July 2008
European Commission Holds Hearings on Copyright Levy Reforms
The European Commission’s (EC) Internal Market and Services Directorate recent meeting on copyright levies has moved the EU community a step closer to levy harmonisation.
Despite arguments made by major device makers, including HP and Apple a couple of years ago that levies should be abandoned in favour of digital rights technologies, which could potentially measure consumer usage of content more accurately, the Commission appears to have decided not to reform the system along these lines.
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One problem with the current levies system is the variation of laws in member states as to what levies are payable on. Most EU countries’ copyright law (with the notable exception of the UK), consumers can make private copies of content for personal use, but copyright owners have rights to compensation for those copies. While levies began as a way of estimating this compensation, their use has lead to different schemes being applied in different countries. Now schemes vary widely from country to country both in respect of what the levy is payable on and how it is calculated. This disparity also allows traders to profit on the grey market by moving goods from a levy free or low levy country to a high levy country and pocket the difference paid by the consumer.
Briffa comment:
While levies are regarded as outdated and inefficient in so far as they do not track usage it seems that they are here to stay for the time being. On that basis the harmonisation of levies applying across all members states of the EU benefits the free movement of goods making the EU competitive and a good trade zone for on-line content licensing and services.