Industry walks away from copyright levy talks
11 January 2010
Emma Barraclough, London
Technology companies have urged the European Commission to propose a pan-EU system of copyright levies after declaring that informal talks with collecting societies had broken down last week
Some EU member states add copyright levies to the cost of consumer products such as music players, computers, DVD recorders and mobile phones to compensate copyright owners whose rights may be infringed by people using the devices to make unauthorised copies of books, films and music.
But there is no EU-wide system that governs whether a levy is charged and, if so, how high it is. In Germany, for example, a levy of €12 is added to the cost of a mid-range printer, while in Belgium that figure is €178, says Irena Bednarich, government affairs manager at Hewlett-Packard. Other countries, such as...
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