Storage media remuneration
The storage media remuneration (formerly empty cassette remuneration , also copyright levy ) is the statutory levy in Austria on storage media that can be used to record works protected by copyright. The money collected is distributed to the various Austrian collecting societies and distributed to the authors as financial compensation for the profits lost through private copying . Part of the money is also distributed to a social fund for authors (SKE-Fond) (Section 42, Paragraphs 5-7 of the Austrian Copyright Act). The storage media remuneration is thus the Austrian counterpart to the German flat-rate tax .
The history of empty cassette and storage media remuneration
In the 1960s and 1970s, the cassette recorder became widespread in the households of the population and made it possible (at least for the terms of the time) to copy music in an uncomplicated and inexpensive manner. The regulation at that time, which was based on the economic and technical conditions of 1936, did not, however, grant the authors and those entitled to ancillary copyrights any participation in the economic income made possible by modern technology from copying for their own use. While on the one hand the empty cassette manufacturers benefited from people's willingness to copy and thus indirectly also from their music lover, those who owned the rights to the music faced economic losses. With the 1980 amendment to the Copyright Act, the legislature took this into account by including the empty cassette remuneration in the UrhG (Section 42 (5-7) UrhG). Austria was the first country in the world to realize remuneration on blank carrier material. In addition, it was the second country besides Germany - which at that time had already anchored a device levy in the UrhG - that provided a practicable solution for copying for one's own use. Article 2 of the 2015 amendment to copyright replaces the term empty cassette remuneration in the collecting societies act 2006 with the term storage media remuneration ( Federal Law Gazette I No. 99/2015 ).
The collection of the storage media fee
The original name “empty cassette remuneration” has held up over the years, although empty cassettes are only used comparatively rarely these days. The list of those blank media on which the fee is levied has, however, been adapted in line with the latest technological developments. This list now includes the following media: audio and video cassettes, DAT , MiniDisc , CD-R / -RW data, CD-R / -RW audio, camera cassettes, recordable DVDs , integrated and exchangeable MP3 storage hard disks in MP3 jukeboxes, hard disks in or for DVD recorders, satellite receivers, etc. a. UE devices, USB sticks, hard disks for desktop computers, hard disks for mobile computer (s), notebooks, tablets, etc. a., external hard drives, external multimedia hard drives.
It is a matter of dispute whether the collecting society Austro Mechana, which is responsible for collecting the fee, is also entitled to collect the fee on hard disk drives . The legal dispute between rights holders and hard drive manufacturers has not yet been fully resolved. Most recently, a ruling by the Austrian Supreme Court confirmed that multifunctional storage media are subject to remuneration if the copies cause more than minor damage to the rights holder. The rights holders see themselves confirmed by this judgment. According to the collecting societies, the trade has been collecting the remuneration partly as a precautionary measure since 2010, but does not pass this income on to them.
In order not to have to undertake the comparatively high expense of having to collect the levy from consumers or retailers, the legislature has stipulated that the remuneration must be paid by the person who first sells the unrecorded carrier material in Austria or from abroad. This is usually the importer, in the case of domestic production it is the manufacturer. Ultimately, however, the consumer pays the storage media fee as part of the total price.
The distribution of the storage media fee
Austro-Mechana collects the levy from the importers / manufacturers and then distributes the income to all collecting societies involved in the empty cassette levy according to a specified key. The collecting societies involved are:
- Austro-Mechana: Responsible for the mechanical (i.e. related to sound carriers) rights of composers, lyricists and music publishers.
- LSG: Responsible for the rights of performers and producers of sound carriers and music videos.
- Literar-Mechana: Responsible for the rights to language works.
- VAM, VDFS: Responsible v. a. for rights of filmmakers.
- PICTURE LAW: Responsible for fine arts, photography, graphics and design, architecture, choreography.
- VGR: Responsible for the rights of broadcasters.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Steinmetz: The new regulation of the empty cassette remuneration. MR 1990.
- ↑ Philapitsch: The digital private copying. 2007, p. 163
- ↑ a b c Homepage: Austro Mechana Archived copy ( Memento of the original from February 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Futurezone: http://futurezone.at/netzpolitik/streit-um-festplattenabgabe- geht- weiter/ 46.733.982
