Germany's New Internet License Fee

PapayaSF writes "Beginning January 1st, Germany will require payment of a license fee of 5.52 euros a month on computers and mobile phones that can access TV and radio programs over the Internet. Like the current TV and radio license fees, the money will support national and local public TV and radio stations. German companies with many computers are predictably upset." I'm not sure if this is the same story we discussed in 2004. Did this original fee go through, and this is another fee on top of the original?

Still payable if TV/Radio streams firewalled?

There are a few ways that a business computer could be made unable to receive TV or radio streams. Are these sufficient to avoid the tax? Enquiring minds want to know.

Re:Still payable if TV/Radio streams firewalled?

Unfortunately not. With TVs, you still have to pay even if you remove the
tuner, because you could theoretically solder it back in..

Re:Still payable if TV/Radio streams firewalled?

I wonder how long it will be before England and France who both have similar taxes on Television adopt something like this.

Re:Still payable if TV/Radio streams firewalled?

I recall a couple of years ago the BBC said something along the lines of "if you stream TV clips then you need a TV license". I don't think there was talk of legislating it, however.

Only if it's been broadcasted to the UK at the same (or similar) time. I.E. Downloading an specific episode of "the Simpsons" that's being broadcast on C4 at 6PM, or Sky One at 7PM, is only OK outside of that time.

Note that the UK does have exceptions for TVs owned by businesses and used exclusively for prerecorded video.

No, the UK has exception for any TV's that aren't used to receive broadcast video. The wireless telegraphy act and it's ammendemnts specificaly state it's the USE of euipment to RECEIVE BROADCASTS that needs licensing.

There are various forms to fill in, and it's checked fairly regularly.

The TV License people have no legal right to "check" you. They can gather any evidence that they legally can (look through your window, scan for the IF, etc), and present it to court. To enter your property they need a search warrant.

Something similar should apply to computers, although I'm not sure you can "neuter" a computer in the same way as a TV (unplugging the aerial, usually. Ripping out the tuner is a bit drastic).

Yes, if you have a TV that's not tuned in to the local transmitter and not plugged in, that would be enough to satisfy any court. Of course as long as you don't watch the TV, and don't let the TVL people in, there's little they can do to proove you are or arent watching.

With TV over IP, I suppose they could look at getting the ISP to provide logs, however that would probably break the data protection act. Their only real evidence would come through watching your through a window.

Re:Still payable if TV/Radio streams firewalled?

The parent is entirely correct. If you don't watch broadcast TV and don't want to pay the licence, the best thing to do is to write to the TVLA and state that, while you do own a TV it is not tuned and is only used for pre-recorded material (i.e. DVDs) or games consoles etc.

By law, when you buy a TV or any equipment that can receive broadcast TV, the shop has to inform the TVLA of your name and address. So, by subtracting a list of people who bought a licence from the list of people who own a TV, they can see who has a TV but no licence. They do try to hassle you, but you just need to be firm with them. Tell them "no" once, and then ignore them.

What it boils down to is that they will only take you to court if they think they can win, and unless they have proof you are watching broadcast TV they won't. Presumably, the same would apply to internet licencing. Unless they can prove you are watching streaming media...

Re:

Nope - not quite right:

You need a licence if you have any kit that is *capable* of receiving a TV broadcast signal, regardless of whether you use it or not. There have been quirky cases - for example: someone with a black and white TV needed a colour licen

Re:Still payable if TV/Radio streams firewalled?

You need a licence if you have any kit that is *capable* of receiving a TV broadcast signal,

This is a myth that TVL allow to propergate. They used to have an entry on their website saying that's you don't need to to watch offair DVDs/VHS.

I suugest you read the relevent laws, but you can also look at the mostly-accurate guardian article here [guardian.co.uk]

You need a licence irrespective if you want to watch live television. If you have equipment capable of receiving TV signals and its tuned in you will are required to pay. If you only watch DVDs at home then you are not required to pay. However TV Licensing (TVL) will expect your television not to display BBC1 or any other channels when they come round and turn it on and may question why you have an aerial on the roof. "If you watch live TV on any device, you need to be covered by a valid licence," it says.

Re:Still payable if TV/Radio streams firewalled?

I have no idea if they actually do detect it, but it isn't very difficult to pick up a signal from a CRT to detect the horizontal/vertical scan and the picture signal; you can correlate that with what is currently being broadcast to be able to show that someone is watching broadcast TV. Doesn't work if you're watching something you recorded off-the-air, though.

