine for a criminal act that I haven't
Re:258$ "stealing" tax?!? (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally, if it passed, I'd just buy in the US and bring it into Canada (Canada Customs does NOT apply levies to purchases, just taxes). This sort of thing makes Canadian Retailers scream bloody murder.
But the fact remains, the music industry can't have it both ways. If I pay the "MP3 player/media tax", then I have no moral issue at all with downloading or sharing files. If they want to revoke the levy, then I won't download. Simple as that.
If they try and increase the levy AND ban file sharing, I'll buy my media/MP3 players out of the country AND still share files.
N.
Re:258$ "stealing" tax?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
wow. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think SOMEONE didn't quite think this through. I don't doubt that consumers will simply revolt, either running across the border to purchase their electronics, or just not buying them, until some idiot politicians receive enough letters and this whole measure is canned.
Re:wow. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:wow. (Score:5, Insightful)
If they expect something like this to work, it needs to be worked out on a European scale, not just a national one...
Re:wow. (Score:4, Funny)
!!! Holy crap! (Score:3, Interesting)
Le Grand Workaround (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Le Grand Workaround (Score:3)
A 160 GB Dell Sata costs 202 EUR [kelkoo.co.uk] - which would incur a tax of ~200% if it had been sold For an Mp3 player.
Also this tax pretty much legitimises copyright violations or in theory should.
Re:Or.... (Score:3)
I am being falsly accused and fined for violating someones copyright everytime I buy a CD-R even though the contents I burn on them are perfectly legal. (i.e. the last CDs I burned were linux distros)
Will trade iPods for weed (Score:5, Funny)
Big Deal (Score:4, Insightful)
and: people will just buy them by mail order, because there is no customs check inside the EU.
Hm (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Hm (Score:5, Interesting)
As of June 1st, downloading copyrighted material without permission will also be illegal in Sweden. Progressive indeed...
(Distributing (spreading, uploading, selling et c.) someone else's intellectual property without permission has naturally "always" been illegal here.)
How about an MP3 player with a drive bay? (Score:5, Insightful)
When I first read this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Like the article says, what happens when we get 100gb, or 200gb ipods (it'll happen eventually), then we're talking about not just doubling the cost of an Ipod but tripling it.
Don't they realise this amazingly exorbitant taxation will only lead to illegal importing? And I thought the U.S. Government had lost its way....
Levy *and* copyright infringement (Score:5, Insightful)
But, I honestly don't see how they can justify having a levy on media that can be used for assumed copyright infringement, and at the same time seek redress for copyright infringement - isn't the levy supposed to be a sort of "shared" payment for the copyright infringement that occurs?
I mean, they can't have both. Either they have un-levied media, and sue copyright infringers. Or the other way around. Having both is getting paid twice for the same supposed loss.
And that looks like fraud to me.
Re:Levy *and* copyright infringement (Score:5, Informative)
I wouldn't be surprised if the situation were the same in Denmark.
Seems wrong on so many levels (Score:3, Insightful)
Ogg Vorbis! (Score:5, Funny)
Headline should read 'Propose' tax. (Score:5, Insightful)
Great move (Score:5, Insightful)
It's always great to see how the recording industry penalizes a system that allows people to legally listen to music.
I'm sure that the record industry's copyright collection agencies will hand the money gathered through this tax to needy musicians.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for musicians being able to make a living, but penalizing a system that encourages people to buy music online is just plain stupid.
The Netherlands 2006 (Score:3, Funny)
Scariest Part! Maybe $4.3k for a TB HD in your CPU (Score:5, Interesting)
The idea of all levy based legislation is that some form of copyright collections agency collects tax by imposing a surcharge at the point of sale for any storage devices that could possibly be used to store pirated works.
Already in Germany there is a levy on PC hard drives, that will soon become larger than the entire PC industry revenue if it is left in place. Within two years, as disk drive sizes move to terabyte class on notebooks, and petabyte levels on home DVRs, the tax will come to far outweigh not just the cost of the drive, but the cost of the device. Under this Netherlands law, if it were extended to the PC, the cost of 1,000 GB would be 3,280 ($4,300) and yet drives of this size will be delivered by 2007.
