Holland Considers Banning DRM, Legalizing Filesharing
Written by Ernesto on January 30, 2007Last year the Dutch tried to tax all MP3 players, but that proposal didn’t make it into law. But not to worry, they have other brilliant ideas. Earlier this week, Dutch politicians suggested that it might be a good idea to tax Internet traffic, and use this money to compensate the music industry. This, under the condition that DRM is abandoned, and people can’t be charged for downloads. Say what?
Recently Dutch Record Companies decided to no longer use copy protection on CDs because the costs didn’t outweigh the benefits. Politicians are now looking for alternative ways to compensate the Music Industry.
Martijn van Dam, a member of one of the bigger political parties in The Netherlands said, “Taxing Internet traffic is great way to compensate the Music Industry for the loss in sales by illegal filesharing”. He added that a prerequisite would be that DRM and copy protection should be abandoned. The battle against piracy is lost according to Van Dam, he says that the Music Industry has to accept that their products will be traded over the internet.
Surprisingly, Van Dam is not alone in this. Nicolien van Vroonhoven, a politician from the leading party (CDA) in the Netherlands, also thinks that this pirate tax would be a good idea. She adds that this could only work if people can’t be charged for downloading music anymore.
The statements (Dutch source) from these leading politicians basically say that piracy should be condoned, as long as Internet traffic is taxed. Although the (hypothetical) model might sound appealing to some, it is not very practical. First of all, illegal music downloads are just a small percentage of all files that are swapped illegally. What about movies and software, will those companies be compensated too? And an ever bigger problem, these politicians seem to assume that all internet traffic is generated by illegal downloads. What about sites like YouTube, or software, music and videos that are released for free? These all generate a lot of traffic, but have nothing to do with piracy.
A bad idea if you ask me. It is good to see that politicians are exploring alternative methods to overcome piracy, but this one is quite ridiculous. This clearly shows how alienated politicians sometimes are from the real (or virtual) world.
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At least they are trying to find positive solutions. Far better than the US or UK. They should be applauded. It sounds like they are trying to be provocative and get people thinking, so they can find a good policy.
If let say, we agree that everybody pays 2 EUR per month for, well I would be more then willing to pay. I know this is unfair to those that only use internet for legit stuff, but those are so few, that they should prove in court that they dont have to pay it. I wouldnt care then who would get the money, as long as I can download with no worries :)
This is astonishingly open minded, And at least gets people debating although obviously their are pros and cons with this idea.
File sharing is not illegal in Holland, so it can’t be legalized. And there is actually little debate on this topic. Interesting yes, but common opinions held by members of different political parties is not unusual in a consensus democracy. And these politicians clearly don’t understand how people clog the internet’s tubes these days.
I am all for it. Being a dutch citizen, I think it is a great idea. I certainly wouldn’t mind paying a little extra for my internet connection as long as I don’t have any problems downloading stuff. But indeed, it seems they are only pointing this tax at music. I think movies and software are even bigger problems.
I’m not sure why you say this is a bad idea. Perhaps in the next blog post you could expound on that statement a bit.
I still take issue with the law presuming guilt - that because I’m online that I’m going to violate copyright law - but if there has to be a compromise, that’s not a terrible one.
YES!!! I’d pay an information tax, but not for individual works. There they go!!!
If we get Mrs. Clinton for president, I’m moving to Holland.
“The battle against piracy is lost” Well, duh. Information demands freedom. Period.
“First of all, illegal music downloads are just a small percentage of all files that are swapped illegally. What about movies and software, will those companies be compensated too?” No. We’ll just get rid of them with Open Source. Ok, fine. Yes, until we do.
“A bad idea if you ask me. It is good to see that politicians are exploring alternative methods to overcome piracy, but this one is quite ridiculous. This clearly shows how alienated politicians sometimes are from the real (or virtual) world.” Heh, heh. Columnist? You’re brainwashed. Go home.