I remember an article a year or two ago about being able to reconstruct a TV image simply from the incidental light being reflected off the walls, similar technique. I can't locate the article, though.

Re:Still payable if TV/Radio streams firewalled?

Actually, detecting TV receivers is simple. Your TV uses http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersonic_heterodine _receiver [wikipedia.org] to filter TV signals. Heterodine frequency is fixed, so it's pretty easy to pick it up.

Actually, there's even ITU standard for it, but I may be wrong. There's definetely a GOST (State Standard) for it in Russia (I'm Russian).

Re:

No wonder I couldn't find it - it was actually in uk.comp.home-networking:

"I've just had an aggressive demand from our 'friends' the TVL for a new
laptop I've just purchased with Windows Media Centre and a t.v. card.
However the t.v. reception and display is

Re:

And that's a reasoning by the GEZ I completely don't understand. It's like

officer: you didn't pay your GEZ fee
me: but I don't even own a TV
officer: but you could go out and buy one
me: WTF?

Re:Still payable if TV/Radio streams firewalled?

That's right. So here in the Netherlands, everyone has to pay even if he has no TV.
That of course solves the problem of licensing PC and mobile phones as well.

Re:Still payable if TV/Radio streams firewalled?

That's not possible in Germany because a fee that every citizen has to pay is a tax and only the states can raise taxes - however, the states may not raise the fees for the public broadcasters because if they would they'd be able to influence them, which is not desired. (And I think it's rather obvious why we want the public broadcasters to be as independent as possible.) Thus the public broadcasters have their own organisation, the GEZ (Gebühreneinzugszentrale; "fee collection center"), which attempts to get money for as many kinds of telecommunication as possible to finance them.
Of course by now the entire thing has devolved into a question of semantics as the GEZ can more or less get money out of everyone so the TV fee is more or less a tax.

Oh, and note that while the private broadcasters are usually financed solely through advertisement (pay-per-view and subscription channels are uncommon in Germany) that doesn't mean that the public broadcasters can't show ads in addition to being financed through the GEZ. They are restricted to not showing any ads before 20:00, though, IIRC. But still one onders how much they are independent from their sponsors anymore...

The real hoot, of course, is that while we have to pay a broadcasting fee for our internet access there is actually little broadcasting done by the public broadcasters on the 'net. The only thing that would qualify as broadcasting would be live streams; websites and MP3s are not broadcasting. Live streams, however, are rarely available and when they are they tend to perform poorly as the public broadcasters' servers and pipes can't handle many connections. Thus the internet GEZ fee is mainly for something that doesn't exist.

Re:Still payable if TV/Radio streams firewalled?

And how about other types of computers?

Officer: I'm here to collect the public TV tax.
Joe: I've already paid for my TV and personal computer.
Officer: But you haven't paid for your other computers.
Joe: I only own one computer!
Officer: From my inspection I have noted that you own 5 pocket calculators, a microwave, a CD player, and a car--all of which are operated by computers.
Joe: But you can't connect them to the Internet. And even if you could they still don't have monitors to view TV shows on!
Officer: But theoretically they could, right? I mean if you flip your calculator upside down I can spell 'boobies.'
Joe: No!
Officer: C'mon! Don't be so stubborn. C'mon!
Joe: Well Ok, I'll sell the car so I can pay the fees for my calculators.
Officer: And by the way, why do you own so many calculators?
Joe:: So I can write "I see boobies I see boobies."
Officer: But you only need 4 for that message.
Joe: I use that one to pay the taxes for the other four.

I would owe somethine like $200 / month

If this tarrif existed in the states it would literally cost me about $200 / month. Between game consoles, clusters of mac minis, laptops, rack-mount machines, media machines, cell phones and whatnot... Yea, I am a little gadget crazy, but perhaps I am just an early adopter...

We are asymptotely approaching a time when everything is connected to the Internet. If my toaster is connected to the Internet and has audio capabilites (and therefore theoretically capable of receiving and playing audio streams), would I have to pay the license? What about my fridge (many people already have Internet connected fridges with displays)? My washing machine? My iPod?

This legislation is astonishing. People will stop buying gadgets in Germany if every gadget has a state imposed monthly tarrif associated with it. It makes much more sense to simply impose a household tarrif (or even an individual yearly tax).

