Finland ditches copyright levy on digital kit, pays artists directly Finland has decided to ditch copyright levies on digital devices... and let the taxpayer foot the bill. Instead a special government fund will be set up to compensate artists for private copying of music and movies. Following the national Parliament vote, Finnish MEP Henna Virkkunen said the new system would be “fairer to …
but where does it all go??
any who decides who gets whats share of the cash, do they monitor pirate sites to see who's being 'effected' more by it??
or is the government just shovelling untold amounts of money towards big music corps and hoping they distribute the cash 'fairly'
First of all, I want to say that I haven't thought this through and hope it goes well. However, right off the bat I've got some questions.
This tax is applied to all goods, such as CDs, smartphones and mp3 players that are capable of copying digital content, regardless of whether the buyer has any intention of doing do.
OK, so we're talking about devices with storage as well as blank media. In my case I almost never buy finished and assembled digital devices and mostly just buy parts. Presumably I won't pay the tax on motherboards and RAM. I can see hard drives and tape being included. Although you can still buy punched tape, that presumably would just be considered absurd and the CNN operators who use it will not pay. Fine. More sensible would be USB memory devices. How about SD cards? I suppose those items are all fair enough. However, when a storage company buys some thousands of hard drives, will they pay per unit? Internet Archive and Facebook use a lot of drives. Could be an amendment is in order. Of course, I could just be speculating out of control.
In Italy the tax is paid on every storage device, even if bought stand-alone (any kind, including spinning hard disks, flash disks, removable disks, USB disks, CDs, DVDs, whatever) and devices that might be used to store or copy contents (PCs, recorders, mp3 players, smartphones, etc.). And it is paid by companies too. In 2012 the "Regional Administrative Tribunal" (TAR) ruled that companies are not exempt - although the European Court of Justice said they should...
A government always prefer more taxe money than less...
These taxes/levies are not enforced because of piracy, but to "compensate" for "personal copies": you buy a CD, don't own any portable CD player anymore (and anyway, you would not carry one along with you anyway), and thereby you copy your CD tracks to your smartphone - the "poor artist" - in dire need to buy a new Ferrari because the old one is getting old, after all it's a few months old and thereby no longer fashionable enough - don't like this.
Heck! YOUR ARE COPYING HIS/HER MUSIC!!!! YOU WANT TO LISTEN TO IT NOT ON THE DEVICE YOU BOUGHT! CRIMINAL! CRIMINAL! YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR THAT RIGHT!!!
That's why I stopped to buy music/movies wholly. Sure, you can get some money from every device I buy which will not store your damned products, but you won't get the big money from me anymore.
most artists must have a "real" job beside arting, because their art hardly pay for the expenses caused by showcasing the art. very very few are able to buy a ferrari and for these the small % coming from the levy on digital storage product price is really peanuts.
C'mon, it's not the small artist looking for this compensation. These are the big ones who made a lot of money already - and want more backed by the media companies that like the idea to resell the same contents over and over just switching the media support. Due to the size of the digital market today, the money collected from those sales are not peanuts at all. In Italy alone, the annual sum is about 70/80 millions of euro each year, and with the updated rules passed in the past months, it will rise to 150 millions each year. Which copyright holders get *doing nothing*.
And why an "artist" trying to make a carreer should get free money while others building their own company needs to find money themselves? Why shouldn't he or she have a "real" job if his or her "art" doesn't pay the bills? Should the taxpayer pay for "artists" - and how do you decide one is an "artist" and another is not? This is just another kind of subsidy given to people who don't deserve them at all - while forcing people to pay them with they hard earned money.
I dont know how the system is handled in your country, but in mine it's like that:
"
SUISA's tariffs contain the royalty rates for the use of authors’ rights. SUISA's distribution regulations stipulate how royalties are distributed to the beneficiaries. In principle, SUISA distinguishes between distribution on a per-work basis (royalties are distributed for each work based on programme lists) and distribution on a lump-sum basis (based on statistics, broadcasting programmes and basic repertoires).
