Today's moment of...something (in honor of Unity Day)

Journal Ethelred Unraed's Journal: Today's moment of...something (in honor of Unity Day) 9

Journal by Ethelred Unraed on Tuesday October 03, 2006 @07:11PM

In honor of today (well, by now actually yesterday in Central European Time) being German Unity Day, their national holiday, a bit of German Zen for you.

Germany has a thing for regulations and laws, and above all for thoroughness (though what they mean by "thoroughness" -- Gründlichkeit -- isn't always what you'd expect). This is often a...rather interesting...combination.

You see, in Germany there is (like in the UK) a mandatory subscriber's fee for all who own a TV and/or radio. It is, in effect, a small tax just for owning a radio or TV (or more than one of each). The money goes straight to the state-owned broadcasters, who thus don't need to rely on advertising. It also costs in the ballpark of €200 a year (if you have both TV and radio and aren't freed from having to pay, such as if you're unemployed), or €70 a year if you only have one or more radios.

It used to be that this fee was only if you owned TVs and/or radios and were a private household.

Well, the public broadcasters have been casting about for how to get more money. So they have now decreed that, as of 1 January 2007, any computer with Internet access is to be classified as a "broadcast-reception ready device". Well, in a way it seems reasonable, since nowadays with TV cards and Web streaming (which the state channels also provide), a computer is indeed kind of like a TV. Still is a bit annoying.

The added way they're making a money grab: Now businesses are also liable for the fee. Technically one business only needs to pay that €200 a year for the entire "household" (it doesn't matter how many TVs or radios you own), but still, business are understandably not happy about suddenly having to pay what amounts to a new tax just because they have Internet access.

But wait, it gets better.

Thanks to the way the GEZ has written the new regulation, ATMs in Germany are now classified as TVs and banks must now pay this tax. Because ATMs are, after all, computers with Internet access.

Not that you'll be watching "Kojak" on one anytime soon, but hey, theoretically possible, right?

...

Meanwhile, on another front, this tidbit is even more bizarre. You see, Germany recently enacted legislation empowering their version of the Library of Congress -- called the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, or German National Library -- to begin archiving German Web pages as part of their mandate to archive any and all German-language literature. In a way, it kinda makes sense to do so, to preserve Germany's cultural heritage for the future and all that, and after all there are privately-done things that point the way.

But the Germans just had to find a way to make this into a train wreck.

For you see, the way the law is written, it is not just the responsibility of the DNB to gather and maintain this archive. It is also the responsibility of anyone -- anyone -- who maintains a website in Germany and in German to make sure copies of their "Web publications" are registered with the DNB...and whenever a change is made, a snapshot of the changed version of the site (all of it) is also to be sent in. The DNB has helpfully (and, uh, perhaps a tad naïvely) set up an FTP server for the purpose, with a website where you can register your site(s) for the archive.

Dynamic content? Databases? Banner ads? Podcasts? Streaming live video? None of this is accounted for by the law as an exception, but it's all somehow supposed to be archived. Every byte.

If you don't want to use FTP, by the way, you are allowed to print out your site and mail it in. (Really.)

What's even more daft: Even if the content is password-protected and private, it's (again, the way the law is written) supposed to be archived -- and thus publicly accessible through the archive. Aunt Reba's vacation photos and Playboy's member's area: all of it's gotta be archived. All then publicly accessible.

What about illegal content? Say, a neo-Nazi site denying the Holocaust? Gotta be archived. And it would thus be publicly accessible through the archive, thus making the archive break one law in order to fulfill another one.

So what if someone refuses to go along with this? Up to €10,000 in fines. For each violation.

Of course, dead tree publishers have yawned over this and said that a similar requirement has existed for years for books, zines, parish bulletins, etc., anything that's printed -- it's all supposed to be in the archive -- and few actually comply, with no consequences ever resulting. Still, I don't much like having all webmasters being made potentially criminal at a stroke. Not to mention if I had to file a complete copy of every site I maintain every time I changed it, I'd literally not have time to do "real" work.

Needless to say, there's been a fair amount of protest over this, and hopefully the law will be revised. But B.S. like this happens surprisingly often, because in Germany, the laws tend to be written by civil servants, not by open committees with public testimony -- so by the time the public finds out about what's going on, the law's already been passed. So they go back to the drawing board, and "fix" the law later, while hinting at law enforcement to...well, wink wink...sorta ignore the law for a bit.

It is often truly a wonder that this country functions at all. Then again, the (East) Germans were the only ones who damned near got Communism to work.

I've always said that it was no accident Kafka wrote in German. *sigh*

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