Belgian copyrights reform proposed Options

[Garf]

A major political party in Belgium just launched a proposal to reform copyright law. It's...well...just read ahead:

1) It is allowed to offer copyrighted works for download on the internet.
2) Downloading and copying of music will be allowed.
3) Blanc CD-ROM's will get higher taxes. (Proposed is 2 euro per disk, which get redistributed to copyright holders and promotion of local artists)
4) Mp3 players and other data carriers will also get higher taxes, but not CD-Writers or PC's.
5) Current groups that are exempted from paying copyrights can let their CD's be reproduced in public libraries and only have to pay the cost of the disk.
6) Building in copy protections in disks is NOT allowed.
7) Taxation for CD's drops from 21% to 6%

http://www.meerspirit.be/article.php/persb...ten/2002/12/5/1

[Bylie]

They're finally getting it! Was it soo hard? Imho this is beneficial for both the consumer and the artist, ok the downside will be that blanc cd's will get more expensive but that's doable.

This post has been edited by Bylie: Dec 6 2002, 15:43

[john33]

Dare I suggest that this sounds frighteningly like a bit of common sense and an attempt to deal sensibly with reality??

[Gabriel]

A tax of 2€ per blank cd seems very very high. That is 4 times the price I pay for a blank cd.

[menno]

3) I think they did that with cassette tapes in The Netherlands, then we just had to find someone that would buy big numbers of tapes in Germany. And there weren't even any internet stores at that time....
Where do you get you CD-R's nowadays. I get them cheaply from a friend who gets them from a friend who orders big numbers in the US through internet, how will you stop that?

The idea sounds nice, but I don't think music publishers will be satisfied with it.

Menno

[Garf]

The proposal is nice, but it's also a bit too slippery IMHO. Taxes on blanc CD's are increased even if you do NOT download music. HD's will be more expensive even if you do NOT download music. It's a bit like throwing away 'guilty till proven innocent'

[NumLOCK]

I don't like this proposal, not at all.
(and I sincerely hope that the current Belgian system is no worse than this one).

1) What about the artists, then ? That means, we just go back to the dark days, where art forms were often not recognized, nor taken care of ?
2) Same thing. Even hardcore music-trading people, I believe, know perfectly that it's just not right for artists.
3) I think that due to the versatility of CD-ROM media, it is unacceptable & unconstitutional to make it subject to taxes.. even if the local artists are supposed to receive some cents from it in the end.
4) Nonsense.. Why should you pay more for taking your music with you ? It's like paying for taking and seeing a picture of a painting you BOUGHT !! Remember, you buy the frame AND the painting !
5) (I don't understand that)
6) They should alter this to: "NOT allowed, except if the underlying media was designed to support that".
7) Good... cd's are too expensive, and the cd distribution channels will become obsolete.

Gentlemen, what about actually giving an convenient way for people to compensate artists for their work ? I mean, going to the store and buying the cd should not be the only way. If you just want the music, and you have technology to receive it at your place, why couldn't you get it from the artist directly ?

By the way, the people who REALLY don't want to pay artists, won't do it, regardless of the system. For them, only taxes will work, but I'm confident that almost EVERY people will be generous to artists if they're in a context that encourages it. That's the whole point IMHO, consumers are mad, and don't care about pirating music because they're treated as thieves anyway.

If might take years for things to change... but since everything's getting worse and worse, I guess it'll either be that (user-friendly music distribution) or a collapse of the industry.

Just my 2 cents anyway :-)

This post has been edited by NumLOCK: Dec 6 2002, 16:12

[menno]

Maybe they also forgot to think about the fact that artists need to make a living out of making music, this SPIRIT party sees music only as cultural heritage.
With their reform each musician would sell just 1 copy of their cd in Belgium. Meaning international artists probably won't publish their music anymore in Belgium and Belgian artists would not exist anymore.
And what would I do without K3......

Menno

[Gabriel]

It is similar to the tax already existing on audio tapes here. We are also supposed to have a tax on blank cd-r. This one is theorically 56cents for a 74' cd. However, in practice, I buy cd for 50cents, so probably the tax is not "well applied".

But really, 2€ for a blank cd seems very huge. That is about the price that an artist really earn on each music cd sold.

