Dutch social liberals want to reimburse rights holders through an Internet fee

The Dutch social liberal fraction D66 has released its concept election programme in which it states: “the Internet is an infrastructure for communication and interaction”. This includes, says the party, that information should on the whole be freely accessible.

In order to safeguard the open nature of the Internet, D66 proposes not to ban illegal downloading, but to reimburse rights holders through an Internet charge. Collection agencies Buma/Stemra and Sena should become responsible for this.

In the vision of the social liberals, Buma and Sena will closely cooperate “so that large (groups of) users will have a clear point where licenses are made on the basis of clear, preferably joint criteria.”

Furthermore, D66 emphasises the importance of a European approach and plans to give more attention to the subject on the European level.

Green party GroenLinks earlier took a stance against the ban on downloading. GroenLinks takes things a step further than D66. The party wants to limit copyright to a period of ten years and makes the industry responsible for dealing with file-sharing through the development of new business models.

Other parties have not yet made the copyright issue part of their campaign. But some time ago, MPs of both the Labour Party and Christian Democrats have indicated to see an Internet fee as a real possibility. The Socialist Party is of a contrary opinion: a fee would only bring more bureaucracy and hassle.

7 April 2010