French politicians want to tax tablets for not running Windows

[Jan Claeys]

Bill Cairns schreef op vr 07-01-2011 om 08:54 [+0200]:
> As I understand it, there is a proposal on the table in France to tax
> Tablet PCs because (so the theory goes) these are being used to pirate
> music and DVDs. In France, MP3 players are already subject to a
> special tax for that reason. 

Wrong.

There is no real tax, only contributions that are supposed to go to the
artists.

And those contributions are not because devices are used for *illegal*
copying, but because they are used for *legal* copying.  Those
contributions are in exchange for the law making it legal to rip your
own CDs (inside the "family circle") and put and/or play the resulting
file on your MP3-player, tablet, USB disk, etc.


Of course not everybody agrees with that law, and in some cases the
"contributions" you have to pay are completely out of proportion (not to
mention you have also to pay them on media that you use for backups).

But again: this has nothing to do with music/video piracy (you can can
only be fined for breaking the law by a judge, and even a judge can't
fine you "in case you do something wrong").


-- 
Jan Claeys