Copying levy proposal put to one side

Date: 04/07/1996

PLANS to impose an EU-wide levy on blank tapes and recording machines have been quietly shelved by the European Commission in the face of strong opposition from both industry and member state governments.

But they may resurface this autumn once the results of a wide-ranging debate on intellectual property rights have been processed.

A draft directive aimed at harmonising the EU's patchwork of private copying laws won little support from the music and film industry when it was first unofficially circulated earlier this year.

While industry officials sympathised with the Commission's desire to create a single market in consumer goods, they felt the time was not right for such a proposal.

Philips and Sony, among others, urged the Commission to wait until the responses to the Green Paper on intellectual property rights in the information age had been digested and then introduce an over-arching copyright protection scheme.

Even rights holders, who normally favour levy systems, warned against imposing levies on sophisticated digital machinery while it was still in the process of being developed.

“We are glad that the directive has been shelved. It is important that we do not take a piecemeal approach to this issue,” said a spokesman for the IFPI.

Under the current levy system, consumers may copy compact discs and films in the privacy of their own homes without paying copyright fees as long as they are intended for their personal use. Artists are compensated for any resulting loss in revenue through fixed levies imposed on tapes and recording machines.

But substantial differences in the levy rates imposed by member states are causing distortions in the single market for consumer electronic goods. “Because there are so many different systems it is difficult to launch a single CD system for the European market,” explained Gijs Wirtz of Philips.

Greece, for example, imposes a 6&percent; levy on both video and cassette machines, while Ireland and the UK impose none. Shoppers in Denmark pay 0.5 ecu-per-hour of blank video they buy, but those in Sweden pay nothing.

The draft proposal would have imposed a standard EU rate of 0.15 ecu-per-hour of audio tape, 0.25 ecu-per-hour of video tape, 2 ecu per tape recorder and 10 ecu per video-recorder.

Consumer electronics producers opposed the draft law because they felt that the proposed levies were too high.

They also argued that, while levies suited audio equipment, they were not appropriate for digital machines. Digital technology allows consumers to make endless perfect copies of CDs and films. Given that capacity, both rights holders and equipment-makers believe a technical solution - limiting the number of copies individuals can make - would be more effective.

But any move to abolish tariffs on tapes and machines is likely to be unpopular with EU governments for whom such levies are an important money-spinner. In Belgium, for instance, one-third of the money collected under the levy system goes to the treasury to help cover culture costs.