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Portugal's government just approved a law wich taxes everything that has memory

Pedricha
By Pedricha
in Tech News
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Posted

Portugal just approved a law that taxes everything that has some kind of memory. The excuse is that you have to pay authors for buying their content and making a private copy. Some of the money will go towords the SPA (Portuguese Society of Authors). Basically they are giving part of the money to a scammy organization, just because some of the organization leaders are friends with the government. Typical. This isn't the first time this law was up for vote.

An example of this is that one 2TB HDD costs about 70-75€ now and with this law will cost 100€...

 

Each gigabyte will cost 0,517€ more with various other "creator and copyright stuff" on top.

 

Here is the news article google translated- LINK

 

I'm pretty mad, sorry the bad english

How is it in your country?

 

EDIT- Thanks to @rcoelho14 for clarifying some things.

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Posted

They should start with taxing themselves then......

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Posted

Well, in the U.S. a patent/trademark/family benefit of intellectual property lasts the whole life of the author plus 70 to 110 years depending on the type of intellectual property. That's entirely stupid/obnoxious, but it's not as dumb as taxing storage.

Software Engineer for Suncorp (Australia), Computer Tech Enthusiast, Miami University Graduate, Nerd

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That should be 0,517 Euro-cents, right? But still, are they mad?? SSD prices are high enough! This is ridiculous. That will just increase smuggling or imports.

who cares...

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that's retarded and mainly because of the excuse, no that much the law itself

this is one of the greatest thing that has happened to me recently, and it happened on this forum, those involved have my eternal gratitude http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/198850-update-alex-got-his-moto-g2-lets-get-a-moto-g-for-alexgoeshigh-unofficial/ :')

i use to have the second best link in the world here, but it died ;_; its a 404 now but it will always be here

 

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UMADBRO PORTUGAL?

"If it has tits or tires, at some point you will have problems with it." -@vinyldash303

this is probably the only place i'll hang out anymore: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/274320-the-long-awaited-car-thread/

 

Current Rig: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600, Abit IN9-32MAX nForce 680i board, Galaxy GT610 1GB DDR3 gpu, Cooler Master Mystique 632S Full ATX case, 1 2TB Seagate Barracuda SATA and 1x200gb Maxtor SATA drives, 1 LG SATA DVD drive, Windows 10. All currently runs like shit :D 

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This isn't anything new either. For years now, there has been a surcharge on devices sold in Germany that can write data onto media (CD, DVD and BluRay burners, video tape recorders) that is included in the sales price and paid to the GEMA.

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Posted

Dumb governmet is dumb... This law is so flawed it's not even funny, you can just completely ditch it legally by uying from another EU country with no additional taxes, and one can assume that if I pay a tax on piracy I can just pirate everything, since I already paid a tax on it.

i'm a potato

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Dumb governmet is dumb... This law is so flawed it's not even funny, you can just completely ditch it legally by uying from another EU country with no additional taxes, and one can assume that if I pay a tax on piracy I can just pirate everything, since I already paid a tax on it.

My Thoughts exactly 

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this is the most retarded excuse i have ever heard in my life

If your grave doesn't say "rest in peace" on it You are automatically drafted into the skeleton war.

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This isn't anything new either. For years now, there has been a surcharge on devices sold in Germany that can write data onto media (CD, DVD and BluRay burners, video tape recorders) that is included in the sales price and paid to the GEMA.

 

Here you pay it on everthing, USB drives/thumbdrives, HDD's, SSD's, phones, SD cards, etc. And it can go as high as 25 euros, I can go to the cinena 5 times for that much...

i'm a potato

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Dumb governmet is dumb... This law is so flawed it's not even funny, you can just completely ditch it legally by uying from another EU country with no additional taxes, and one can assume that if I pay a tax on piracy I can just pirate everything, since I already paid a tax on it.

I double checked the law. Portugal can instill the cost through imports and online purchases in the event of an audit.

Software Engineer for Suncorp (Australia), Computer Tech Enthusiast, Miami University Graduate, Nerd

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that's retarded and mainly because of the excuse, no that much the law itself

 

Yes the excuse is halarious! :D

 

In some places it is faster to ship a 4 TB hard drive, but still piracy is happening online, not via hardware! And even if, it is so marginally small that it doesn't justify such a detriment for customers. :(

 

Edit: What if i wanted to buy a stack of floppies or a gameboy?! Ever thought of that Portugal? Hahaaa, i will start a new piracy platform that ships floppies! Nobody will ever get behind that! Battlefield 4: 23418 Floppies

who cares...

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Yes the excuse is halarious! :D

 

In some places it is faster to ship a 4 TB hard drive, but still piracy is happening online, not via hardware! And even if, it is so marginally small that it doesn't justify such a detriment for customers. :(

 

Edit: What if i wanted to buy a stack of floppies or a gameboy?! Ever thought of that Portugal? Hahaaa, i will start a new piracy platform that ships floppies! Nobody will ever get behind that! Battlefield 4: 23418 Floppies

 

IDK, but I wouldn't be surprised if they added floppies to the list...

i'm a potato

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Same thing has been happening in Sweden for quite some time now.

They aren't saying it's to combat piracy, but because we are allowed to make digital backups for personal use. We have a cap of 320 SEK (46 dollars) though. The money goes to song writers, produces, authors and stuff like that.

I think it's bullshit.

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How is it in your country?

 

In my place, there is "compensatory" tax (0.5%~1.5%) for specific range of physical media and apparatuses, things like blank CD/DVD, copy and recording devices. 80% of the collected money is distributed between the different registered IP holding organizations, the rest flows to the national cultural fund. The tax cut has been reduced 3x since 2010, due to the low tax collection rates, as a stimulus and probably because the copyright industry doesn't really have much strong lobby here.

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Get ready to start smuggling SSD's and HDD's into Portugal. 

What do they know of England, who only England know?

"Well that's what I always said I wanted to be remembered for, for being honest. Nothing else is worth a damn"
 

 

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Wow. Just wow. An I thought WE had a corrupt government in Italy...

Don't ask to ask, just ask... please 🤨

sudo chmod -R 000 /*

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Wow. Just wow. An I thought WE had a corrupt government in Italy...

pfff, that's nothing compared to the US government.

Ketchup is better than mustard.

GUI is better than Command Line Interface.

Dubs are better than subs

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pfff, that's nothing compared to the US government.

 

You don't live here, you have NO idea ;) a dude has been prime minister for 20 years while being under trial for evading taxes, child abuse, encouraging prostitution and buying senators. Last year he was found guilty of having evaded 400 MILLION euros and guess what, he's still in the government. His sentence is social contribution 1 hour a week for a year. A guitar course, basically.

Don't ask to ask, just ask... please 🤨

sudo chmod -R 000 /*

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You don't live here, you have NO idea ;) a dude has been prime minister for 20 years while being under trial for evading taxes, child abuse, encouraging prostitution and buying senators. Last year he was found guilty of having evaded 400 MILLION euros and guess what, he's still in the government. His sentence is social contribution 1 hour a week for a year. A guitar course, basically.

Our government is in all likelihood that bad if not worse, they just don't get caught.

Ketchup is better than mustard.

GUI is better than Command Line Interface.

Dubs are better than subs

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Our government is in all likelihood that bad if not worse, they just don't get caught.

 

You can't be elected more than twice though am I right?

Don't ask to ask, just ask... please 🤨

sudo chmod -R 000 /*

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