This smells like an underhanded way to get the masses to come out in favor of DRM in Germany to me. DRM presents a solution to the gadget tax!!! Hurray for DRM!!!

Politicians and Corporate interests are evil when combined.

Re:I would owe somethine like $200 / month

Basically it is a household tariff (still stupid enough). Even if you have a whole wall of TV sets and dozends of computers you just have to pay once. I think they also have changed it in the meantime that the same applies for each site of a company (hooray for lobyyism in that case). However, if you are self-employed you have to pay once for your private stuff, once for business use and once for the radio in your business-used car. Now how stupid is that ?

Re:Still payable if TV/Radio streams firewalled?

that they have insulated themselves from public or governmental control

Note that after the Third Reich they were designed this way to prevent governmental control. That's also why there are two independent ones. This is a Good Thing.

This is outrageous

I wonder who is so stupid to pay for something they dont use? :)

It's like cable

Once they own you, they throw commercials at you. Don't ever pay for something when they show commercials.

Re:

I got Foxtel (Australia) mainly to avoid seeing commercials but in the last few months instead of a break plugging a new or old shows I now see commercials. At least it is not as bad as the commercial channels yet were you can get up-to several minutes per

Corporations

Note: This is a flat fee. Every corporation has to pay it only once, regardless of the number of computers.

Re:Corporations

Not completely correct - it is due for each LOCATION that has at least one internet-enabled machine. So, if you have PCs at multiple housing locations, though nobody will be physically present to use any radio, TV or whatever, you are again required to pay for that location.

Re:Corporations

And does that count for home offices too? What about my three computers? What about my two video-capable mobile phones? What about my video iPod? Those aren't bound to any location.

You need one radio license (if you have at least one radio) and one TV license (if you have at least one TV) per household. So if you own a TV and a radio in Germany, you are already obliged to pay ~17 Euro/month in license fees. Nothing changes if you have 3 radios and 5 TVs, It does not matter if you have additional mobile radios (eg in your car). And it also does not matter if you have three computers. Once you have a license, you don't pay extra for additional hardware. The only thing that changes next year is that an internet PC counts as radio. So if you have no radio, but an internet PC, you have to start paying. At least in private households that surely affects few people, but it is nethertheless stupid.

German not the only ones

There's a similar update of the laws in Sweden. This may very well spread to a lot of countries.

Will the next big thing be an ISP which doesn't give access to the website's of the nations public TV and radio stations' websites?
Or will even The Pirate Bay and Google Video be recognized as sites where you can access TV and radio programs, thus making any such attempts from the ISPs worthless?

It's the same fee..

.. as in the story from 2004, they just reduced it a bit after a truckload of protests during the last 2 years.
Maybe a bit more background info from Germany here: this fee is used to support the state-owned radio and TV stations, the privately owned stations don't see a cent. This is supposedly to guarantee the higher-quality broadcasts from the state stations as opposed to the low-quality, market-driven programs from the private stations.. but as somebody who doesn't watch state TV as a principle, I won't pay this s**t.

Unfortunately, you miss the point.

You miss the point. It's the fact you own a TV that you pay for, irrespective whether you watch the public law channels or not. Maybe it's like, you pay car taxes whether you drive or not. It's unlawful driving an unregistered car, and it's considered unlawful owning an unregistered TV or radio set. That's their logic. (OK, this comparison is lame – it's the ownership that triggers the fee, not using it ...)

If you already own a registered radio or TV, you are not going to pay additional fees anyway. Only those who are not registered yet will be affected if they own an Internet capable computer. Firewalls, filtering ISPs etc. are very unlikely to help - the fee collecting agency GEZ has been (in)famous for interpreting such obstacles their way consistently in the past (1), and has been successfully suing unregistered TV watchers. This is all regulated by a public broadcasting law for which the Prime Ministers of the German states are responsible. Resistance is futile. :-(

In the old days when the public TV and radio stations offered more sophisticated broadcasts it was OK to pay these fees IMHO. But nowadays these public stations suffer from decreasing watcher and listener numbers, and try to resemble the private TV and radio stations more and more. There's less and less differentiators that warrant such fees - except maybe the news on ARD and ZDF and the folk music broadcasts if you like them. The radio stations play the same pop and chart crap as everybody else – so-called "Dudelfunk" (roughly translated "tootle radio"). In the Munich/Augsburg area, there is a single radio station that has all the good rock music – but outside of Augsburg you can receive them only via the Astra Satellite, i.e. not when travelling by car (no Sirius offering here, folks). I have stopped listening to the radio (except for the news at times) long ago. >8-(

(1) They aren't dumb. It's too easy to use a web proxy outside of the ISP's realm in order to bypass any firewall rules. Except if ISPs start filtering the actual content but this requires much CPU and is senseless once you start using SSL.