Obviously this tax would not go really to artists themselves, otherwise it would mean that we should buy blank cds and not pressed ones in order to really support artists.

[Garf]

The idea is that the artists get payed from the taxes. They partly do this already since blanc CD's already have a little 'copyright tax' included. How practically the money is going to be redistributed is an open question for me.

The idea of lowering/rising the taxes on CD's/blanc CD writables is to make it more attractive to buy 'real CD's'.

It's an open question whether such a proposal would actually work, and I don't think this will come to be, but just the fact that it is proposed aloud is already very interesting.

[menno]

I think they are talking about 24 eurocents for "audio" CD-ROMS and 12 cents for "normal" CD-ROMS.
Today this already is 12 and 0 respectively but the party expects that everybody would buy the normal CD-ROMS, hence the extra 12 cents.

Menno

[Garf]

I think they are talking about 24 eurocents for "audio" CD-ROMS and 12 cents for "normal" CD-ROMS.
Today this already is 12 and 0 respectively but the party expects that everybody would buy the normal CD-ROMS, hence the extra 12 cents.

Menno

That is already accepted law, i.e. all blanc CD media will be taxed 24 cents for sure.

[menno]

The idea is that the artists get payed from the taxes.

Ah, of course, stupid me
So this would go in the same way as with music that is played on the radio and tv. But 12/24 cents seems a bit low compared to what an artist makes on selling a real CD.

Menno

[Garf]

The idea is that the artists get payed from the taxes.

Ah, of course, stupid me
So this would go in the same way as with music that is played on the radio and tv. But 12/24 cents seems a bit low compared to what an artist makes on selling a real CD.

Menno

Currently it is 24 cents. The proposal would highten it to 2 euros.

[menno]

Hmm, but with radio and tv it's known what is played. How would you keep track of what music will be on the CD?

Menno

[NumLOCK]

I think they are talking about 24 eurocents for "audio" CD-ROMS and 12 cents for "normal" CD-ROMS.
Today this already is 12 and 0 respectively but the party expects that everybody would buy the normal CD-ROMS, hence the extra 12 cents.

I really don't understand their flawed critaeria.

Here I explain my point:

-= Media =-
CDROM / DVD-ROM / DVD-RAM / Harddisk / Floppy / JAZ

-= Usage =-
non-purchased material: copyrighted_Audio, copyrighted_Video, your_Audio, your_Video, Documents_backup, Software_backup
purchased material: copyrighted_Audio, copyrighted_Video, Software_backup


See ? And you can store anything you want, on any of those media. Every combination is possible !!!

So now, tell me how you determine for Jack, if he's actually burning the single data type we're concerned in (non-purchased copyrighted_Audio) ?

Jack can possibly do anything, and one MUST NOT assume he's pirating music ! It's just nonsense, and shows a lack of faith into law enforment IMHO.

Edit: "remastered" my post ;-)

This post has been edited by NumLOCK: Dec 6 2002, 16:29

[Garf]

1) What about the artists, then ? That means, we just go back to the dark days, where art forms were often not recognized, nor taken care of ?

If anything, the proposal is inteded to compensate artists better and to promote new (local) talent more.

3) I think that due to the versatility of CD-ROM media, it is unacceptable & unconstitutional to make it subject to taxes.. even if the local artists are supposed to receive some cents from it in the end.

This is a good point, but we already pay taxes for copyright no matter what you do with the disks. (in the current situation, that's completely braindead, but it _is_ current law!)

5) (I don't understand that)

Currently, for example for research purposes or teaching you are exempted from (paying) copyright.

[menno]

Hmm, but with radio and tv it's known what is played. How would you keep track of what music will be on the CD?

Ok, so you have to go to some central point to get your CD burned, right?

This system already exists. Free Record Shop in The Netherlands is doing this for years. Most publishers also offer that kind of service (download form internet after paying).

Menno

[Garf]

So now, how do you determine what Joe or Jack can do with his CDROM media ?  He can do anything, and one MUST NOT assume he's pirating music ! It's just nonsense, and shows lack of faith into law enforment IMHO.

I agree with the point that it should not be _assumed_ that you will be violating copyright when buying a blanc CD (why sell them otherwhise)?

But the current situation is that they _do_ mainly get used for illegal copying and that law enforcement is powerless to stop it because it is so whidespread.

