Belgium to increase taxes on CD-recordable media May 1st

April 29, 2003

Bad news for our Belgian friends as the Belgian
federal government has decided to raise
the taxes on CD-recordable and CD-rewriteable media on May 1st:

Officially called a "compensation for personal use," the tax will
add 12 euro cents (13 cents) per hour to the price of a CD-R. The proceeds
are earmarked for composers, copyright holders and performers.

The move comes after a political debate
in Belgium over whether free music downloads should be legalized, with the
introduction taxes on rewritable CDs and hard drives to counterbalance the
likely lower tax income from music CD sales. However, the Belgian
government says the current measure is designed to compensate for copies
made for personal use.

The taxes are, of course, not intended to let
people freely copy any CD they want to. The taxes only apply to people who want
to make a copy of their original discs for personal use. You can read the
complete Belgian article here.

Source: News.com