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Media (Apple) Media The Almighty Buck

Dutch Pass iPod Tax 873

Posted by CowboyNeal from the pay-to-play dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Register is reporting that in a few short months a proposal to tax all MP3 players in the Netherlands will become law. The levy taxes 3.28 euros ($4.30 US) for every gigabyte of capacity. This means a 60GB iPod Photo will be hit for an additional 196 euros ($258), all of it going to the record industry's copyright collection agencies. And they call file sharers thieves?"
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Dutch Pass iPod Tax More

Dutch Pass iPod Tax

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  • Just a proposal, hopefully... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 29, 2005 @03:06AM (#12380734)
    Well I'm an American that went to grad school in the Netherlands and in my personal opinion it seems that much is changing in the Netherlands for the worse. There is a lot of pressure being put on their government by the United States, which just adds to the current tensions.

    A lot of the "problems" the United States has the Netherlands shares, like immigration (the Turkish, etc.). I absolutely loved the two years I spent there and only hope that they don't buy into the US corporate way of messing stuff up.

    This iPod tax seems completely absurd and I hope that this proposal is just that, a proposal and nothing more. Just my two euros...

    • Re:Just a proposal, hopefully... (Score:5, Informative)

      by geniusj ( 140174 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @03:15AM (#12380797) Homepage
      The US doesn't have a CD-R/MP3 player tax like other countries. This proposal is just absurd.

      • Re:Just a proposal, hopefully... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Shisha ( 145964 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @03:50AM (#12380973) Homepage
        You know what? If I bought an mp3 player in Netherlands and got taxed under the new law, I would feel it's my legal right to copy, distribute and share all my mp3s on p2p networks and also to download as many as I like. Because, after all, I already paid the music industry.

        But the whole thing is just utterly ridiculous. I don't download any music of p2p now, but I had to pay a tax like this I'm sure I'd start just to stir things up a bit.

        Btw. or I could buy the iPod in some other country.

        • Re:Just a proposal, hopefully... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by atomico ( 162710 ) <miguel@cardo.gmail@com> on Friday April 29, 2005 @04:23AM (#12381130) Homepage
          I'm afraid they want to have it both ways... and, seeing how willing are European politicians to sell their vote to corporate interests, they will succeed:
          • People will have to pay an outrageous tax for all digital storage, no matter what they use it for. Guilty by default, the modern law principle.
          • Record companies will keep on suing filesharers.

          We already have to pay a levy on blank CDs in most European countries today, same as it was with blank magnetic media before.

          And of course, iPod sales in the Netherlands would suffer a huge drop... in such a small country, you can never be far away from the border.

          • Destroying their high-street shops (Score:5, Informative)

            by Sad Loser ( 625938 ) * on Friday April 29, 2005 @04:50AM (#12381230)

            I think this is kind of academic as goods are allowed to be freely distributed for personal use within the EC, and anyone in Holland who wants an ipod will just buy it mail-order from the UK or somewhere without the tax.

            Exactly the same thing has happened with the iTrip - it is illegal to sell or use here in the UK but so many have been imported, that they are turning a blind eye to the selling now.

            It's a bit like trying to tax the super wealthy - if you try to do it too much, they just move somewhere else, and you end up with no money.

            I am sure that the shop sellers of ipods will just arrange to have them delivered from another country, but will lose out big time to the intenet and mail-order sales. If they want to destroy their high-street shops, who are we to stop them?

        • Re:Just a proposal, hopefully... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by doctormetal ( 62102 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @04:26AM (#12381142)
          You know what? If I bought an mp3 player in Netherlands and got taxed under the new law, I would feel it's my legal right to copy, distribute and share all my mp3s on p2p networks and also to download as many as I like. Because, after all, I already paid the music industry.

          But think about the enormous economical losses of this tax. People will stop buying MP3 players in the Netherlands. Instead they will be buying in Germany or Belgium. Same thing for the DVD tax: I buy all my DVD_Rs from Germany, not in the local shop.

          Most resellers are very afraid of this kind of taxes.

      • Re:Just a proposal, hopefully... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by phulshof ( 204513 ) <phulshof@xs4all.nl> on Friday April 29, 2005 @04:06AM (#12381049) Homepage
        Please keep in mind that:
        1. This is just a proposal, and already heavily critized.
        2. It is legal in the Netherlands to make private copies of any audio/video, EVEN IF YOU DO NOT OWN AN ORIGINAL! This means effectively that there's no such thing as illegal downloading of songs/movies in the Netherlands; it's legal. The levy system is the opposed measure set up to make this legal.
      • The US doesn't have a CD-R/MP3 player tax like other countries.