Headline is wildly inaccurate (Score:5, Informative)
However, similar regulations already exist for blank CD-ROMs, tapes, and photocopiers, because it is assumed that these are (partly) used for the copying of copyrighted material.
Such copying is legally allowed, the levy exists as a compensation for the copyright holders.
I think it is possible that a levy on MP3 players will come into existence but at much lower sums than now proposed.
Apple/iPod... (Score:3, Insightful)
Difference between New York and Amsterdam (Score:5, Funny)
Amsterdam: Shady character standing in front of the coffee shop selling imported iPods
Stichting ThuisCopy Corrupt? (Score:3, Interesting)
BUT it is very difficult to find out were the money they make is going to.
good trade possibilities (Score:3, Insightful)
Some more info on this (I'm Dutch) (Score:5, Informative)
For now it is a prooposal only, but the current Dutch government is pretty good in 'silently' upgrading such things to law.....
In fact, the proposal is even worse than mentioned in the article.
The tax is not only intended for iPods/MP3 players, but for ANY device capable of storing copyrighted content for later playback.
That includes, computers, HD and DVD video recorders, even spare HD's, SD and Comapct Flash memory, etc.
All major computer manufacturers have already written letters to the Dutch prime-minister stating, that if this insanity becomes law, they will be forced to withdraw from the Dutch market.
Several members of the Dutch parliament (at least from the opposition parties) have spoken out their concern's about this too.
So far the government has made no attempt to actually get this "law" throught the legislation process.
I just hope they never will get around to it.
Current Dutch political climate is such that no Parliament member will vote against party policy. The parties of the ruling coalition will never vote against the government so any proposal is bound to be accepted.
Re:Some more info on this (I'm Dutch) (Score:5, Informative)
First there was such a levy on compact cassettes and video tapes. In those days it could probably be claimed that most carriers were used to hold material for which rights had not been paid (although it remains a point of discussion whether you are allowed to record something from radio or tv transmissions for which you have presumably paid rights to listen or view).
But then it extended to carriers that are not only for music, like CD-R and DVD-R. Entire user groups use these for completely different purposes than are the goal of the levy, still they have to pay.
In the meantime you now also have to pay a levy on photocopiers. Every company in the Netherlands that owns a photocopier has to pay because some nitwit believes that photocopiers are used to copy books.
We have many photocopiers where I work but I never see someone with a book. But piles and piles of internal documents are fed through the sheetfeeders and copied 20 times. The company pays a levy on each copy that would probably go to some novel author who never did anything to earn this money.
A levy on MP3 players is only the next step.
Recording industry damages (Score:3, Insightful)
Guy puts a song on his server, gets hauled into court and is ordered to pay the RIAA (or the equivalent in whatever country we are talking about this week) for the lost revenue ie "damages"
However, said country has a law in place that assumes all MP3 player owners will steal music and preemptively compensates the industry when the user buys the player. How then could the industry argue that people who share music are depriving them of revenue - they've already had it!
Re:Recording industry damages (Score:3, Interesting)
That's exactly how it works. We already pay levies on blank CDs and DVDs, but we are allowed to make copies of protected works for our personal use, from any source, preferably but not necessarily legal. The proposed law aims to extend the levy to a storage medium that has become increasingly popular for portable music players: the hard disk. It's all logical if you think about it.
T
The register must know something we dont... (Score:5, Insightful)
You're telling me that in two years, we'll have 1000GB laptop drives (~10x up) and 1000000GB desktop drives (~2000x up)? Man, Moore must have been a pessimist. Particularly since HDDs have been slowing down *greatly*. Since the first 3x83=250GB HDDs came in 2003, the GB/platter count has been inching along (as far as computers are concerned, at least) with Seagate leading the pack with 133GB/platter. The only real "growth" has been from pushing the number of platters back up to 5 (The IBM GXP75 series had 5*15GB), leading to 5*100GB HDDs. Even hitting 1TB in 2007 seems optimistic just about now. I'd guess more like 800GB, unless there's a "TB race" on the way there was a "GHz race".
