What goes down singularly badly in France is that we not only have to pay 19.6 percent VAT on CDs (and DVDs and software), but since 1985, we have also had to pay a special tax on blank CD-Rs and CD-RWs.
What for? The legislation would have it that the sum raised is to reimburse artists against the breaches of copyright caused by pirates. At Que Choisir ('What to Choose'), the magazine is collecting further protests from the public about this double duty and breaches of citizens' rights. Its editor-in-chief, Jean-Paul Geai, estimates that in France in 2002, this special tax alone raised "almost 135 million euros (167 million dollars) which were collected and distributed to artists in compensatory payments."

There's a French expression, "tu ne peux pas avoir le beurre et l'argent du beurre". While the music industry insists on keeping both the copyright and the compensatory sums paid for it, it's going to face one court case after another. French justice has impressed me sufficiently often in 20 years by coming down squarely on the side of reason and common sense that I imagine the record companies are in for further unpleasant surprises.

In an opinion piece in the January 2004 issue of a first-rate magazine launched in June to which I wish every success, 'World musiques ... destinations' (sadly, no website), copyright law specialist Eric Caprioli (Caprioli@vocats, Nice, Fr.) points to the next step in this country:

"(...) we might ask ourselves," he writes, "if it's enough to inform the consumer of the limits built into a support [a CD or DVD] in adding a description, as ordered by the [Nanterre] judges, when the user has a legal right to own private copies."

(Reprinted from 'taliesin's log')