        The United States did, and still does, have a tax on blank audio cassettes, with the proceeds of the tax going to the record industry. In pushing the tax bill through Congress, the record industry said that the tax was to make sure the artists got money for their work. However, little of the tax actually went to the artists, most went to the record labels and publishing companies.

      • Are you *SURE* about that? (Score:4, Informative)

        by schon ( 31600 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @12:07PM (#12384372)
        The US doesn't have a CD-R/MP3 player tax like other countries.

        How much you wanna bet? [cornell.edu]

        This may come as a shock to you, but not only are you wrong, but the US was one of the first countries to introduce something like this.

    • An idea.. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Chordonblue ( 585047 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @03:19AM (#12380827) Journal
      Sell the damn things without drives and have people buy the drives as DRIVES - separately. How asinine this is - especially for a Euro country!

      • Re:An idea.. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by jim_v2000 ( 818799 )
        Build a better mousetrap and they build a better mouse... If they sold the drives separately, it would likely still qualify as an MP3 device, since it's purpose would be to store mp3's for an mp3 player. And even if it didn't, they'd probably modify the law so it did.
        • If they sold the drives separately then the MP3 device would come with 0GB capacity so the tax would be 0 euros.

          • Re:An idea.. (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Tlosk ( 761023 )
            Then they throw your ass in jail when you don't have the tax stamp on your hard drive that's in the MP3 player you're listening to in public.

            I'm not saying it's something you couldn't get away with, but just see tax stamps on cigarrettes, lots of people try to avoid the insane taxes the gov puts on them, and lots of people go to jail for smuggling untaxed packs or for buying them.

            The sad part is the costs associated with administering a tax like this soaks up most of the revenue it generates. Total freaki

    • I wouldn't want to be a Dutch iPod salesman... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by john-da-luthrun ( 876866 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @04:29AM (#12381157)
      The single market in the European Union means that people living in the Netherlands can just buy their iPods, blank CD-Rs etc from a country like the UK, which doesn't impose taxes like this. Which is one reason why I bet the proposal will end up either being dropped, or else watered down sufficiently to create less of an incentive for shopping around.

      My worry is that the UK will end up being forced to adopt similar levies in the name of "harmonisation", which would be ruinously expensive for those of us who only buy blank CD-Rs to use for data rather than music.

    • Re:Just a proposal, hopefully... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by nahdude812 ( 88157 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @06:08AM (#12381454) Homepage
      I'd completely go for the iPod tax.

      Now I've paid for music, it's no longer illegal for me to go out and download it.

      I know that's not really how it'll work legally, but I've always strongly felt that if any standard tax is passed on devices for listening to music, then anyone in possession of such devices are free to access all the music with out limit. Why else have a tax if not to remove the individual purchase rate.

      I'd gladly give up $200 one-time for indefinate no-further-charge unlimited access to all the RIAA (or whatever it is in the Netherlands) music.

      All that said, it is a mockery of justice to have ANY corporation able to levy a tax on citizens for any reason. If this was a tax so the government could afford to cover the legal costs that *it* is incurring, then it falls well within what most standard taxes are for. But if it's a tax that presumes purchasers of a consumer device are going to use it for illegal ends, and compensate the, erm, "victims" in advance, then you've just created a "Guilty until proven innocent" model.

      Personally I have a 40g iPod which is about 2/3 full. Every single bit of data on it is something which I have a right to place there. I do believe in paying for music (though actually most of what I have on there is audio books -- which I've paid for). This sort of law would charge people like me, who are wholly operating within our rights within the law, for the crimes of others, with the presumption that I'm too weak minded to resist the temptation to break the law.

      • Re:Just a proposal, hopefully... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by milosoftware ( 654147 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @06:46AM (#12381569) Homepage
        ..you've just created a "Guilty until proven innocent" model...

        Actually, that's becoming a very popular model. It has been in use for traffic rules violations for many years now (you have to prove yourself innocent), and there are several other areas where the Dutch government wants to apply it. The most recent example is for "unwanted intimacies" (ongewenste intimiteiten) at work. If the secretary files a complaint that the boss is harassing her, the boss will have to prove he didn't or otherwise he'll be considered guilty.

      • Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. You pay twice, once for the songs you buy and once with the levy. Paying the levy has no legal implications in the sense that you can now download whatever you like. On the other hand downloading is legal as it stands now in the Netherlands. You are allowed to make copies for study etc. Hosting and offering copyrighted content without consent of the copyright holder is not allowed, downloading without consent is.

  • 258$ "stealing" tax?!? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by plsavaria ( 823160 ) * on Friday April 29, 2005 @03:06AM (#12380737)
    And I believed the 15$ tax was heavy in Canada...

    I hate to pay a "steal" tax. But if I'd pay 258$ steal tax, I'd "steal"....

    • Re:258$ "stealing" tax?!? (Score:5, Funny)

      by PsychicX ( 866028 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @03:10AM (#12380768)
      1) Charge a ridiculous tax on iPods
      2) Profit!

      Wait a second, something's missing here.

  • wow. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by eobanb ( 823187 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @03:08AM (#12380744) Homepage
    This means a 60GB iPod Photo will be hit for an additional 196 euros ($258), all of it going to the record industry's copyright collection agencies

    I think SOMEONE didn't quite think this through. I don't doubt that consumers will simply revolt, either running across the border to purchase their electronics, or just not buying them, until some idiot politicians receive enough letters and this whole measure is canned.

  • !!! Holy crap! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by PsychicX ( 866028 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @03:08AM (#12380747)
    196 euro extra?! Does it even cost that much?

  • Le Grand Workaround (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Adrilla ( 830520 ) * on Friday April 29, 2005 @03:08AM (#12380749) Homepage
    I'd just buy a MP3 player that has low onboard memory, but that takes removable memory. Voila! Less than 5 bucks o' tax, infinite memory.
    • Interestingly what they are charging is way more than an actual hard disk storage costs. So in short this is a tax > 100% in measure.

      A 160 GB Dell Sata costs 202 EUR [kelkoo.co.uk] - which would incur a tax of ~200% if it had been sold For an Mp3 player.

      Also this tax pretty much legitimises copyright violations or in theory should.

  • Will trade iPods for weed (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rattencremesuppe ( 784075 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @03:08AM (#12380750)
    Apple stores in Germany will probably welcome this law ;-)

  • Big Deal (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Hank Chinaski ( 257573 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @03:09AM (#12380755) Homepage
    because it takes like 2 and half hours from e.g. Amsterdam to drive to the next big german city, where a lot of people will be more than happy to sell mp3 players to angry dutch customers.

    and: people will just buy them by mail order, because there is no customs check inside the EU.

  • Hm (Score:3, Informative)

    by scapermoya ( 769847 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @03:09AM (#12380759) Homepage
    While this seems extravagent (it is), places like The Netherlands and Sweden, etc. have excellent copyright and IP laws. Its widely known that taxes in those countries are very high, but unlike some nations (cough), you see that cash put to work. It would be interesting to see how they handle iPods bought in Germany or France, and brought over.

  • How about an MP3 player with a drive bay? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by joelparker ( 586428 ) <joel@school.net> on Friday April 29, 2005 @03:09AM (#12380762) Homepage
    This is even more reason for an MP3 player to come with a drive bay. You buy it without a drive, then add your own. Makes upgrades a snap, and has no Dutch taxes!

  • When I first read this... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by meatflower ( 830472 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @03:10AM (#12380763)
    I thought it was a joke. Adding $258 to the cost of a 60gb Ipod? Thats not a tax, that is the stupidest thing I've ever heard!
    Like the article says, what happens when we get 100gb, or 200gb ipods (it'll happen eventually), then we're talking about not just doubling the cost of an Ipod but tripling it.
    Don't they realise this amazingly exorbitant taxation will only lead to illegal importing? And I thought the U.S. Government had lost its way....

  • Levy *and* copyright infringement (Score:5, Insightful)

    by born_to_live_forever ( 228372 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @03:10AM (#12380765) Homepage
    There's a similar levy on blank media, in my native Denmark.

    But, I honestly don't see how they can justify having a levy on media that can be used for assumed copyright infringement, and at the same time seek redress for copyright infringement - isn't the levy supposed to be a sort of "shared" payment for the copyright infringement that occurs?

    I mean, they can't have both. Either they have un-levied media, and sue copyright infringers. Or the other way around. Having both is getting paid twice for the same supposed loss.

    And that looks like fraud to me.

