The photocopy/copyright battles are a worldwide phenomenon!
The French newspaper Liberation, of Sept. 16, 1993, reported
the following (the rough translation is my own). The Monde
file on Lexis has a similar article dated Sept. 13, 1993.
A Tax Against Photocopying
The State may, in the next few days, create a new tax on
photocopy machines so as to fight excessive photocopying.
The total: 600 million francs (approximately $120 million),
which publishers will share with authors.
Based on the "TV tax" (the cost depends on the type of copy
machine), will this tax put a stop to the "photocopy wars"?
Last spring, Jack Lang, at that time Secretary of
both Education and Culture, signed an agreement with the
publishing industry, according to which the State would pay
11 francs per student and fix a celing of 180 pages par
student per year. But the new Secretary of Education,
Francois Bayrou, told the French Center for Copyright that
he would not pay the 67 million francs due under this
agreement.
So the new Culture Secretary took up the negotiations this
summer without the participation of the Education Secretary.
The 600 million francs are a temptation to publishers.
But the scholastic publishing houses are worried: won't the
photocopy interests be tempted simply to pay the tax and
ignore copyright? Says Michel Legrain, president of the
group of scholastic publishers: "It's as though for a 2,000
franc fine, we can run all the red lights we want. It's
legalized theft."
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 03/09/00 PST