French prez mulls mobe, fondleslab tax for telly

French pay tax on copyrighted copies – now they must pay again for TV online

Despite his communication minister ruling it out a couple of days ago, French President Hollande has decided he wants to whack a second tax on smartphones, tablets and PCs.

Francois Hollande made the U-turn announcement after meeting with CSA (the Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel) which regulates electronic media in France. The new charge is in fact an extension of the TV license fee and Hollande swears the goal is not to increase revenue as it would only apply to those who do not already have a TV licence. However as in much of the EU, French citizens already pay a private copying levy on such devices.

Levies are tariffs imposed by national authorities on goods typically used for copying, such as blank media, recording equipment and scanners. The money collected is used to compensate right holders that lose earnings when copies are made without their authorisation. But French consumers already pay much more than their neighbours … in some cases seven times as much.

But Hollande says that since “you can watch the public service channels on instruments other than the TV” the new, admittedly small, levy of €3 would make things “fairer”. However it seems the tax would disproportionately target young people as they are typically less likely to own a traditional television.

Under the current French law people over age 75 and disabled are exempt.

The move is likely to cause more scratching of heads at European level too. The EU is in the process of examining current EU copyright rules with a view to overhauling them next year.

The question of how to apply levies in a world dominated by cloud computing and the possibility of an emerging second-hand digital content market has already been raised. Indeed the commission asked in its public consultation if respondents thought consumers with multiple devices storing multiple copies of a file should trigger the application of private copying levies.

Currently the UK and Ireland do not impose such levies - although Hollande’s wheeze may give other legislators ideas. ®