[A2k] EC Proposes Forum On Future Of Copying Levies

[Judit Rius Sanjuan]

http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=3D1066

European Commission Proposes Forum On Future Of Copying Levies
28 May 2008
By David Cronin for Intellectual Property Watch

BRUSSELS - The European Commission has recommended that a forum
involving creative artists and the consumer industry should be
established to determine the future of private copying levies.

Twenty-one of the European Union=92s 27 countries impose oft-criticised
surcharges on equipment - ranging from blank cassettes to MP3 players
and mobile phones - that may be used for recording or copying images
or sound. While such levies are officially designed to compensate
musicians or authors for the use of their work, they have attracted
much criticism for allegedly being imposed in an arbitrary manner and
for hampering cross-border trade within the EU.

Charlie McCreevy, the EU commissioner for the internal market, has
suggested that a forum of those directly affected by private copying
levies should be set up with a view to finding =93common ground=94 on the
surrounding issues between the collecting societies, which administer
levies, and electronics firms, which are required to pay them. Artists
and consumers groups should take part in this forum, too, he told a
Brussels conference on 27 May.

Among the topics that the forum could address, according to the
Commission, are how companies that succeed in not paying the levy can
be tackled. Such =93free-riders=94, he said, place an unfair burden on
legitimate companies.

The Commission also said that the forum should examine how the
practicalities of collecting a levy on goods exported between
countries that apply differing levies can be improved and whether
broad principles can be worked out to determine how levies can be
calculated to take into account new technological developments.

The forum will not have a mandate to draw up a legislative proposal
but simply to present a report to the Commission, which has suggested
that another conference on private copying should be held in six
months time so that any progress made can be assessed.

In a paper published earlier this year, the Commission estimated that
6 percent of all imports and exports traded within the EU potentially
attract a private copying levy.

Yet several participants in this week=92s conference complained that the
use of the levy is opaque.

Kelvin Smits, a Belgian songwriter and founder of the music industry
lobby group Younison, said that artists rarely receive payments as a
result of the levies, even though =93collecting societies are - in our
name - collecting humungous amounts of money.=94

After conducting a survey of Belgian acts, all of which have featured
in the country=92s top 100 best-selling record charts, he estimated that
the levies account for as little as 0.75 percent of their total
earnings.

But Thierry Desurmont, vice-president of the French collecting society
SACEM, said that 5 percent of the incomes of artists in his country
derive from copying levies. =93Artists and authors are by no means rich,
contrary to what some people believe,=94 he added. =93This is a
substantial sum and should not be undermined.=94

The proliferation of music and video downloading has made collecting
copyright levies more difficult, he added, stating that SACEM=92s
revenues fell from 150 million euros in 2003 to 120 million last year.

=93I wonder why the development of digital technology calls into
question the private copying levy,=94 he said. =93My question is whether
authors have less need of protection in the digital world than in the
analogue world. It=92s not hard to say no to this question.=94

Irena Bednarich, government affairs manager in Hewlett Packard=92s
Brussels office, said that the =93lack of clarity=94 over how levies are
calculated is =93bringing us to a lot of litigation.=94 Between 1999 and
2005, she said, 85 percent of all levies sought in Germany were
contested, citing estimates that industry would have to pay out over 3
billion euros if all the levies in questions were upheld in court.

A computer printer with an average price of 100 euros would be subject
to a levy of 102 euros in Germany but just 15 euros in Spain, she noted.

Joe Gote, a spokesman for the Recording-media Industry Association of
Europe (RIAE), said there is =93widespread market distortion caused by
the levy differences=94 between EU countries. For example, he added,
there is a 500 percent difference between a levy on a rewritable DVD
sold in France and one sold in Germany.

=93Levies on products are not working and will never work because
products move across borders,=94 he said. =93A product-based levy system
is a game of =91catch me if you can=92.=94

Contending that illegal downloading from the internet is a far greater
problem than authorised private copying, Gote advocated that the
current system should be replaced with one whereby a flat rate is
imposed on home internet connections.

British member of the European Parliament (MEP) Sharon Bowles said
that private copying levies were first introduced in the 1960s at a
time of analogue recordings and that their scope has widened
considerably in the intervening decades.

=93They were never intended as compensation for illegal bulk copying,=94
she added. =93The remedy for that is prosecution.=94

Mark MacGann, director-general of the European Information and
Communications Technology Industry Association (EICTA), said that a
system based on transparency and =93on the basis of real harm=94 to
artists caused by private copying should be worked out across the EU.

Marco Pierani from BEUC, the European Consumers Association, said that
no EU government had yet carried out an assessment of harm caused to
artists by private copying.

Isabelle Feldman, legal affairs director with ADAMI, a French
association of musical and theatrical performers, said that the
private copying levy system in her country is =93fully transparent=94.

Nonetheless, she agreed that remuneration to artists from levies
across Europe is =93insufficient and perhaps also incomplete.=94

David Cronin may be reached at info@ip-watch.ch.

Judit Rius Sanjuan
Attorney at Knowledge Ecology International
www.keionline.org / www.cptech.org
Phone: +1.202.332.2670, x18
Email: judit.rius@keionline.org