OMEN
01-10-2008, 09:22 AM
A Dutch rights organization which compensates artists for the use of their copyrighted material has lost its court bid to remove a government block on new levies on MP3 media players.
The court in The Hague upheld a government freeze on moves to impose new levies, a justice ministry spokesman said.
The Netherlands already has a levy on blank CDs and DVDs but the government says the artists' rights bodies were not distributing the cash efficiently and wanted the problems solved before new levies were created.
"You cannot give such a system the responsibility for a new levy if you know that it is not working properly," a justice ministry spokesman said.
Marnix Langeveld, legal affairs executive of the rights organization Norma, said the ministry was basing its arguments on old numbers, saying Norma and other bodies had all but eliminated the backlogs.
"Technology has advanced and people more and more use MP3 players and DVD recorders with a hard disk to copy instead of single CDs or DVDs," Langeveld said.
Norma argues artists are the victims of this development unless a levy is imposed on such gadgets.
The government has delegated the setting of copyright levies to a body of rights holders and industry participants, SONT, but the justice minister can take measures if there are problems, the ministry spokesman said.
The government wants to improve the whole system around copyright compensation and aims to reach conclusions before 2009, the ministry spokesman said.
Copyright levies vary enormously across the European Union.
The European Commission - which was forced to abandon a proposal to reform the levy on blank CDs, MP3 players, printers and other gadgets in 2006 - said in December it received a complaint that the levies distort the internal market.
Reuters
The court in The Hague upheld a government freeze on moves to impose new levies, a justice ministry spokesman said.
The Netherlands already has a levy on blank CDs and DVDs but the government says the artists' rights bodies were not distributing the cash efficiently and wanted the problems solved before new levies were created.
"You cannot give such a system the responsibility for a new levy if you know that it is not working properly," a justice ministry spokesman said.
Marnix Langeveld, legal affairs executive of the rights organization Norma, said the ministry was basing its arguments on old numbers, saying Norma and other bodies had all but eliminated the backlogs.
"Technology has advanced and people more and more use MP3 players and DVD recorders with a hard disk to copy instead of single CDs or DVDs," Langeveld said.
Norma argues artists are the victims of this development unless a levy is imposed on such gadgets.
The government has delegated the setting of copyright levies to a body of rights holders and industry participants, SONT, but the justice minister can take measures if there are problems, the ministry spokesman said.
The government wants to improve the whole system around copyright compensation and aims to reach conclusions before 2009, the ministry spokesman said.
Copyright levies vary enormously across the European Union.
The European Commission - which was forced to abandon a proposal to reform the levy on blank CDs, MP3 players, printers and other gadgets in 2006 - said in December it received a complaint that the levies distort the internal market.
Reuters