Dutch take first steps towards iPod tax
May 1, 2005 | 14:07
The Dutch government has introduced its plans to charge a levy on MP3 players.
The tax, which could be as much as £2.50 per gigabyte of storage, is designed to pay back to artists royalties which are supposedly lost through the illegal piracy that such MP3 players encourage.
Along with Germany, Holland already has a tax on CDRs, although this is a (mere) 30p a disc.
As Pocket Lint rightly points out, this could mean an additional £180 on the price of a 60GB iPod Photo. That's rather outrageous, we think you'll agree.
There are currently no plans for a tax on MP3 players in the UK or the US, although a number of technical analysts have called for such as tax as a compromise, in a bid to put an end to the lawsuits filed by the American record industry against individual users.
The tax, which could be as much as £2.50 per gigabyte of storage, is designed to pay back to artists royalties which are supposedly lost through the illegal piracy that such MP3 players encourage.
Along with Germany, Holland already has a tax on CDRs, although this is a (mere) 30p a disc.
As Pocket Lint rightly points out, this could mean an additional £180 on the price of a 60GB iPod Photo. That's rather outrageous, we think you'll agree.
There are currently no plans for a tax on MP3 players in the UK or the US, although a number of technical analysts have called for such as tax as a compromise, in a bid to put an end to the lawsuits filed by the American record industry against individual users.
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