Re:It's the same fee..

It's definitely better (the commercial broadcasters are categorically awful), while still not being very good at all. I've been living in Germany for six years now, having come from England. I don't pay GEZ fees for a number of reasons:

  - They want money, but they still show (on the radio, play) ads. One or the other. If I'm going to pay a fee, I don't want ads. It's the ads that end up dragging state TV/radio down toward the lowest common denominator that the private broadcasters serve - they're competing for the same ad money.

  - Their enforcement methods stink. Sending threat letters warning of "serious consequences", visiting people at home and pretending they have some right to come in and look for TVs (they don't), ringing people's door intercoms and pretending to be the postman/mailman so that people let them in. If you're trying to be the "civilised" state broadcaster, act like it.

  - The lack of relation between the price and the quality. For a radio and TV, the GEZ wants EUR204.36 (GBP136.91, USD257.81). A colour TV license in the UK costs GBP131.50 (EUR196.28, USD247.62. There are no additional charges for radio). For my GEZ money, I get a few poor TV channels (with ads), a few (mostly poor) radio channels (with ads) and little original programme-making of any consequence. Were I still in England, I'd be getting from the BBC (at the last count) eight TV channels, eleven national radio channels and numerous local radio channels along with programme-making of international repute. (When was the last time you saw something from the BBC on TV, wherever you are? And when did you last see something from German TV?) The GEZ wants more money than the BBC, but provides significantly less service.

  - This latest silliness. If you want money from people who use PCs to watch your service, issue each person who pays the GEZ with a subscription number, have them type it in before providing access.

As it stands, I'll keep ignoring the German state TV/Radio offerings and listening to the BBC services online and via longwave radio. If the BBC offers me an option to subscribe to receive a fuller range of their services via internet, I'll be happy to do so. (In case anyone gets the wrong impression, there are lots of things I like about Germany - their state TV and Radio just happen to be one of those that I very much dislike.)

Re:It's the same fee..

The lack of relation between the price and the quality. For a radio and TV, the GEZ wants EUR204.36 (GBP136.91, USD257.81). A colour TV license in the UK costs GBP131.50 (EUR196.28, USD247.62.

In other words: About the same, depending on the exchange rate.

For my GEZ money, I get a few poor TV channels (with ads), a few (mostly poor) radio channels (with ads) and little original programme-making of any consequence. Were I still in England, I'd be getting from the BBC (at the last count) eight TV channels, eleven national radio channels and numerous local radio channels along with programme-making of international repute.

Well, let's count the German channels (not including regional services):

1. Das Erste ("First")*
   
2. ZDF ("Second")*
   
3. ARTE (German/French cooperation)
   
4. 3sat (German/Austrian/Swiss cooperation)
   
5. Phoenix (Parliament/Politics)
   
6. KI.KA (Children's Channel)
   
7. EinsPlus
   
8. EinsExtra
   
9. EinsFestival
   
10. ZDFdokukanal
    
11. ZDFinfokanal
    
12. ZDFtheaterkanal
    

If I remember correctly, twelve is more than eight. In addition, there are more regional channels ("Third programmes", except BR-alpha) than in the UK (and they are "full" programms, not just time slices):

1. Bayerisches Fernsehen (Bavaria)
   
2. BR-alpha (Bavaria)
   
3. hr-fernsehen (Hesse)
   
4. Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (Central Germany)
   
5. NDR Fernsehen (Northern Germany)
   
6. Radio Bremen TV (Bremen)
   
7. rbb Fernsehen (Berlin, Brandenburg)
   
8. SR Südwest Fernsehen (Saarland)
   
9. SWR Fernsehen (Baden-Wuerttemberg, Rheinland-Palatine)
   
10. WDR Fernsehen (Western Germany)
    

Unless you're stuck with an analogue terrestrial antenna (only Das Erste, ZDF, the local "third" programme and maybe a few commercial programms), you can also watch at least two (analogue cable, DVB-T) or all (DVB-C/S) of these regional programmes.

