Your daily source of news for the digital music revolution.
dSounds.com is For Sale

German Computers Taxed

Recently, Canadian judges declared that the piracy tax applied to devices such as iPods was illegal and, as such, was removed, reducing the price of iPods and other MP3 players. Germany decided that we wacky Canucks were smoking too much of our decriminalized pot.

The German courts have ordered Fujitsu-Siemens to start paying Þ12 per computer sold as a sort of piracy tax - down from the Þ30 that VG Wort wanted. Who is VG Wort you ask? VG Wort is, apparently somewhat similar to the RIAA, though I can't say for certain as it's full of very long German words.

Judges were convinced that since computers could be used for piracy that they should be suject to the same tax that is imposed on blank vhs and audio cassettes. It does make some sense, though there is no tax is on blank CDs or DVDs.

VG Wort has been petitioning for two years to get this tax put in place and now plans on taking its fight to other German computer manufacturers.

The manufacturer is considering appealing the case that would see Germany as the first country in the EU to tax PCs in such a way.

Submission by:
Tinfoil Music - Digital Media and Music News