Comments on: Argentina to assume everyone is a pirate?

By: Henrik Pauli

Henrik Pauli — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 22:04:18 +0000

We have a similar thing here in Hungary and it’s pissing me off — and I bet most of the more serious photographers too: the fee on flash memory is ridiculously high here…

By: Peter

Peter — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 17:32:53 +0000

Sweden has this also. It’s almost exactly the same as in finland described above.

By: Erigami

Erigami — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 15:06:17 +0000

As Tony says, Canada has a levy on all recordable media that is supposed to go to artists. It’s a bit of a farce, since the money doesn’t go to the artists as intended, but it has prevented the Canadian RIAA from goin litigation crazy.

The assumption that “everyone is a criminal” is a little crude, but the upside is pretty strong: filesharing hasn’t been criminalized to the same extent as elsewhere.

(Please note: I’m not an expert on this issue, but this is the impression I’ve gotten from reading Canadian newspapers and blogs)

By: james_ford

james_ford — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 15:00:59 +0000

in a perfect world this would be perfect solution…but in reality this would be like in Canada, where no one knows where’s this money go (and for sure not for the artist)…

By: Daniel

Daniel — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 13:24:22 +0000

This is also the case in Finland, and has been for (probably) decades. The “tax” applied originally to C-cassettes, but nowadays includes CDs, DVDs, iPods… pretty much anything at all that could conceivably be used for recording music. The biggest problem I see here is that I don’t see how copying music can be taxed _and_ be illegal at the same time. The mere existance of a such a tax would indicate that copying music is OK.

By: spanish

spanish — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 11:37:14 +0000

I’s a shame. In the first place they said that paying the tax would grant you the “right of private copy” which would mean that any copy is legal if you don’t sell it, thus making edonkey/bittorrent/any p2p legal.

Once the copyright management entities (ie. the spanish RIAA equivalent, the SGAE) got their law (with 2000000 signs against it, I mean politicians heard their budgets, not the population), now they are trying to ban the “right of private copy”. It is all very evil.

Por mi parte, lo único que puedo sugerir a los Argentinos es que miren el dedo y no lo que señala. Cuando una propuesta como esa se convierte en ley, los máximos responsables son los políticos que los permiten y afortunadamente a esos se les puede sacar del cargo. Eso y que monten mucho follón. Y por supuesto que no se crean a las sociedades de gestión, en España quieren cobrar impuesto y a la vez perseguir a los melómanos a la americana (si, si, niños pequeños y viejecitas, aqui vienen a cobrar a las galas benéficas y si no pagas a la mafia la policía cancela el evento).

En Argentina pasará exactamente igual, os cobrarán el canon y luego intentarán poder denunciar a los usuarios del p2p. Quieren leche y chivo.

By: François Lebreau

François Lebreau — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 11:07:54 +0000

It does exist in France. It was expanded to external HDD, USB keyrings and some MP3 readers.
But if you buy an internal HDD and a box without a HDD, the tax doesn’t apply.

By: Kevin Mark

Kevin Mark — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 11:04:13 +0000

One of the possible benefits of these laws is that if you pay a tax, then it basically says that you are paying the royalty that would have been paid when you bought a physical copy, a cd. So it sort of ‘allows piracy’ because you pay for it, in advance. Hence, no lawsuits.

By: Wouter

Wouter — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 11:00:36 +0000

In the Netherlands we have similar legislation. It constitutes almost 50% of the price of blank maedia. Recently there has been discussion about also adding this tax to mp3 players and harddisks, but luckily that isn’t going to happen.

By: drakken

drakken — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 10:43:10 +0000

Same in France.
We have to paid an additional tax on every support now (even a HDD !!!), that get right to the SACEM (organisation that support majors… oups sorry artist (or bullshit on top ten, depend how your musical taste are)).

Sorry to know that it’s the same now in Argentina