    • Re:Levy *and* copyright infringement (Score:5, Informative)

      by matrem ( 806375 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @03:30AM (#12380883)
      In the Netherlands it is legal to make extra copies of media you own, or to make a copy of a CD or DVD you borrowed from a friend, neigbor, etc. The copyright holders are compensated through a tax, in a rather obscure way. It is illegal to sell copyrighted work, or make copies and give away the copies yourself. All this is explained (in Dutch) by Stichting De Thuiskopie [cedar.nl]

      I wouldn't be surprised if the situation were the same in Denmark.

  • Seems wrong on so many levels (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Antony-Kyre ( 807195 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @03:10AM (#12380767)
    The concept of taxing something to offset the effects of illegal activity. I mean, it hurts those who use it for legit purposes. But I guess this is what happens when the special interest groups and the lobbyists get their way. Perhaps we need a higher rate of legislators per number of persons, which would allow grassroot campaigning.

  • Ogg Vorbis! (Score:5, Funny)

    by MoogMan ( 442253 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @03:11AM (#12380771)
    Another good reason to use OGG... *ducks*

  • Headline should read 'Propose' tax. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ABeowulfCluster ( 854634 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @03:13AM (#12380784)
    not 'pass' tax. Hasn't been passed yet.

  • Great move (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LemonFire ( 514342 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @03:14AM (#12380791) Homepage
    This is really great news!

    It's always great to see how the recording industry penalizes a system that allows people to legally listen to music.

    I'm sure that the record industry's copyright collection agencies will hand the money gathered through this tax to needy musicians.

    Don't get me wrong, I'm all for musicians being able to make a living, but penalizing a system that encourages people to buy music online is just plain stupid.

  • The Netherlands 2006 (Score:3, Funny)

    by Andreas Schaefer ( 513034 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @03:17AM (#12380816) Homepage
    You still can buy great hashish, marijuana, pre-rolled joints and space cookies in every other coffee shop in Amsterdam. And if you ask the right people, they'll point you in the direction of some dark alley where you can get an untaxed ipod. Just don't let the DEA catch you.

  • Scariest Part! Maybe $4.3k for a TB HD in your CPU (Score:5, Interesting)

    by licamell ( 778753 ) * on Friday April 29, 2005 @03:18AM (#12380819)
    From the article...

    The idea of all levy based legislation is that some form of copyright collections agency collects tax by imposing a surcharge at the point of sale for any storage devices that could possibly be used to store pirated works.

    Already in Germany there is a levy on PC hard drives, that will soon become larger than the entire PC industry revenue if it is left in place. Within two years, as disk drive sizes move to terabyte class on notebooks, and petabyte levels on home DVRs, the tax will come to far outweigh not just the cost of the drive, but the cost of the device. Under this Netherlands law, if it were extended to the PC, the cost of 1,000 GB would be 3,280 ($4,300) and yet drives of this size will be delivered by 2007.

  • Headline is wildly inaccurate (Score:5, Informative)

    by Serious Simon ( 701084 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @03:23AM (#12380853)
    No specific law has been passed, and the levy on MP3 players is just a proposal.

    However, similar regulations already exist for blank CD-ROMs, tapes, and photocopiers, because it is assumed that these are (partly) used for the copying of copyrighted material.

    Such copying is legally allowed, the levy exists as a compensation for the copyright holders.

    I think it is possible that a levy on MP3 players will come into existence but at much lower sums than now proposed.

  • Apple/iPod... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by The New Andy ( 873493 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @03:32AM (#12380900) Homepage Journal
    Since this isn't an iPod specific law, why is this in the Apple section?
  • New York: Shady character standing in front of the Apple Store selling weed

    Amsterdam: Shady character standing in front of the coffee shop selling imported iPods

  • Stichting ThuisCopy Corrupt? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by smooc ( 59753 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @03:41AM (#12380930) Homepage
    Actually this 'bill' is being initiated by the Foundation for the Home Copy and has not been passed yet. The weird thing is that there are a couple of those 'foundations' which are supposed to be not for profit. If you startup a new restaurant of something along the lines you will get about (no joke) 20 of such foundations asking for money.

    BUT it is very difficult to find out were the money they make is going to.

  • good trade possibilities (Score:3, Insightful)

    by spectrokid ( 660550 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @03:47AM (#12380951) Homepage
    There's dude, like, dude, TONS of germans, belgians and french, dude, hopping over the border to get hold of the more, like, exquisit Dutch agricultural products. And dude, I'm not talking, like fucking tulips here, right? So like, I guess the dudes just got themselves a whole new currency to pay with.

