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Have You Paid Your Bertelsmann Tax Today?
Posted by
michael
on Wed Sep 06, 2000 09:48 AM
from the taxman-cometh dept.
from the taxman-cometh dept.
Mwongozi writes "Germany is planning to slap new taxes on computer, telecommunications and Internet products to ensure that authors are properly rewarded for the use of their work, a newspaper said Wednesday. The Berliner Zeitung said proposals had been drafted requiring manufacturers of goods from computers to printers, modems, compact disc "burners" and other devices to pay royalty fees that would then be forwarded to music and film companies." My guess is that Bertelsmann, the world's third largest media company, has a little something to do with this. In the U.S., any devices intended for digital audio are already taxed similarly to the above proposal but general-purpose computing devices are not. (Though the RIAA sought to include them too.) Has anyone considered what an extraordinary situation it is where government tax collectors are collecting taxes which are funneled straight to corporations?
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Have You Paid Your Bertelsmann Tax Today?
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Re:Napster is STILL illegal - but it gets worse... (Score:3)
And I Thought I Was Making It Up... (Score:3)
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a bogus news story [best.com] about taxing blank digital media. It was born out of my blinding frustration that, in what should be a conspicuous, informed public debate, all the wrong people are being listened to.
I had no idea I was predicting the future.
Schwab
Geeks should study more history... (Score:4)
Look at the historical precident in this country for laissez-faire capitalism. We gave rise to the Captains of Industry, Aka the "Robber Barons". Do we really want to repeat those dark days when deregulation was big?
Given a choice between being abused a large, inefficient government that I have the hope of participating in, versus being abused by the efficiency of corporation where votes are bought by dollars, I'll take government any day.
Deregulating an industry does not limit govt payouts, nor does it reconcile the fact that the average American living at the poverty line pays a higher percentage in taxes than your average corporation (average corporations pay between 2%-6%. How much do you pay?).
The corporate welfare structure in the United States is primarily the result of a mush-headed reverse-progressive (regressive?) tax scale that favors large corporation over the small businesses that are the real support for communities.
-Peter
Re:What's wrong with this? (Score:3)
And now Bertelsmann wants free money.
Absurd... (Score:5)
Re:US Gov't Doesn't Collect the "Tax" (Score:5)
Makers of Music Minidisc, DAT Music Tapes, and Music CD-R discs for sale in the US do throw money into the music industry, but it's the same corporate channels that already existed for music royalties.
Sorry, but your information is eight years out of date. Read Title 17 Chapter 10 [cornell.edu] if you don't believe me.
Since 1992, the U.S. Government has collected a royalty on all blank digital audio recorders and blank digital audio media manufactured in or imported into the United States, and handed the money directly over to the RIAA companies.
The money collected is, as mandated by federal law, divided as follows:
(1.75%) of the royalties are paid to the American Federation of Musicians, to be paid to "non-featured" musicians (studio musicians)
(0.92%) of the royalties are paid to the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, to be paid to "non-featured" vocalists (backup vocalists)
(25.60%) of the royalties are paid to "featured recording artists", including such bands as Metallica.
(38.40%) of the royalties are paid to "copyright owners" (the RIAA companies)
(16.67%) of the royalties are paid to "music publishers"
(16.67%) of the royalties are paid to music writers, including such bands as Metallica who write their own songs.
This is completely above and beyond the other systems of royalty payments, such as ASCAP, BMI, where the copyright owners go after businesses to get them to sign licensing agreements. In this case, the royalty fee collection system is part of Federal Law.
Incidently, if you're curious as to why downloading from Napster is not illegal, or immoral, read paragraph 1008. [cornell.edu] This is what you, the consumer got in exchange for a federal law mandating direct payments from your wallet to the RIAA whenever you buy a blank audio CDR.
About Bertlesmann (Score:5)
IMO, Bertelsmann is a monopolist trying to grab as much of the media market as they can, especially in the book arena. They own the largest publishing company and the largest chain bookstore, Random House and Barnes & Noble. They attempted to purchase Ingram Book Company(big distributor-something like 60% of Amazon's books come from Ingram), luckily that was stopped by the antitrust folks in our govt. If they had pulled that off they would have had a complete vertical hold on the book industry - from publishing to distributing to bookselling. They would have profitted from the majority of internet book sales.
They are definitely a company /.ers should know about and be wary of.
Re:Sadly, Not Uncommon (Score:3)
Haha.
The U.S. version of this law, the Audio Home Recording Act, was drafted by the recording industry with the specific goal of destroying the market for home digital audio recorders.
Do what is right, my ass.
Unjust, but hardly odd... (Score:3)
There's not much Americans can say about this sort of thing. We keep voting for the same two parties, and when it gets down to it, we keep voting for the candidate who spends the most on ads. (Okay, in all fairness, two-thirds of the electorate votes unthinkingly for their party, and the remaining third votes unthinkingly for whoever spends the most on ads. It's not like Machiavelli didn't warn us about this.)
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Re:About Bertlesmann (Score:3)
"Stupid German media legislation? Let's see. Bertelsmann is German, right? They must be responsible!"
Yes, Bertelsmann is *one* of the many companies behind this idea, but basically, all the German media content companies are supporting it and here in Germany, Bertelsmann is not singled out as the one company responsible for all stupid media legislation.