Well, only those channels marked with * (yes, that's the two main channels) actually do show a few ads (up to 20 minutes per working day, not after 8pm, not interrupting programmes).

(When was the last time you saw something from the BBC on TV, wherever you are? And when did you last see something from German TV?)

Hm, the last thing I remember from the BBC was a coproduction of the BBC and ZDF...
Of course, BBC programmes are more easily exported to other English- and even American-speaking countries.

Re:

The reasoning is that without the ads, the fee would probably be 600/yr instead of 200/yr.

So how do the BBC charge a lower fee, provide more channels of higher quality, run Europe's most popular content-based website and make more original programming, whi

Limited regional programming

Effectively, in Germany, there are a couple of country-wide TV channels and then a channel per state. Unlike the UK where the regional specific production, in most cases is limited to a news show or two sharing a slot in a common national channel, the Germ

Re:It's the same fee..

The German TV companies are so generous (from your money :-) ) to transmit their programmes unencrypted on satellite for everyone to view.

So I can receive German TV and can compare it with our Dutch programmes. What I think is:

- the public TV programmes are of good quality. Maybe not appealing to all viewers, but it is clear that care has been put in making them.
- some commercial TV programmes like RTL are not that bad, but the amount of commercials (and especially the length of commercial blocks) is awful.
- other commercial TV programmes (on a lower budget) are just the re-runs of cheap crap that we have here as well.

It is apparent, also when viewing Dutch public TV or the BBC, that public TV has a place. And also that it does not appeal to everyone.

Re:

When you are paying the TV fee already, you don't have to pay an extra fee.
Originally the amount set was the same as for the TV license, then it was reduced to the same amount as a radio license (17 reduced to 6 I think). There were some of good reason

This reminds me...

Of the in Japan that nobody gives a flying fuck about. From this page [3web.ne.jp]: Q. Do I have to pay the NHK man? A. The NHK man is a representative of Japan's state-run television station who goes door to door trying to collect NHK fees, a bi-monthly tax of about 2000 yen that everyone who owns a colour television in Japan is required by law to pay. They are generally very aggressive and threatening, usually sticking their foot in the door so that you can't close it on them, and somehow giving you the impression that dire consequences will ensue if you do not pay promptly. The truth is that although there really is a law, a lot of people in Japan completely ignore it and you can too if you want to. Telling them that you do not watch Japanese TV is not an acceptable excuse, because the law says that everyone who owns a TV has to pay so the best way to get rid of them is to just refuse outright. They are not going to have you arrested and they cannot garnishee your wages so if you don't watch NHK, so you don't have to be intimidated by them. Nor do they have any right to enter your apartment, so if you tell them that you do not have a TV there is no way for them to charge you (be careful if you have a satellite dish though). I predict a similar fate for this one. These laws really are stupidly cussed laws, and everyone knows it. The only thing is that you can actually see if someone is using the internet really easily, unlike a simple TV picking up radio waves. By the way, if this whole NHK tax thing is a big rumour or it's long done with or something, please inform me :)

Re:

No, its not long gone, its still around. As are the NHK-men collecting fees. The fee is closer to 3,000yen though, not 2,000. The difference is that now... they are actually taking people to court for not paying. Not everyone, I think so far they have

Huh?

Like the current TV and radio license fees, the money will support national and local public TV and radio stations.

Shouldn't the money go to supporting internet related media, like podcasts? If I don't have a TV, why should I be forced to pay taxes that support it?

-Grey [wellingtongrey.net]

Re:

In Germany their is a radio fee and a TV fee (as opposed to the UK where the radio fee was dropped in the early 60's). Here, the radio fee is being applied as a TV fee on Internet devices.

Radio programs are normally available [swr3.de] streamed, afaik TV programs a

It's 2004 again

It is in fact the same story. In 2004 the introduction was first discussed, and now it's reality. It's a little more complicated than stated in the blurb though. If you are already paying the fee for a TV set, you have not to pay for the computer. But businesses normally don't operate a TV set, so they are now hit by the fee.
The fee is due not for watching TV, but for "having a TV set ready for reception of a TV signal". Because the public TV programming is available as an IP stream, every computer that could be hooked to the Internet is "being ready for reception". And don't try to argue that your computer is running Linux and thus not "ready". It is able to run an operating system that could display the TV stream, even though it is not running it right now.
In general you have to pay the fee only once, independent of the number of "TV ready" equipment you are using. Only if you have some private radio/TV sets and some in your business, the fee is due twice (a car radio in a car used for business for instance has to be paid for in addition to the one in your home).

