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[Funky Papa]

Looking more and more like a landmark decision. They can still appeal, but things are definitely not looking good for holding groups.

Belgian Internet providers have won their court case against music group SABAM, which had demanded a 3.4 percent cut of all subscriber fees to compensate artists. The court ruled that ISPs are a mere conduit and can't be taxed as a public broadcast medium.

An effort to force ISPs to monitor and filter copyrighted material found itself stranded in the European Court, but the group didn’t give up.

In one of its latest attempts SABAM sued the Belgian ISPs Belgacom, Telenet and Voo, claiming a 3.4 percent cut of all Internet subscriber fees as compensation for the rampant piracy they enable through their networks.

SABAM argued that authors should be paid for all “public broadcasts” of musical compositions. Pirated downloads and streams on the Internet are such public broadcasts according to the group, and therefore require proper compensation.

This proposed “pirate tax” would not make it legal for consumers to download from unauthorized sources.

In their defense the ISPs countered that they are not liable for pirating consumers, as they are mere conduits. ISPs simply forward information without knowing what travels through their networks.

This week the Brussels Court ruled in favor of the Internet provider. According to the court ISPs should be characterized as mere conduits instead of communication tools for public broadcasts.

As a result, the music right group is not allowed to demand royalties from ISPs, which means that the controversal “pirate tax” is off the table for now.

Music and film rights groups from all over the EU have been asking for a "pirate tax" on ISPs in compensation for piracy damages (as difficult to quantify as they are), so this is set to cause quite a stir in the industry. It goes without saying that any "pirate tax" would be passed to consumers in some way or another, so this is also good for the public at large.

Next stop (hopefully): Cunty ISPs asking for a Google tax because bandwidth is expensive and stuffs.

Edit: For clarification, this is still not an eurowide decission.

 

[Foffy]

Damn, Europe doesn't fuck around.

Now I'm scared if these companies try this in the U.S. It might pass. ):

 

[Dascu]

FYI this a Belgian local court, not the European Court of Justice. Title and naming in the article may be a bit confusing.

It could easily be overruled at a higher or European level.

 

[ShinNL]

If this was an euro court we Dutch wouldn't have to deal with the scam that is Brein.

 

[diggmcbadass]

The film industry here (Norway) have been lobbying to impose a tax on all ISPs because people use them to stream their movies. And they're not even talking illegally. They want money because people are streaming the movies from Netflix and similar providers. And the fact that Netflix actually pays them for those rights is for some reason not even part of the argument.

 

[Funky Papa]

FYI this a Belgian local court, not the European Court of Justice. Title and naming in the article may be a bit confusing.

Yeah, bit of a mess up. The source I checked at first had that wrong and I forgot to fix it. Maybe a friendly mod can update the title. Thanks for pointing that out.

It could easily be overruled at a higher or European level.

Mayhaps. But so far the European Court seems very skittish about any "piracy taxes" and the like, so I have my fingers crossed since this is going to hit the EC sooner or later.

 

[Shiina]

When's some court gonna tell GEMA to fuck off already

 

[frankie_baby]

While I obviously don't want to have to pay more for my internet I kind of actually think as an idea it makes a lot of sense

 

[And_Gignac]

Musicians are terribly overpaid so this is just the market adjusting itself. Sorry 'bout it.

 

[MUnited83]

We have a retarded piracy tax over here in Portugal. Every device you can put media in gets it. USB pens, HDDs, rewritable CDs... Its idiotic as hell

 

[Funky Papa]

Musicians are terribly overpaid so this is just the market adjusting itself. Sorry 'bout it.

Most musicians earn jack and shit.

My beef with music right groups is that they are nothing but tools for the enrichment of a few elite players that do nothing for the average (and poor, and often twice employed) artists yet will happily collect their dues and funnel them to high ranking officials (many of them being former music stars themselves) and a privileged few. They are a veritable plague of locusts.

 

[frankie_baby]

Musicians are terribly overpaid so this is just the market adjusting itself. Sorry 'bout it.

Hahaha no, I have a lot of friends that produce electronic music, yes it's of particular niche genre but a number 1 hit in this particular genre's charts can often mean selling literally double figures these days because of piracy where as in the vinyl days they could sell a good few thousand

 

[kurisu1974]

Wouldn't they (the copyright groups) have a bigger problem if the law *did* pass? Then all content would be legal to download because I pay the copyrights as part of my internet subscription. Now they can continue to harass end users, whuch they wouldn't be able to do then. Or is that too simplistic a view?

 

[Funky Papa]

Wouldn't they (the copyright groups) have a bigger problem if the law *did* pass? Then all content would be legal to download because I pay the copyrights as part of my internet subscription. Now they can continue to harass end users, whuch they wouldn't be able to do then. Or is that too simplistic a view?

No. Because they want their cake and eat it too.

 

[Kinyou]

If they had sided with the music rights group it probably would have opened the floodgates for any group that is affected by piracy to demand a cut.

 

[Dascu]

When's some court gonna tell GEMA to fuck off already

EU Commission is going to present a copyright reform later this year that could maybe improve cross-border access. So less nonsense of 'This content is not available in your region' on Youtube and such. But it's going to be one hell of a fight with the industry since they make a lot of money in market partitioning (some of it justified, some of it nonsensical).

 

[SneakyStephan]

SABAM are a bunch of cunts who are just trying to enrich themselves, as always.
Glad this shit was shot down in court.

I bet ISPs are pretty relieved too (telenet are a bunch of greedy cunts as well have been caught numerous times throttling youtube and torrent traffic) and as a telenet user I'm glad because they'd obviously just pass this cost on to the users (as if they don't already overcharge insanely much for simple internet access here in Belgium, it's over twice as expensive as in the Netherlands)

 

[Woz]

We have a retarded piracy tax over here in Portugal. Every device you can put media in gets it. USB pena, HDDs, rewritable CDs... Its idiotic as hell

We got the same shit here in Italy.

 

[ShinNL]

Most musicians earn jack and shit.

My beef with music right groups is that they are nothing but tools for the enrichment of a few elite players that do nothing for the average (and poor, and often twice employed) artists yet will happily collect their dues and funnel them to high ranking officials (many of them being former music stars themselves) and a privileged few. They are a veritable plague of locusts.

Yeah. The tax isn't going to help the musicians at all. All it will do is make some anti-piracy company CEO laugh to the bank. Every time I do some new research on the Dutch piracy tax collector Brein, I get so mad on how the money goes to nowhere and just some CEOs getting rich and going on pricy vacations.

Fuck these leeches.