  • Some more info on this (I'm Dutch) (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 29, 2005 @03:50AM (#12380972)
    Well, this is old news in Holland (see article on tweakers.net, English version available too).

    For now it is a prooposal only, but the current Dutch government is pretty good in 'silently' upgrading such things to law.....

    In fact, the proposal is even worse than mentioned in the article.
    The tax is not only intended for iPods/MP3 players, but for ANY device capable of storing copyrighted content for later playback.
    That includes, computers, HD and DVD video recorders, even spare HD's, SD and Comapct Flash memory, etc.

    All major computer manufacturers have already written letters to the Dutch prime-minister stating, that if this insanity becomes law, they will be forced to withdraw from the Dutch market.

    Several members of the Dutch parliament (at least from the opposition parties) have spoken out their concern's about this too.

    So far the government has made no attempt to actually get this "law" throught the legislation process.

    I just hope they never will get around to it.
    Current Dutch political climate is such that no Parliament member will vote against party policy. The parties of the ruling coalition will never vote against the government so any proposal is bound to be accepted.

    • Re:Some more info on this (I'm Dutch) (Score:5, Informative)

      by pe1chl ( 90186 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @04:47AM (#12381216)
      Even worse: the mechanism of "compensation" for copying by means of a levy has become completely accepted in government circles.

      First there was such a levy on compact cassettes and video tapes. In those days it could probably be claimed that most carriers were used to hold material for which rights had not been paid (although it remains a point of discussion whether you are allowed to record something from radio or tv transmissions for which you have presumably paid rights to listen or view).

      But then it extended to carriers that are not only for music, like CD-R and DVD-R. Entire user groups use these for completely different purposes than are the goal of the levy, still they have to pay.

      In the meantime you now also have to pay a levy on photocopiers. Every company in the Netherlands that owns a photocopier has to pay because some nitwit believes that photocopiers are used to copy books.
      We have many photocopiers where I work but I never see someone with a book. But piles and piles of internal documents are fed through the sheetfeeders and copied 20 times. The company pays a levy on each copy that would probably go to some novel author who never did anything to earn this money.

      A levy on MP3 players is only the next step.

  • Recording industry damages (Score:3, Insightful)

    by skingers6894 ( 816110 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @03:53AM (#12380983)
    Am I wrong in thinking the following?

    Guy puts a song on his server, gets hauled into court and is ordered to pay the RIAA (or the equivalent in whatever country we are talking about this week) for the lost revenue ie "damages"

    However, said country has a law in place that assumes all MP3 player owners will steal music and preemptively compensates the industry when the user buys the player. How then could the industry argue that people who share music are depriving them of revenue - they've already had it!

    • How then could the industry argue that people who share music are depriving them of revenue - they've already had it!

      That's exactly how it works. We already pay levies on blank CDs and DVDs, but we are allowed to make copies of protected works for our personal use, from any source, preferably but not necessarily legal. The proposed law aims to extend the levy to a storage medium that has become increasingly popular for portable music players: the hard disk. It's all logical if you think about it.

      T

  • The register must know something we dont... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kjella ( 173770 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @03:53AM (#12380988) Homepage
    Within two years, as disk drive sizes move to terabyte class on notebooks, and petabyte levels on home DVRs, the tax will come to far outweigh not just the cost of the drive, but the cost of the device.

    You're telling me that in two years, we'll have 1000GB laptop drives (~10x up) and 1000000GB desktop drives (~2000x up)? Man, Moore must have been a pessimist. Particularly since HDDs have been slowing down *greatly*. Since the first 3x83=250GB HDDs came in 2003, the GB/platter count has been inching along (as far as computers are concerned, at least) with Seagate leading the pack with 133GB/platter. The only real "growth" has been from pushing the number of platters back up to 5 (The IBM GXP75 series had 5*15GB), leading to 5*100GB HDDs. Even hitting 1TB in 2007 seems optimistic just about now. I'd guess more like 800GB, unless there's a "TB race" on the way there was a "GHz race".

    Kjella

  • ridiculous (Score:3, Insightful)

    by __aahlyu4518 ( 74832 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @04:04AM (#12381040)
    As I (in the Netherlands) still have the right to make a copy for personal use, this is a ridiculous proposal. I have NO illegal mp3's. All the music on my player, I have already paid for.