"
"
Royalties are paid to the relevant authors (composers, writers of lyrics, arrangers) and publishers in Switzerland and – via SUISA’s sister societies – abroad. Each beneficiary receives a statement and the settlement of his share.
"
if you seriously think the levy is just an easy way for big names to get lots of money, maybe you should go inform yourself how the system really work and maybe have a chat or two with artists out there...
ref:
http://www.suisa.ch/en/services/questions-answers.html
I *did* inform myself about how it works in Italy. Money are distributed taking into account traditional sales/broadcasting for the most part, and digital sales count only for 5%.
Of course, with such a system, the big names with a big presence in traditional channels get the largest percentage of the total sum, and the "small" artists only the breadcrumbs - regardless of what content is really "copied".
Frankly, I don't care about what artists think - if you can't live out of your "art", or you'0re just greed, well, you can't ask money to me, and force me to pay you.
Moreover, we are not talkin about artists only, because a lot of money also go to media companies.
http://www.dday.it/redazione/13799/equo-compenso-per-copia-privata-ecco-dove-vanno-a-finire-tutti-i-soldi (sorry, not available in English, while the italian agency which collects that money, SIAE, is known for its opacity).
Initially this levy was set up to "compensate" lost revenues when people were using this newfangled gizmo called tape recorder, ti record radio broadcasts for later and feared repeated playback.
This was later extended to casettes, vhs and beta casettes, writable CDs and DVDs, harddrives in PVRs, eexternal harddrives (but not internal hd when bought separately, and nit empty external hd cases), etc.
It's still known as "casette levy" in Finland.
(Typos, because i don't have a real keyboard)
> the "poor artist" - in dire need to buy a new Ferrari because the old one is getting old
That's a bit of a sweeping statement there. The vast majority of artists do not even manage to scrape a living from their art.
>>"These taxes/levies are not enforced because of piracy, but to "compensate" for "personal copies": you buy a CD"
No I don't. I buy an MP3 from Amazon. I don't think that I have bought a CD in at least four years.
I read it more as addressing the absurdity of it being a copyright violation if I rip my fully paid for CD to a digital format (I've not paid for the right to a digital format, only the CD media copy) and another violation again if I copy that digital format to another storage device.
This is, I think we can all agree, not unreasonable behaviour, but it is at present, Unlawful. Adding a tax to my initial CD purchase, the purchase of the device I used to rip the content and the storage device I coiped it to has the effect of removing the burden of Unlawful behaviour from the consumer.
If I buy a memory stick to put some family photos on and send to my Mum then I'm not using the stick to make otherwise Unlawful copies of copyrighted content but, sure, I'm still paying the tax.
However, because I've paid that tax, my Mum can then go and use the stick to store a copy of her favourite CD guilt free.
Not sure a blanket tax is a perfect way of dealing with this (an implicit license to unlimited copies, cross-format for personal use in copyright law probably is) but it's better than using a Collection mafia^W organisation.
Nice one, Finland.
Look here: if King George II heard Handel's "Zadok the Priest" in full concert, and wished to hear the music again whilst he bathed in private, he had to PAY for it. Just so if you wish to hear deadmau5's "While (1<2)" while jogging instead of on your surround-sound system. You have to PAY for it.
Why cavil and whine? If it was sensible in 1727, certainly it's sensible today. But now comes Cecilia Wikstrom saying, "The debate about copyright levies has deliberately been muddled to convince us (lawmakers) to perpetuate an absurd system." Curse the Swedes and their logic. How is the system absurd?
In 1727 there were no recording media, and artists get paid only for live performance. That limited a lot their revenue streams. When recording media were invented, they found a way to become much richer because they could reach a much wider audience with a single performance, and sell it over and over. That also marked the creation of the "media" inustry, because before there were no media to be sold.
Nothing wrong in that. But now that recording media allows for multiple ways of accessing the same content, they don't like it anymore, and want more money for the same performance.... and that's pretty absurd to me. It's not piracy - it's just accessing the same content for which I already paid for in the most suitable way. The day I have my preferite singer perform under the shower with me live, I'll gladly pay for it...
