Marchingontogether
TK Veteran
The EU Court of Justice has recently handed down a landmark ruling, saying that the Netherlands can no longer allow its citizens to legally download copyrighted content for free. The ruling says that the current system of a “piracy levy” to compensate copyright owners is illegal.
Like in many other countries across the globe, downloading entertaining content is very popular in the Netherlands, with a 1/3 of the population downloading copyrighted music and movies for free. Contrary to most other countries, however, this isn’t illegal. The matter is that the Dutch compensate copyright owners via a so-called “piracy levy”. The latter is charged from writable media, hard drives and electronic devices with storage capacity.
Now the European Court of Justice has declared this system illegal in a case launched by electronics stores and manufacturers, whose products became more expensive because of the levy. According to the court decision, the levy system is a threat to the internal market and puts rights owners at an unfair disadvantage. In short works, the court decided that the system allowing people to copy files from pirated sources can’t be tolerated, because it encourages the distribution of counterfeit and pirated works. Moreover, it poses an unfair disadvantage to the rightsholders and punishes people who purchase their digital films and music from legitimate sources, because they also have to pay the piracy levy on the devices and media they record them to.
The ruling is also likely to affect other EU members with similar systems – for instance, Switzerland, which also legalizes downloading pirated works for personal use. The problem is that rightsholders may be worse off if the countries do indeed outlaw downloading pirated content: this move would result in lost revenue via the piracy levy, which won’t be matched by an increase in legal sales, if any at all.
As a result, the Dutch government has already confirmed that downloading copyrighted content for personal use is no longer allowed, and in general offenses will be prosecuted through civil cases rather than criminal ones.
Like in many other countries across the globe, downloading entertaining content is very popular in the Netherlands, with a 1/3 of the population downloading copyrighted music and movies for free. Contrary to most other countries, however, this isn’t illegal. The matter is that the Dutch compensate copyright owners via a so-called “piracy levy”. The latter is charged from writable media, hard drives and electronic devices with storage capacity.
Now the European Court of Justice has declared this system illegal in a case launched by electronics stores and manufacturers, whose products became more expensive because of the levy. According to the court decision, the levy system is a threat to the internal market and puts rights owners at an unfair disadvantage. In short works, the court decided that the system allowing people to copy files from pirated sources can’t be tolerated, because it encourages the distribution of counterfeit and pirated works. Moreover, it poses an unfair disadvantage to the rightsholders and punishes people who purchase their digital films and music from legitimate sources, because they also have to pay the piracy levy on the devices and media they record them to.
The ruling is also likely to affect other EU members with similar systems – for instance, Switzerland, which also legalizes downloading pirated works for personal use. The problem is that rightsholders may be worse off if the countries do indeed outlaw downloading pirated content: this move would result in lost revenue via the piracy levy, which won’t be matched by an increase in legal sales, if any at all.
As a result, the Dutch government has already confirmed that downloading copyrighted content for personal use is no longer allowed, and in general offenses will be prosecuted through civil cases rather than criminal ones.