Info.Europa brings news of a German report which claims that European consumers are paying 1.2 billion euros in copyright levies, which they must fork out when they purchase new audio and or visual equipment or media. The aim of the levies is to compensate copyright holders for personal copies that are made using these resources. The report argues that the knock-on effect of the levies is three times that figure though, as consumers are less likely to buy digital media if they are more expensive and, if they don’t own the media, then they won’t buy the content to play on it.
The IPKat is rather split by this issue. On the one hand he thinks levies can be a pretty efficient way for copyright holders to enforce their right to receive recompense. On the other, he’s not sure that its fair that the producers of new technologies should suffer because of this. On the other other hand, perhaps if they’re created products that are idea for infringement, they should be forced to bear some of the cost.