[LINK] France to tax I.T. devices to raise copyright levy

[George Michaelson]

  I find it difficult to believe that a levy will do anything to prevent
  the proliferation of copy-protecion technologies and will amount to
  anything more than a handout to the content industries.

Content owners already have enforcable rights. how do you expect to
reduce them if you don't even believe they can be constrained from
expanding their rights management methods?

In effect, don't you really believe that irrespective of the levy, we're
on the road to hell here? Just because a levy doesn't in your opinion
prevent proliferation of copy protection technology, does that make it bad
per se? 

  The only point at which the content companies could conclusively be
  silenced is when the price of the blank media is equal to the price
  of an average copyrighted work. I imagine that they would lobby hard
  to push the per-media tax towards this asymptote.

Has this been the case in respect of Cassette and other levy-media?

Cassettes had a longish life. We should have good evidence here. Likewise
for Minidisc.
  
There are other pressures on content industries to reduce the cost of
the IP, because they are close to saturation already, they compete
for market share amongst themselves, and they know that globally, there
are many other sources of (entertainment) content competing for the same
dollar. The trend isn't all towards converged ownership by US conglomerates
is it?

Has the percentage of new media which forms content rights payment risen
or fallen since the introduction of digital media?

-George
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George Michaelson         |  DSTC Pty Ltd
Email: ggm@dstc.edu.au    |  University of Qld 4072
Phone: +61 7 3365 4310    |  Australia
  Fax: +61 7 3365 4311    |  http://www.dstc.edu.au