France Planning Non-Windows Tablet Tax? 227
An anonymous reader writes "Lots of countries around the world have private copying 'levies,' which are effectively taxes on products that store data, which is put into a pool to be handed out to copyright holders, as a sort of payment for the 'copying' that individuals do. This was quite popular with blank CDRs, for example, but has been expanded in certain countries to cover hard drives, iPods and other such devices. Over in France, they're looking to expand the levy to tablet computers, but apparently if that tablet computer is running Microsoft Windows, it will be exempted from the tax. iPads and Android-powered tablets will have the tax. Why? Well, the argument is that if a tablet is running Windows, it's really a 'computer.' But if it's running one of those 'mobile' operating systems, suddenly it's a brand new category. Not surprisingly, makers of Android tablets — including the French company Archos — are not at all happy about this."
Re:Those cheese eating surrender monkeys fail agai (Score:4, Interesting)
Yea, I think you fail more than them if you run an article through Google Translate and then complain about the writing because you don't understand something.
taxes are needed to fund executive pay (Score:5, Interesting)
Canada has had a copying-tax for many, many years. It's worked very well for the executives of the RIAA and the CRIAA [michaelgeist.ca]:
Re:From TFA comments (Score:4, Interesting)
McDonalds didn't "buy" an exemption; the Department of Health and Human Services said it granted waivers in late September so workers with such plans wouldn't lose coverage from employers who might choose instead to drop health insurance altogether [usatoday.com].
I found it interesting that you chose to mention "Lots of Megacorps" but failed to mention all the unions that "bought" their exemptions too! [hhs.gov] And, oh, by the way, waivers are available until 2014.
From FactCheck [factcheck.org]:
Q: Has the Obama administration allowed corporations to "opt out" of the new health care law?
A: No. The government has granted more than 200 waivers, but these merely give companies a temporary delay before being required to improve the coverage of cheap, bare-bones plans they currently offer.
This is important... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is one of the most important things for supporters of Free Software to understand: businesses are subsidized by the tax code. All businesses, even the terrible ones. Especially the terrible ones.
It doesn't matter which country you're talking about. The economies of nearly every Western government are equally hosed up in the same ridiculous way. Tax agencies assume that everything an individual purchases is consumed, and that everything a corporation purchases is an investment. As far as taxing authorities are concerned, a Windows computer is an investment. It is capital. It fits the obsolete model of production that governments know: labor + capital == profit. When you buy anything as a business, you write it off your taxes and pat yourself on the back.
A non-corporate, non-business operating system, on the other hand, is a toy. It's a distraction, a hobby. Governments consider it not to be an investment, but a consumer item. Same goes for an Android phone. It's assumed to depreciate in value. A Windows phone, though, is for business. It's assumed to produce value. Nevermind the fact that most Windows phones are unproductive toys, or that most Windows computers are inefficient cludges. Nevermind the fact that free and open source software can be orders of magnitude more efficient and productive than proprietary, closed source software. Windows is a capital investment. Free software is a toy.
The result should be obvious. Responsible, non-consumer individuals are punished. Wasteful, non-producing companies are subsidized. Long term investments in things like open standards are discouraged. Short term speculation is encouraged.
It really is as simple as that. Governments don't consider it further. The idea of a Windows computer running a nuclear power plant, therefore, seems perfectly natural. Debian? A toy. Red Hat? One of the most expensive operating systems ever. They are 99% the exact same code. One is a tax write-off produced by a legitimate company. The other is a toy produced by a bunch of hobbyists. In the US, we see all of these crap small businesses that can no longer afford their rent. Corporate real estate is about to take a dump all over itself. Banks are over leveraged, and it turns out they own no real assets. They were subsidized. They bought a bunch of consumable junk like Windows computers, shoddy houses and uninsulated office buildings, wrote it off as a brilliant investment, and waited for the profit to roll in. Unfortunately, everyone else did the same, all the real assets went overseas, and now the US economy is utter crap.