Kjella
Re:The register must know something we dont... (Score:4, Informative)
But you can fit more bits on a platter if they Get Perpendicular! [hitachigst.com]
"Hey! Check me out! I'm dancing! I'm dancing!"
ridiculous (Score:3, Insightful)
There are allready taxes (small, but they are there anyway) on CDR(W) tapes etc... for the same purpose. People should start demanding those taxes back when they can prove that they burned data/audio on it they have either already paid for or does not require any payments (backups, linux distro etc). Better yet... remove these taxes altogether... as they are demonstrating the hideous way the world is turning into : a 'firewall' concept. Deny everyone, not only the 'bad' people, but also the good), and let the good people demand access, then grant them access.
People are not computers. Rules (Laws) should be trying to prevent or punnish bad things, not to hinder good things.
Put extra money into catching the bad guys, but don't get to much in the way of the good guys.
I don't have anything to hide, but that doesn't mean you can invade my privacy.
I don't have illegal music, so don't tax me like I do.
Thank god for the EU (Score:3, Informative)
I paid my tax in austria and came away with a saving of somewhere in the 3000-4000 EUR (4000+ US$).
Since we can trade goods without problems and import tax, you can buy something for the price including tax in germany and ship it to the netherlands.
Friends of mine do that with blank CD's and DVD's thru ebay all the time. We also have a lot of tax on those, but when you already paid your tax in germany, you don't have to do so in Austria again.
It all just boils down to knowing what to buy where and how.
Course, Apple will loose a bit of sales in the Netherlands, but maybe that will leave us with "upgradeable" ipods with exchangable HD's? Sometimes even big cooperations get creative, if they fear they will sell less.
The ridiculous height of the tax is untrue (Score:5, Informative)
To quote from the link: "Het bestuur van de SONT heeft nog geen besluit genomen over de hoogte van het tarief; de onderhandelingen zijn gaande. Berichten die suggereren dat er al enige duidelijkheid is over de hoogte van een tarief zijn onjuist.", which translates as, "The management of the SONT has not decided yet on the height of the tax; that is still being negotiated. Any statements that suggest that there is any clarity on the height of the tax are false." This message is from April 2005.
The tax on blank DVDs is something like a couple of cents. I suspect that the tax on storage space in MP3-players will probably not be much higher.
3.28 is not true (Score:5, Informative)
So, computer that plays MP3s = ~$5/gb of disk tax? (Score:3, Interesting)
Next, someone will propose a tax on raw hard drives just because someone might put MP3s on it???
Come on!
Just cross the border (Score:5, Insightful)
Genius business move... (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, they can tax all thety want, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean, there's no more customs between countries in "Europe" so what's to prevent people from having their iPods shipped from Belgium or Germany or Dänmark???
Thank you to the Dutch goverment (Score:3, Funny)
Hmmmm..... (Score:4, Funny)
2) Smuggle weed out of the Nehterlands and trade it for iPods
3) ????
4) Profit!
Re:The result... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:story seems dubious (Score:3, Informative)
Re:story seems dubious (Score:5, Informative)
WOERDEN (city in NL) - Big IT companies such as Apple, Sony and Philips took action in the Netherlands against the plans to add a copying levy for mp3 players. Within two months such a levy is to be expected, so said B. Taselaar of ICT Office, the industry organisation that represents the companies.
At the moment there is a proposal for a levy of EUR 3,28 per Gigabyte of data storage. This proposal has been made by 'Stichting Thuiskopie' according to ICT Office, which is responsible for the collecting and distributing of payments to copyright holders for the copying of blank audio carriers.
An iPod music player from Apple with 40 Gigabyte of data storage would increase in price with EUR 131. This is unacceptable, according to ICT Office, also because introduction into multiple European countries looms on the horizon. The industry organisation thinks that IT companies will in the future choose to introduce new products first in the United States and Asia. New developments will pass by Europe, with all consequences for the Netherlands electronics sector.
(c) ANP
Re:goods and services are allowed to flow..... (Score:3, Insightful)
Under EU law, you cannot stop someone from buying something in one country for use in another. Of course, if it's actually illegal to possess that something in the country that the goods are going to then you'd have to be an idiot to do it, but the flow of the goods must be unimpeded in terms of trade restrictions - that's what the whole single market is about.