Manufacturers and distributors of MP3 players in the Netherlands will soon have to deal with levies on their products.
The levy, which is similar to the levy on CD and DVD recordable media, is
intended to compensate artists for their loss in revenue due to consumers having
the right of making private copies.
In the Netherlands a private foundation (Stichting Thuiskopie) is collecting the levy and another foundation (Stichting Onderhandelingen Thuiskopievergoeding - SONT) negotiates on behalf of the manufacturers and distributors.
Both organisations have negotiated about the use of the levy and pricing of it and it is expected that in a meeting next Monday they will come to an agreement.
A Dutch website reports that it is expected that for cheap portable digital music players with a limited capacity there will be a levy of 0.20 Euro per 32 MB with maximum of 5 Euro per player. For more expensive players with over 10 GB capacity the levy will be between 8 and 25 Euro. This means that an Ipod could get up 25 Euro more expensive.
Before, a proposal for 3.28 Euro per GB was made. The president of foundation that represents the manufacturers and distributors called the new proposal reasonable for the consumer and equitable for the artists but emphasises that it's mainly a 'way of thinking'. The director of the Dutch association ICT Office for IT companies called the new system 'undesirable'.
He also added that 'the pricing of the levy has been randomly made up and not according any European guidelines and does not keep in mind any of the protection possibilities available on the market'.
Also for the latest generation of video recorder with a hard disk the levy will be used. SONT proposes a levy of 0.15 Euro per GB. Hitachi already produces recorders with a capacity of 1 Terabyte (1000GB) which would increase the pricing of such a device with 150 Euro levy.
This text was manually translated from Dutch -original story can be found by clicking the source link. Picture refers to assumed hobby of some members of a Dutch foundation and is not intended to promote the use of drugs.
Source: Nu.nl
