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In the Netherlands, there used to be no such thing as "illegal downloads". All downloads used to be legal, irrespective of the origin. The basis for this legal viewpoint was the law that deals with most copyright issues (Auteurswet Dutch), which allows people to have copies of copyrighted works for private use and or study (Article 16b sub 1). This led to the creation of a curious system, in which devices capable of storing "content" (USB sticks, harddisks, DVRs, laptops, desktops,...) were levied to compensate the expected loss of income proportional to the device's storage capacity.
That is about to change, as TorrentFreak (English) reports:
The European Court of Justice has ruled that the Netherlands can no longer permit its citizens to freely download copyrighted movies and music without paying for them. In its judgement the Court rules that the current system of a "piracy levy" to compensate rights holders is unlawful.
Important to note is that, as it stands, the law doesn't change it's only to be interpreted differently. The Dutch civilian-rights organization "Bits of Freedom" calls the ban "undesirable" because it opens the door to undesirable blockades, filters and restriction of freedom. You can read Bit's of Freedom's article here (Dutch).
Tweakers.net has created a small FAQ on the subject, you can visit it here (Google Translate) or view the original in Dutch.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Azmodan on Friday April 11 2014, @12:02AM
According to Wikipedia, The following countries also have "Private Copying Levy". : Australia, Belgium, Canada, Finland, Germany, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland & United States.
As an example, here are Canada's rate : $0.24 per unit for Audio Cassette tape (40min or longer), and $0.29 per unit for CD-R, CD-RW, CD-R Audio, CD-RW Audio and MiniDisc.
I guess it doesn't really break the bank anyway but the worst part is these media also have other (legals) uses.
Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Friday April 11 2014, @12:27AM
And of course they're looking for other sources of income, since who the hell buys audio cassettes - or even CD/DVD's anymore? Almost everything is done through flash drives or online.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by clone141166 on Friday April 11 2014, @02:20AM
"Australia has a public levy on cassette tapes. The legislation establishing the levy was passed in 1989, challenged in the High Court of Australia in Australian Tape Manufacturers Association Ltd v Commonwealth. The court found the tax legal even though it went to private sources because it served a public purpose."
Really? Really?! Taking public money and handing it to a private industry served a public purpose? Really?!!?! And this public purpose was...?
It wouldn't surprise me if the only reason Australia doesn't have a tax like this on other mediums is because our government hasn't figured out a way to justify taking a cut of the proceeds rather than handing it all over to the American media industry.
(Score: 2) by Foobar Bazbot on Friday April 11 2014, @04:09AM
The public purpose was... making the recording industry shut up and stop lobbying for expansions of copyright law. As you can see, it worked wonderfully.
(Score: 1) by coolgoob on Friday April 11 2014, @02:22AM
The audio cassette levy is so you don't do you copying with a trash 80(TSR-80).
Now get off my lawn....
(Score: 2) by dry on Friday April 11 2014, @04:37AM
Well it did make blank DVDs cheaper then blank CDs and after the levy was introduced the Federal Court (second highest, copyright industry chose not to appeal) ruled that due to the levy, sharing music was perfectly legal. Meaning legal to copy any music for personal use but still illegal to copy music for someone else, you'd have to press the record button when you wanted a copy everything I owned.
The courts have also been pretty reasonable about the making available thing so as long as you connected to my computer you could copy anything in my shared folder.
(Score: 1) by Noldir on Friday April 11 2014, @02:28PM
Out of curiosity: where are you from?
(Score: 2) by dry on Monday April 14 2014, @03:49AM
Canada