    There are allready taxes (small, but they are there anyway) on CDR(W) tapes etc... for the same purpose. People should start demanding those taxes back when they can prove that they burned data/audio on it they have either already paid for or does not require any payments (backups, linux distro etc). Better yet... remove these taxes altogether... as they are demonstrating the hideous way the world is turning into : a 'firewall' concept. Deny everyone, not only the 'bad' people, but also the good), and let the good people demand access, then grant them access.

    People are not computers. Rules (Laws) should be trying to prevent or punnish bad things, not to hinder good things.

    Put extra money into catching the bad guys, but don't get to much in the way of the good guys.

    I don't have anything to hide, but that doesn't mean you can invade my privacy.

    I don't have illegal music, so don't tax me like I do.

  • Thank god for the EU (Score:3, Informative)

    by MicAttAck ( 16713 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @04:19AM (#12381114) Homepage
    So, I bought my car in the Netherlands. They even have higher taxes on those, than here in Austria.
    I paid my tax in austria and came away with a saving of somewhere in the 3000-4000 EUR (4000+ US$).
    Since we can trade goods without problems and import tax, you can buy something for the price including tax in germany and ship it to the netherlands.
    Friends of mine do that with blank CD's and DVD's thru ebay all the time. We also have a lot of tax on those, but when you already paid your tax in germany, you don't have to do so in Austria again.
    It all just boils down to knowing what to buy where and how.
    Course, Apple will loose a bit of sales in the Netherlands, but maybe that will leave us with "upgradeable" ipods with exchangable HD's? Sometimes even big cooperations get creative, if they fear they will sell less.

  • The ridiculous height of the tax is untrue (Score:5, Informative)

    by Flyboy Connor ( 741764 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @04:23AM (#12381127)
    While it is true that a tax of MP3-players is considered in the Netherlands, the height of the tax mentioned is simply untrue [cedar.nl] (link in Dutch).

    To quote from the link: "Het bestuur van de SONT heeft nog geen besluit genomen over de hoogte van het tarief; de onderhandelingen zijn gaande. Berichten die suggereren dat er al enige duidelijkheid is over de hoogte van een tarief zijn onjuist.", which translates as, "The management of the SONT has not decided yet on the height of the tax; that is still being negotiated. Any statements that suggest that there is any clarity on the height of the tax are false." This message is from April 2005.

    The tax on blank DVDs is something like a couple of cents. I suspect that the tax on storage space in MP3-players will probably not be much higher.

  • 3.28 is not true (Score:5, Informative)

    by jeroen94704 ( 542819 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @04:41AM (#12381201)
    While the proposal is real, the register's claim it will be Eur 3.28 per gigabyte is not correct. The website of the Stichting Thuiskopie explicitly states (loosely translated): "Reports stating there is any agreement at all about the level of taxation are incorrect".

  • So, computer that plays MP3s = ~$5/gb of disk tax? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by poopie ( 35416 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @05:03AM (#12381281) Journal
    I can play mp3s on every single computer I have, and collectively, my computers have over 1tb of disk. Does that mean that if I lived in The Netherlands, I'd need to pay US$5000 in *TAX* to the recording industry on my *COMPUTER* storage?!?

    Next, someone will propose a tax on raw hard drives just because someone might put MP3s on it???

    Come on!

  • Just cross the border (Score:5, Insightful)

    by schlick ( 73861 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @06:18AM (#12381488)
    Since this is not an EU tax all they have to do to avoid it is go to another country to buy it. The train fare is less than the tax and you get a vacation out of it... Itdiots.

  • Genius business move... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by NoMercy ( 105420 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @06:31AM (#12381522)
    Put a insanely large tax... on what may be your future primary income source. Genius DOH.
  • Well, they can tax all thety want, but how are they gonna collect the taxes?

    I mean, there's no more customs between countries in "Europe" so what's to prevent people from having their iPods shipped from Belgium or Germany or Dänmark???

  • Thank you to the Dutch goverment (Score:3, Funny)

    by raider_red ( 156642 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @08:31AM (#12382089) Journal
    I'm going to run down to my travel agent this afternoon and book a plane ticket to Munich. While I'm there, I think I'll max out my credit card buying iPods, and jump on a train to Amsterdam. I should be able to make enough in black market sales to pay for my plane ticket home.

  • Hmmmm..... (Score:4, Funny)

    by ayjay29 ( 144994 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @10:21AM (#12383116)
    1) Smuggle iPods into the Netherlands and trade them for weed.
    2) Smuggle weed out of the Nehterlands and trade it for iPods
    3) ????
    4) Profit!

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