Well, my post might have been read as sarcasm pointing up the historical nature of current copyright laws (current basic law 1988 in UK, 1976 USA), and the difficulty of reconciling these somewhat historical artifacts with constantly advancing technology. But it was not read thus. Sorry. I'll try to be more straightforward from now on. (The icon is for my failure to leap the threshold of sarcasticosity and make my point clear.)
"Adding a tax to my initial CD purchase, the purchase of the device I used to rip the content and the storage device I coiped it to has the effect of removing the burden of Unlawful behaviour from the consumer."
The thing is, not everyone buys a CD and then format shifts it. But they just paid the "tax" and so pay the artists for all those people who want that right and will pay for it.
On the other hand, adding the tax to all the possible media and recording devices again causes people to pay the "tax" even if they never format shift.
I'm not sure there is an easy answer but neither taxing the source CD nor taxing the blank media/recording device is fair.
There should be no compensation for "personal private copies" - as long as they are not piracy. You can't really charge someone because he or she wants today to listen to music or access contents on the device most fit for the purpose in a given situation.
I can agree with DRM technologies as long as they are used to counter piracy, but the rightful licensee of copyrighted material should be able to access it regardless of the actual device used. Charging him or her for each and every use is really an avid attempt to exploit a work over and over without any need to produce something new, and/or looking for new customers.
the levy, and replacing tax, must be seen as a way to support cultural diversity and creativity, more than simply rewarding artists, because it is (theoretically) redistributed to each and every artists who formalized his artistic activity with the government (or some official entity).
please stop seeing this as just a "pirating compensation" ....
Taxes can often fail to generate as much revenue as they cost to administer. Ask the French and "L'impot sur les grandes fortunes" which consistently failed to collect as much as it cost to run - too few payers, presumably too adept at tax accountancy.
By the very nature of what is being taxed here, where it is being taxed and collected and the intent of re-distribution to a nebulously defined set of recipients, music levees must surely be fairly high up the administration cost scales.
That Abba quip is telling - remuneration is likely directly linked to sales volume, rather than necessity. And most certainly directly proportional to the amount of money spent by any given artist in paperwork to firmly position his or her snout at the through.
But spare a happy thought for what your wallet has achieved. All those happy bureaucrats at the collecting societies. All the politicians being able to "do the right thing". POS vendors and extra staff to track the collection. Remuneration for deserving artists who are likely already, and justly so, well-connected to your country's cultural intelligentsia but somehow can't make ends meet on their own merit. You know, those guys & gals who are repeat guests for shows at your local state TV broadcasters.
But we still have those still-starving young artists hoping to make it big.
The funny thing? So many many of our countries have reached for the same stupid solutions to a non-problem. Mine, Canada, has. Almost would make one think that governments love to tax regardless of actual social or fiscal utility, just in order to extend their bureaucracy.
Which of your countries do not have such a system? Are your musicians any worse off?
"if the state budget declines, so too may artists’ remuneration. "
This is not a problem. Consider:
The state remuneration is to compensate for lost sales in implementing a right to "space-shift" recorded media. This is important because increasing consumers' rights over recordings retroactively changes the value of the product. The industry can say "but we could have charged more if we'd known," which is true. So they are compensated.
However, look at where we are now. We now know that people will copy files across devices. It is expected. Therefore, the labels should be accounting for it in the price of first sale.
It follows that the revenue in artists' compensation schemes should drop year on year as the industry adapts.
Everyone's happy, no?
If format shifting is legal: I buy a CD, format shift it and listen to the music with whatever device is convenient.
If format shifting is not legal: I don't bother to buy the CD because I cannot listen to the music on whatever device is convenient.
Now can someone explain to me how the manufacturers of MP3 players are reducing music industry revenues?
(I would rather buy a license to listen to music from the performer, and download the data from a pirate site - that way the performer gets all the money without having to pay anything for distribution. For some reason, the distributors are not entirely keen on this business model.)
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2023