Re:

The government can't do exactly that, because of the Rundfunkstaatsvertrag (Radio State Contract) the TV stream has to be available to everyone indiscriminately. It's not about avoiding getting something for free. No, the whole idea is that the programming

Twists of logic

Because the public TV programming is available as an IP stream, every computer that could be hooked to the Internet is "being ready for reception". And don't try to argue that your computer is running Linux and thus not "ready". It is able to run an operating system that could display the TV stream, even though it is not running it right now.

the TV stream has to be available to everyone indiscriminately. [...] the whole idea is that the programming should be free to anyone who is ready to receive it, subventioned by the fees of all people who want programming in general, independently of the source of THEIR programming.

Could you enlighten us as to exactly where (deep-link URLs!) those 24/7 live streams for all public stations are? In particular the TV ones...

Needless to say, if the fee is supposed to be justified by the "programming being made available to everyone (with a license)", then it would really have to be

• available (under load - and that means during the evening news or blockbusters, and even at the end game's last minute of a soccer world cup)
• free of Digital Restrictions Management (if only to ensure anonymous access!) and not tied to any particular operating system, let alone a closed-source and expensive one
• at a fee that is substantially lower than for conventional over-the-air transmissions, as the receiver rather than the sender pays almost the entire distribution/infrastructure this way! (Everyone look at your ISP bills, in particular volume-based ones, or care to compute how many TV sets a day you could buy from the fees charged by German wireless operators for receiving IP streaming video, and Internet access in general, on your mobile phone...)

Three more things to consider:

1. Most enterprises just don't have cars where they already pay for radio, so they are hit by yet another fee now.
2. Typically, in a group or office building, there may be many different legal entities (1..n employees each) per location, each one charged with yet another new fee (and probably then again for their mobile phones, and/or home offices, etc.), separately.
3. Experience has it that employers who give staff a choice between either doing their jobs or watching TV on company time usually don't exist for long enough to be worth working there (or enjoying the media, for that matter)... Possibly not even long enough to pay the wages "earned" that way (if any)...
   So the businesses' outrage at these surreal fees is quite justified.

About the german internet fee

In germany,

if you own a device that is capable of receiving public tv or radio than you must
pay a fee of 17.52 Euro/Month (for tv and radio) or 5.x for radio.
But you have to pay only for one device even if you own more.
This money is used to fund the state owned public tv and radio stations across the country

To my knowledge, we have the worlds most expensive public tv with a annual budget of
8.2 Billion Euro where 6.5 Billion Euro are coming from the fee (2004 data).

In 2004 the ingenious people of the public broadcasting sector realized that there are
now some people watching tv using their computer and thus are not required to pay.
They got politics to define computers, mobile phones etc. with internet connections as "novel tv devices"
with the intention of getting the people to pay that dumped their regular tvs for
computers.

For some reason this legislation was postponed until 2007 and is now coming into effect.

Particularly annoying is this new fee for companies. Especially small companies as you
have to pay for tv devices used by the company an extra time. This means that if you
work from home and have payed already for your private tv you will have to pay again for
your business computer with an internet connection.

This created some offroar now because since around 2005 a company is mandatorily
required to do the tax stuff via internet, and therefore by law must have a computer
with an internet connection.

The offroar was ongoing and recently the public broadcasting people have agreed to lower the
fee for internet computers from 17.52 (the tv and radio fee) to only 5.x which is the
fee if you have only one radio.

For me, running a small business from home, that means I will have to pay about 23 Euro
a month for public broadcasting ...

Yes, it it the same thing as 2004

It is called "GEZ Gebühr" (fee for the GEZ [www.gez.de], the Gebühreneinzugszentrale - Central for fee collecting, a divison of the public broadcast services ARD and ZDF), everyone in Germany has to pay the GEZ fee to receive radio broadcasts (reduced fee, about 5 Euro per month) or TV and radio broadcasts (full fee, about 15 Euro per month). It does not depend on the number of devices, you have to pay 15 Euro no matter if you own one TV set or 10.000. Some group of persons may apply for exemption.

