Most EU Member States already impose levies on the price of copying equipment, such as blank audio and video cassettes, and also photocopiers and tape recorders, to compensate copyright owners for the lost royalties from private copying of music, movies, text and images.
The UK, Ireland and Luxembourg do not impose such levies because, unlike their neighbours, they do not allow private copying except in very narrowly defined circumstances. The US does allow certain private copying but does not impose such levies.
Following strong lobbying from collecting societies, which receive copying tax money on behalf of copyright owners, a number of EU Member States, including Germany and France, have extended the measure to high-tech copying equipment, such as CD-Rs (recordable CDs), DVDs and scanners.
Apple's iPod music player is now subject to a copyright levy on sales and Germany looks set to extend a similar measure to the sale of new PCs in the near future, despite fierce opposition.
A German Patent Office mediator has now recommended that a copyright levy be imposed on the sale of printers in Germany. The recommendation is not binding, but is influential, and has drawn criticism from the industry.
The European Information and Communications Trade Association (EICTA), whose members include Microsoft, Fujitsu, Alcatel, Nokia and Siemens, is deeply concerned by the recommendation.
Mark MacGann, EICTA Director General, warned:
"Financial levies on printers, if applied, will account for a significant element of the final selling price to consumers, thereby making the products significantly more expensive. Legal moves such as that of the German arbitration court deny German and European citizens affordable access to the Information Society, and ridicules the European political objective of making Europe 'the most competitive knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010.'"
For more information, see: www.eicta.org