“Apple raised the prices for hand-held devices in Germany at the start of the year, following a deal between the tech industry and content producers that will benefit a range of creative professionals including musicians, actors and pornographic filmmakers,” Frank Jordans reports for the Associated Press. “The Cupertino, California-based company confirmed in a statement Sunday to The Associated Press that the price increase affecting iPhones and iPads is linked to the new copyright levy.”
“Apple Inc., Samsung and others agreed last month to pay about 5-7 euros ($5.50-$7.70) for each smartphone or tablet imported to Germany,” Jordans reports. “A basic version of iPhone 6s now retails for 744.95 euros ($811.03), compared with 739 euros last year.”
“The agreement matches similar arrangements already in place for other consumer electronics and consumables such as blank CDs,” Jordans reports. “It is based on a 1965 German law that allows consumers to make private copies of sound, images or texts in return for a small surcharge when they buy the device.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Here’s yet another a real-life example of what we described last month:
Newsflash: Corporations don’t pay taxes, you do. “Corporate taxes” are simply passed along to the consumer. It’s how the government sneakily double-taxes its citizens. You’re taxed on your income and then again on what’s left via higher prices across the board. — MacDailyNews Take, December 4, 2015
This is not standard taxation:
“It is based on a 1965 German law that allows consumers to make private copies of sound, images or texts in return for a small surcharge when they buy the device.”
From the article
“Juergen Becker, a spokesman for the umbrella organization ZPUe that negotiated the deal on behalf of content producers, said past experience had shown that consumers would always find ways to copy material for free, without paying for it, making the up-front surcharge on devices fairer.
All forms of content are covered by the deal, meaning that proceeds from the new levy will also be shared with a group representing “creators, producers and acting artists of erotic and pornographic films.”
“Since it’s assumed that these are copied too, they get a share,” Becker said.”
“This is not standard taxation:…”
Taxes are taxes. “Standard” or not is irrelevant to the basic economics.
Consumers ultimately pay for all taxes as every single cost of doing business (in creating goods or offering services) gets passed along… in one form or another.
Businesses that don’t do it, don’t stay in business. And people who think otherwise, don’t know anything about business or basic economics.
“Consumers ultimately pay for all taxes as every single cost of doing business…”
“all”? Bullshit. Often, in order to compete, corporations will reduce the profits paid out to the owners, in order to remain competitive on prices. There are plenty of businesses raking in the money by externalizing costs in all kinds of ways: polluting their neighbors, bribing politicians directly or indirectly (see the “revolving door”) to create bad policy that transfers money from the people to the elite, and much more.
That said, I agree that this is a stupid law. It’s actually an example of the “bad policy” I described: that’s not a tax that goes to providing public benefit, it’s a transfer of money from the people to the content industry. The “artists will suffer without this” argument is about as valid as the “think of the children” argument used to justify stripping away freedom.
So, if you backup YOUR data on a CD you have to pay pornographic filmmakers to do so.
We have the same tax inCanada on cassette tapes, and recordable CDs and DVDs.
It is based on a 1965 German law that allows consumers to make private copies of sound, images or texts in return for a small surcharge when they buy the device.
… Which is total CORPORATOCRACY imposed by media oligarchy lobbyists.
BOOT THAT LAW! It’s harmful to actual citizens.