People should be encouraged to enjoy our rich culture, and paying item-by-item doesn’t do that. Get a grant, give for free. Or do a data tax. I’m fine with that. In fact, that’s awesome. Why not learn everything? Why not experience everything? Why not benefit for everything. Lucky Europeans.
Until then, I’ll be distributing Linux, OOo and Firefox to people at every opportunity. Making windows free wouldn’t make it less restrictive source-wise.
It galls me to read anyone would suggest a “new” layer of bureaucracy and fees to protect a dinosaur on an industry whose legacy is a distribution that is wholly obsolete. Less regulation, more transparency, more efficiency is the way to change the industry if it is to flourish. If you ever thought the music industry actually cares about music then you are naive. How about a Danish tax to prop up the record store industry or the 8 track tape factories or maybe there should have been protection for the original floppy disk manufactures so no one would lose their job…ever. The antipiracy train has left the station and isn’t coming back. In terms of fairness I think it would be fair if they figured out a way to market a desirable product rather than curry favour with pols to regulate themselves some profits. Honestly, are these people entrepreneurs or what?
Guys,
I don’t understand a word of Dutch. Can you translate what Vam Dam is talking about here?
While I applaud the government of Holland for addressing the issue of file sharing and piracy. Something that nearly every western country is afraid to touch.
The arguments listed here show no insight for the international implications of such a move. They need to bring actual experts in international law before continuing. Possibly build this into an international forum for the advancement of intellectual property rights law.
“Information demands freedom.”
I don’t see music, and all other forms of entertainment, as information. It’s used for personal enjoyment.
You shouldn’t compare artistic creations to bare information, more like a paid service.
Possibly, politicians in Holland are different, but here in the US ANY fee starts as a means to support some entity, and may be actually a good thing. But it ALWAYS turns into a revenue source totally unconnected to the original purpose as a few cents here and there are added over and over to support “a really needed service”.
Case in point, fees collected from passengers that are supposed to upgrade airports but instead are sucked into the general treasure and used to bomb people - or worse, get politicians reelected.
Konan
I don’t get this, exactly who are they going to give money to? the “music industry”?
And what is that, the big labels only?
@ #11 - The point is it can be converted to information and transmitted for free (the price of bandwidth), and it will be.
In general - What if governments became (or contracted) data repositories, where they housed every bit ever recorded, then you could download it, but there was a tax on it, so everyone could get everything, and people (business license required?) who posted their content would get some proportion of the tax. I haven’t thought about all the implications, but it’s a thought.
@Miguel Caetano
Translation in a nutshell:
In this personal statement he says that an interview he gave for a magazine of the dutch copyright organization (BUMA-STEMRA) was misinterpreted.
He commented that the battle against downloadpiracy is lost.
If the music industry would stop fighting internetpiracy they should get more compensation for that, and it would be more logical to tax the internetconnections than mp3-players or DVD’s and CD’s. Since the music industry is stil pursueing another direction, namely sueing the individual that downloads illegaly, this discussion is hypothetical.
end of translation
I hope ths makes some sense to you and shows there is really nothing spectacular going on in Holland in this area.
I wonder how they would distribute that money if it ever comes this far. btw there already is a kind of tax on cd’s and dvd’s in the Netherlands.
WCH,
Many thanks for your kind help. But I’m not so sure that “there is really nothing spectacular going on in Holland”. Last week there was an article on the NYTimes telling that the climate during the MIDEM expo at Cannes was much more propitious to a sort of blanket licensing for filesharing, albeit only for music. Even IFPI’s John “sue-them-all” Kennedy seemed to agree with the idea…
I’m all for it too, as long it’s a modest opt-in tax.
In Canada, recordable media like CD-R and bank DVD discs are charged a ‘media levy’, which goes to the Canadian record industry.
Meant to compensate the industry for losses via p2p music sharing, it has cited in court as a reason why Canadian users couldn’t be subpoenaed as requested by the CRIA folks.
Kind of a precedent to this idea.
What people are not realizing is that this will be an Universal thing - everyone with an Internet connection in Holland will have to pay a charge, never mind if they download or not.
Not too fair - user pay is a better principle, imo.
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