Record labels want to tax music phones

[Ldsmith104 Profile]

They just can't get enough money...

Today, all the major lobby organizations of the recording industry jointly announced that they want to start charging cell phone manufacturers a levy for each cell phone sold that is capable of playing MP3s or other music formats.

Organizations (Kopiosto, Gramex, Teosto and Tuotos) claim that the current situation in Finland, where stand-alone MP3 players, like Apple's iPod, carry a levy upto 15 euros ($19.22), is unfair as the phones that are marketed as "music phones" escape the levy fee.

Considering that world's largest mobile phone manufacturer, Nokia, is a Finnish company (and employs almost 25,000 people in Finland -- a country with a population of just over 5M), it would be interesting to see how this requirement is responded by the consumer electronics lobby organizations who have fought against the extremely draconian levy fee system of Finland for years. Then again, considering how the Finnish government handled the last year's copyright reform, it is quite likely that the recording industry will succeed.

In Finland, labels currently collect levy (a nice word for private taxation) for these items among others:

* blank CDR media - €0.20
* blank DVDR media - upto €1.21 (and yes, the money goes to the record labels not to movie studios..)
* blank VHS cassettes - €1.82 for 4h tape
* portable audio players - upto €15
* digital video players, digital set-top boxes, PVR devices, etc - upto €15

Furthermore, there are virtually no Finnish Net radios due the extremely high copyright fees labels seek from Net broadcasting, taxis have to pay a fixed fee for having their radio on when accepting customers and three years ago labels started seeking royalties from day nurseries for singing nursery rhymes.


http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/8147.cfm

[Namloot Profile Website]

Wow.

[Sabres Profile ICQ]

bullshit if you ask me

[Major SONAR Profile]

Total Bullshit! (and I never use my cell phone to listen to music). Don't we pay enough taxes as it is???

[Alofwar Profile]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_the_United_States

Sonar, don't complain you pay to much Tax, America has one of the lowest Tax rates in world.

[Major SONAR Profile]

Sonar, don't complain you pay to much Tax, America has one of the lowest Tax rates in world.

If that's true, and I don't doubt that it is... then the WHOLE world is paying too much in taxes. I don't mean to hijack this thread, but I'm sick of all the taxes I pay!

I realize we need to pay some taxes, but we're paying to much now. If you pay more taxes than we do in America... I feel sorry for you. (Really I do.)

[Alofwar Profile]

Well i think the amount we are Taxed in the UK is about right. It's just the way were taxed, all of Gordon Brown's (The Chancellor of the exchequer) back door taxes like the 50% inheritance tax and VAT.

Also America has far less of a welfare state, and the American health care system might as well be 3rd world since so many can't afford it or don't have insurance.

[SavageParrot Profile]

Record labels can lick my balls. Always whining about piracy when record sales have risen pretty much evey year for the last 10 years. I can understand why small independent labels are worried but these multimillion dollar conglomerates are just price fixing cocks. Want people to buy your records...lower the damn price.

[Alofwar Profile]

Your right there savage, the RRP is normally about £16 for a new album, which no shops ever charge, and i can download from itunes for £8 for an album. I don't believe music should be free to download but record labels should take a much smaller cut.

[jenky33 Profile]

im glad that i no longer buy music then, and i dont pirate them from the internet, i just visit my local library and check the cds out that i want

[Ldsmith104 Profile]

and rip them to your computer

[jenky33 Profile]

Originally posted by Ldsmith104
and rip them to your computer

cant blame a guy for using something to his advantage