From: Michael J. Hußmann (michael_at_michael-hussmann.de)
Date: Thu Jan 15 2004 - 06:45:49 PST
Chris Edwards (crashrepair_at_btconnect.com) wrote:
> if the disc or card was copy tax paid then you
> could without fear of the law and the originator get royalties ( and
> the greedy corperations go hungry). Ist a thought
That is more or less the system that has been in place in Germany for
decades. It used to work quite well -- you were allowed to make copies
for your own private purposes while the authors get the royalties they
deserve --, but the industry wasn't happy with this. As of now, we are
still entitled to make copies, but we are not allowed to circumvent copy-
protection mechanisms anymore, and software for breaking copy-protection
schemes has been banned. On the other hand, we still pay this (sort of)
tax for each CD-R drive, scanner etc., so we are still paying for a right
that the industry has managed to wrestle from us.
As a free-lance writer, I am perfectly happy with people photocopying my
articles, as a small percentage of the money they spend on making copies
cames back to me. Whereas if some publisher decides to do a reprint, I
get nothing.
- Michael
Michael J. Hussmann
E-mail: michael_at_michael-hussmann.de
WWW (personal): http://michael-hussmann.de
WWW (professional): http://digicam-experts.de
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