[pp.int.general] cultural flatrate: PP position?

[Reinier Bakels]

> all creators so it would be unfair at best with a big intrusion of
> privacy concern so such a solution is hitting 2 of 3 ground principles
> (free culture, the right to privacy) that created the PirateParty in
> the first place why I agree with your conclusion "reduction ad
> absurdum".
Frankly, I am afraid that a flatrate scheme is actually an argument PRO 
privacy. The only thing the 'flatrate" authorities must know whether you 
have an internet connection (or subscription, if you still dial-in). The 
ISPs can be required to cooperate similar to the way they cooperate in 
charging VAT tax - perhaps even anonymously! The next step is to incorporate 
the flatrate into the general taxes. In NL, the contributions for TV and 
radio were integrated into the general taxes a few years ago - as 99% of the 
people have either radio and TV (unlike De wich still has its GEZ - I don't 
know about other countries). I don't say I like the argument but it helps to 
be precise.

> Sweden, but they made it illegal to download after they implemented
> the CD/DVD tax and the Dutch argument was never heard from the
> government. I would love to see a debate about this in Sweden. I
> however think the media distribution industry will through lobbying
> make it illegal to download in NL too and/or implement the IPRED law
> unless there are strong protests in NL and EU about this.
>
>
> - Nicolas
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 1:34 PM, Reinier Bakels <r.bakels at planet.nl> wrote:
> > Thanks for your interesting comments again! Yes, I am aware of the
> > similarities with blank media levies. I actually did some research into 
> > the
> > levies issue, and found that:
> > 1) any tariff is arbitrary, whether it is a percentage of the sales 
> > price
> > (which means that artists would get less money as technology advances), 
> > or a
> > fee per bit (which would render high-resolution versions unreasonably
> > expensive, and would favour ASCII text files over PDFs, etc.). Under the
> > latter approach, the levy percentage of the sales price would rapidly
> > increase to 99%, inevitably creating a black market = a major 
> > enforcement
> > problem. In the cassette player era, a cassette == 60 or 90 minutes, but
> > obviously there is no longer such fixed relationship.
> > 2) distribution schemes: if the purpose of copyright is to foster 
> > culture
> > rather than to add to the bottom line of "author businesses", numbers 
> > are
> > irrelevant, and a policy based distribution scheme must be devised, 
> > which is
> > not a trivial thing (unlike collection societies may argue): "no 
> > taxation
> > without representation", as a constitutional principle
> > 3) enormous amounts of copyrighted material are distributed under 
> > implicit
> > royalty-free licences (like this email itself!, and most HTML files on 
> > the
> > web).
> >
> >> The really odd thing with all these taxes does not mean that you can
> >> freely copy music CDs or DVDs - it's still considered piracy why I do
> >> not think the media industry will lay down their arms just because
> >
> > Frankly, at least in NL it is the opposite: the law allows private 
> > copying
> > and instituted the levy system to compensate that. I recall a debate in 
> > the
> > parliament when a member questioned the appropriateness of a levy scheme
> > because it would start from the premise of (massive) copyright 
> > violation,
> > but then the minister corrected that this perception is wrong, because
> > private copies are allowed. Wether the levy income is considered 
> > sufficient
> > to compensate P2P sharing (under the assumption - for the sake of 
> > argument -
> > that compensation is appropriate!) is something else.
> >
> > I like an approach that endorses the levy (or flat fee) approach, but
> > insists on a fully consistent application. Which includes a levy on 
> > blank
> > paper (instead of the levy on copying machines, which is actually very
> > impopular, in particular for small businesses), and also compensates for
> > user provided content, INCLUDING all contributions to mailing lists and
> > other e-mail. I applied consistently, I assume that mobile telephone 
> > owners
> > with a camera do'nt have to pay a levy but get money back, for all the
> > marvelous pictures the upload to the web. Any proposal to differentiate
> > would run counter to basic principles of copyright. No discrimination!
> >
> > While British copyright law requires a "fixation", most continental
> > copyright regulations even recognise copyright for speech(es). Similar 
> > to
> > written text depending on paper, speach depends on air, so I suggest 
> > there
> > should also be a levy on air. For practical purposes, the content (in 
> > m3) of
> > houses may serve as a measure (assuming that most of it is air) - but 
> > that
> > still does not solve the problem of speeches in the open air. In NL, a
> > recent decision of the supreme court revealed that even simple 
> > conversations
> > can be subject to copyright (but admittedly that was a special case: a
> > newspaper wanted to publish the recordings of police interviews of a 
> > person
> > about his contacts with criminals, who was murdered not much later - 
> > which
> > was not appreciated by the relatives).
> >
> > But the conclusion of my proposed "reduction ad absurdum" thought 
> > experiment
> > reveals the source of the problem: the record companies!
> >
> > reinier
> > ____________________________________________________
> > Pirate Parties International - General Talk
> > pp.international.general at lists.pirateweb.net
> > http://lists.pirateweb.net/mailman/listinfo/pp.international.general
> >
> ____________________________________________________
> Pirate Parties International - General Talk
> pp.international.general at lists.pirateweb.net
> http://lists.pirateweb.net/mailman/listinfo/pp.international.general