The original idea of the "internet fee" was that you could receive internet streams from the websites of the public broadcast services with an internet capable device (not only PCs, but also UMTS mobile phones), so a PC would be equal to a TV set (yes, that's how german politicans think) and you have to pay the full GEZ fee. It simply does not matter if you actually do receive those streams, all that counts is that you are able to recevie them.

After lots of complaints from nearly every organisation, the "internet fee" was changed to the reduced radio fee. This does not affect common households, because they usually already pay for receiving radio and TV broadcasts, so the PC is "just another TV set". But each and every company that uses even only one PC now has to pay 5 Euro per month for the ability(!) to receive TV and radio broadcasts via internet. A related information: The german tax authorities force you to use an internet capable PC for your monthly tax declaration, so nearly every company now has to pay the GEZ fee.

Tux2000, nearly becoming mad during the attempt to translate this nonsense into english

"Net Neutrality" bill

Beginning January 1st, Germany will require payment of a license fee of 5.52 euros a month on computers and mobile phones that can access TV and radio programs over the Internet. They're working on something like that in America. Except instead of the fee going to the government, you pay it to Verizon corporation.

Companies only pay for one computer

This hysteria is typical of slashdot and a load of rubbish; Here in Switzerland Computers with internet connections have paid the radio/tv tax for years now, and the sun still shines over the alps. The German law is exactly the same as the Swiss one and works like this:
Each household pays a monthly or quarterly bill to the state run TV and Radio stations. They pay the same amount no matter how many computers, TVs or radios they have. The bill is one single price per household.
Each company pays only one bill no matter how many computers or TVs they have. It is NOT based on the number of computers.

Slashdot and its sensationalist attempts to gather hits and therefore drive up ad revenue make their comments on any news event seem very hypocritical.

quick impact analysis

The fee is, in fact, not only the same as the one of 2004, it is also the same as the standard radio fee.

Which means that anyone who already owns a radio won't pay anything in addition.

The fee affects two groups of people:

a) Those who have neither radio nor television, but a PC or mobile.
b) companies, which usually fall into group a) if you want to be nitpicking.

Since I fall in group a) I will be engaging in civil disobedience next year. Many others will, too. It'll be interesting to see how that goes, because despite their advertisement, the GEZ (the company that collects the fees) does not, in fact, have any powers to actually do their job. They can send you nasty letters and that's about it. They can't enter your house if you don't let them in, for example. They can't return with police to force their way in, even if they claim they can.

Germany: Nice Place to Visit, But

Germans must love to pay taxes. They have the beloved Kirchensteuer, or "church tax," which amounts to 8 or 9 percent of taxable income for the 28 million German Catholics. Protestant, Orthodox and Jewish wage-earners also pay a church tax for their churches and synagogues. The German Catholic church was handed a cool $11 billion last year by the German Government and brought in another $5 billion on its own. That's an awful lot of money for an organization of just a few thousand priests - barely 150 new priests are joining the Catholic church annually in Germany these days - the average age is over 60! So what in hell are those old geezers doing with all that dough? And why do the Germans put up with such nonsense?

Violation of freedom

This tax is absolutely shocking.

So, you're sitting there, minding your own business, and the State comes along with what is an absolutely disgustingly expedient excuse of a reason - "your PC is capable of running Windows and is capable of receiving IP and so can be used to view public TV and radio, so you must support that public TV and radio" - and then takes your money.

It's a money-grab. It's simply a method to extract money.

It is utterly, utterly disrespectful to the people the State is supposed to represent; they're not being treated as people, but as wallets, to raid.

It's also absolutely insane from an economists point of view. Taxation inherently discourages growth. There are ways to tax which minimize discouragement. It is absolutely insane to tax in any other way. This tax is criminally stupid.

Finally, the simplest and most profound issue is that this event has *happened*, with all that it illustrates about the relationship between the German State and the people comprising that State.

Its not a license fee, its just a fee.

And for TV its not 5 Euro, its more in the range of 20 Euro.

There are attempts to stop that, but likely they fail. If that is not from the table I will leave this country ... it anoys me to much to get ripped off liek this.
o I don't own a TV set
o with a computer you actually can't watch TV, as no single station is even broadcastin into the internet (except some news every 2 hours for 5 or 15 minutes)!!
o it would be totally simple to use an authentification schema so that only ppl who pay hte fee could recieve (download/stream) TV

angel'o'sphere