Also, this kind of "tax" has been very common in Germany since decades for music records. The system is called "GEMA" and they collect money from every sale of a record, from every public concert performance of a song and from every public broadcast of a song on radio or TV. This money is then given to the authors and composers of that song. While this approach is *very* bureaucratic and scary, it works surprisingly well (I am affected by this as a pseudo-professinal musician).
There is a similar fee on copiers, fax machines and scanners. If I am not mistaken, this is what they are now trying to extend on other "copying devices".
Yes, Bertelsmann is big, it is scary, I certainly don't like them either and I don't like this idea of "taxing" computers as digital copying devices. But still, this is not "the Bertelsmann tax".
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Re:Absurd... (Score:4)
Yes, indeed you are.
BUT: somehow, you say that the expense of producing copies of an artist's work without permission is OK as long as you pay for it?
The trouble is, the person you replied to (and the people who replied to you) didn't word this very clearly. the concept is simple:
The powers that be assume you'll steal, so they charge you via a tax for this potentially stolen material.
Since you haven't actually done anything yet, you've just paid for a product that you haven't received.
Therefore, you are the one who has been stolen from. So in order to make this transaction complete and valid, you now need to get something in exchange for your money from them. Which is to say, downloading some piece of music.
All of the above, of course, means that since you've already bought the song via a tax, there is no real basis for them to claim they're losing money off Napster (or whatever) downloads and CD-Rs.
Hopefully, that's a little more clear.
Re:Absurd... (Score:3)
BUT: somehow, you say that the expense of producing copies of an artist's work without permission is OK as long as you pay for it?
I think this logic train derailed somewhere near the love canal....
Things that are OK: protesting unfair price gouging, protesting unfair fair-use removal (like this guilty until proven innocent tax).
Things that are not OK: randoming warezing and copying anything you bloody well feel like just because you can. If everyone did things because they could, the GPL and the like wouldn't be enforcable. That's Bad.
In conclusion: how did "I paid for a burner so I can warez" get to +4?!
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Re:What's wrong with this? (Score:5)
No you don't. You might owe it to them. More likely, you owe it to someone else, or no one at all. If an unsigned garage band burns from CDR demos to send out to reviewers and fans, please explain how and why they owe money to some arbitrary record label who will use the money to promote some pop star. If I copy a CD published by media company A so that I can listen to it in my car, why does media company B get a cut of the CDR sales revenue?
If you're so against things being free, then why do you defend the media companies getting this unearned money for free?
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Re:US Gov't Doesn't Collect the "Tax" (Score:3)
Pirate away boys! It seems it's the only way to support the artist!
Re:Absurd... (Score:3)
Sorta, don't forget that a certian level of liability insurance is required by law to legally drive in the US. Because the state mandates buying private insurance to drive, yet doesn't regulate the price of the mandated coverage there is very little price competition for liability only insurance. This makes it very easy for insurance companies to ream younger drivers.
I've been buying insurance for years and never used it once, despite a clean accident history, a state approved safe driving course etc... I still count as an inexerpianced dangerous drivers for three more years (when I turn 25) and get shafted on the insurance. It's not precisely like a tax but it's pretty damn close.
That was against the British (Score:3)
Yeah, yeah, there was the American Revolution in the 1770's which freed America, but that was against the British, they only had to learn the lesson once, one war, and they were gone.
The Germans have to be reminded every few decades, or they get upppity again.
Re:Absurd... (Score:5)
don't they see that this promotes breaking the laws?
its like a cop that stops you before you enter a very fast highway and says "we're collecting in advance for any speeding you're likely to do". who in their right mind would NOT speed after being charged for it? especially if your car is up to it.
...and the fight escalates further.
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It's not that uncommon... (Score:3)
The government often does something like this, in order to compensate the "losers" during a time of drastic change in the economy. The hard part is making sure that the level of compensation is appropriate, and that small-scale victims (independent book publishers, for example) are treated fairly alongside the mega-corporations who are able to pay a lobbyist to keep within arm's length of legislators at all times.
If done correctly, this could actually help the publishing firms move their business in a new direction, by encouraging (financially) their participation in the New Economy.
Re:Does this make it legal... (Score:4)
Similar calls here in UK (Score:3)
I guess this is outrageous to all of us - sure it would probably stop the piracy of PC and PSX games in its tracks -- but it would also prevent me from (say) backing up the digital photos I took on holiday, or burning audio CDRs of campfire songs I recorded onto minidisc a couple of months ago.
We need to be aware that those in charge of "content" are blinkered to this kind of legitimate use for storage media. We need to remind them that piracy isn't all it can be used for, else they will eventually persuade governments to go through with this kind of taxation.
NB: the same guy went on to say "without CDs, these people will use their hard disks. Tax those too."
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Re:It's not that uncommon... (Score:3)
You mean the desire to survive is not enough? They have to be financially encouraged to do something for their own benefit??
[shakes his head in disgust...]
I say dinosaurs should go the way of dinosaurs. No need to set up a government system which will catch small furry mammals and feed them to the dinosaurs so that they be "encouraged" to adapt to life.
Kaa
Re:Absurd... (Score:4)
The question has been addressed by the U.S. Congress. When they passed the Audio Home Recording Act, in which the government collects mandatory royalties on all digital audio recorders and all blank digital audio media [cornell.edu], Congress gave all consumers the complete, absolute, unlimited right to copy any and all digital audio recordings, so long as the copying is for non-commercial purposes. Read it yourself. [cornell.edu]