A German parliamentary committee, the Internet-Kommission, advocates legalizing downloading originated from illegal sources. This week, the majority of the committee voted for extending the scope of the private copying levy. 

The proposal refers to the introduction of a mandatory "culture tax". All German citizens would pay a certain fixed amount and, in return, they would be allowed to download music, even from illegal sources. Furthermore, consumers who download illicit content would even be allowed to sell that content on, for example by burning it onto a CD, according to this proposal.

As for uploading, the committee reports that (illegal) internet uploaders should in no way be blocked from access to the internet, as now is the case in France due to the (controversial) Three Strikes Act. 

In the Netherlands, article 16c of the Dutch Copyright Act (DCA) states (in short) that making a copy of a copyright protected work for private purposes is allowed. It is widely accepted in Dutch law that this also applies to a download. This exception is partly supported by the fact that Dutch costumers pay a private copying levy when they purchase a carrier, such as a CD. The user may then also sell this CD. 

Downloading from illegal source is currently permitted in the Netherlands, but there is a lot of discussion about it. It is clear though, that uploading is not part of article 16c DCA (and therefore is prohibited), since the user offers (distributes) copyright protected content without permission of the author.

Anyway, it is still unclear how this German levy will evolve. Will every citizen, including citizens who never download, have to pay the same fixed fee? And what about those people that already pay for their music? Does this levy mean that these users are going to pay twice? Or will they (because of this fee) no longer use the legal channels for downloading music, such as iTunes or Spotify?

Interestingly, the way tax revenues from this new levy will be passed on to the creative industry is also unclear. How can the State know how much compensation an artist is entitled to? To maintain a good and honest distribution between artists (one artist can be more popular than the other) there must be a certain control on the downloaded files, which might include privacy infringements and, without doubt, more discussion.

Apart from the above-mentioned questions, it is unclear whether the recommendations of the Committee in Germany indeed will be followed. Even though there is a political majority, the government can always ignore these recommendations.

To be continued.

Reference: Webwereld.nl and Spiegel.de