• Advocate General: copyright levies cannot be "indiscriminate" A legal adviser to Europe's highest court says governments should only be able to impose a levy on sales of digital equipment when there is a presumption that they are to be used for private copying.
In an opinion issued last month, Advocate General Verica Trstenjak said that a levy in favour of authors, artists and producers cannot be applied indiscriminately to undertakings and professionals who clearly acquire the equipment and data media for other purposes.
She was giving her opinion in a dispute between SGAE, a Spanish IP rights management society, and Padawan, which makes CD-Rs, CD-RWs, DVD-Rs and MP3 players. SGAE wants the company to pay it €16,759.25 for sales of its storage media products between September 2002 and September 2004. It was referred to the Court of Justice of the EU by the Audiencia Provincial de Barcelona, which asked...