[Garf]

Ok, so you have to go to some central point to get your CD burned, right?

Guess not, since it still speaks of selling blanc CD's and allowing download of music from the internet. It would be interesting to find out how the current copyright tax is redistributed.

[NumLOCK]

But the current situation is that they _do_ mainly get used for illegal copying and that law enforcement is powerless to stop it because it is so whidespread.

Yeah.. that's such a huge problem :-(

The definite answer, I think, is that...
1 - digital technology
2 - citizens' freedom (freedom to listen, freedom to think, freedom to speak)
3 - efficient, complete copyright enforcement by technology (no digital piracy possible)

... don't seem to be compatible (if you need the 3 of them at the same time). What do you think ?

Edit: a small explanation about what I just said:
3 - if you implement copyright anti-circumvention measures in all storage media (I mean solid, working stuff) you easily cripple what citizen can and cannot do ! And it's a real pain to maintain and manage, for the whole IT industry ! Also, it's an opening for black-market and mafia issues.
2 - if you remove this, it's not a democracy anymore - people obviously won't accept that.
1 - if you keep digital technology, it implies enforcing points '2' and '3' together, with is not possible.

This post has been edited by NumLOCK: Dec 6 2002, 16:41

[Infophreak]

Denmark has had a "tax" (I shall explain shortly why it's in "'s) on CD-R media of about 0.5€ for about half a year now, I think.

In Denmark, we have high taxes on liquour (sp?). What happens? People buy in Germany.
In Denmark, we have high taxes on cigarettes. What happens? People buy in Germany.
In Denmark, we have high taxes on cola and other soft drinks. What happens? People buy in Germany.
In Denmark, we now have high taxes on CD-R media. What do you think happens?

CD-R sales plummeted when that tax was first implemented here in Denmark, and I for one am NEVER buying CD-R media here again. The price went from 0.5€ per disc to 1.25€ (approximate values - we don't have Euros here, remember?) and that's when you buy spindles with 100. It's not even funny when we look at 10-packs...

The "tax" is not something that the government gets. A private organisation named COPYDAN gets the money, and it is responsible for redistributing the money. To this date, it remains to be seen just how much of it goes to the artists and what the critiria for the redistribution are. You might argue that the most selling artists should get the most money beause they are the most popular, or you might argue that they are selling more than the others because their CD is not being copied. Legally, that is. The "tax" is meant to compensate artists for "fair use copying" of their works, but everybody knows that the law allowing COPYDAN to put a tax on CD-R media was because of the music business lobbying.

To add insult to injury, the computer business and tech enthusiasts who like to burn Linux distros and FreeBSD discs are p***ed off about the tax. They have to pay for their legal backups of data to an organisation which represents a sum total of zero benefit to them. It is possible to get a refund if you keep a very tight record of all the CD-R media that you use, but everybody is complaining that they have to go through so much red tape to do that, that it is actually cheaper just to bite the bullet and pay up.

In case you are wondering: I do not think that that law will be a success.

[menno]

Uhm, am I reading point 7 right?
They want to lower the BTW (VAT) on CD's (the good old original ones with the content already on it) so that the sales will increase (haha), while at the same time making copying legal? How the hell will the sales increase if you can get a copy for 2 euros?

Menno

[Garf]

Uhm, am I reading point 7 right?
They want to lower the BTW (VAT) on CD's (the good old original ones with the content already on it) so that the sales will increase (haha), while at the same time making copying legal? How the hell will the sales increase if you can get a copy for 2 euros?

Menno

The thing is, you can get a copy now for 0.5-1 Euro. Who cares that it's illegal? Nobody does, that's the point. The proposal makes illegal copying less attractive because copied CD's are more expensive and legal ones less.

[GeSomeone]

Taxes on blanc CD's are increased even if you do NOT download music. HD's will be more expensive even if you do NOT download music.

It won't work for the record companies (or artists).
Because you don't have to burn CD's to listen to the downloaded audio/video. Just load it into your computer, portable or use MP3 disks (100 songs or so on 1 CD-R).
Also the files will downloadable in other parts of the world where CD-R are cheap.
This political party is just trying to make itself popular with the youngsters I guess.
--
Ge Someone.