Italian Copying Fee Extended To PCs, Mobile Phones And MP3s

by Ulrika Lomas, Tax-News.com, Brussels

21 January 2010

Royalty fees introduced in Italy to compensate for the sound and video copying of works subject to copyright (and which were previously only levied on recordable products, such as CDs, DVDs and USB sticks) have now been extended to include the means of recording, such as computers, mobile phones and MP3 players.

It had been assumed that the private copying fees, which were initially introduced in 2003, would be reviewed, as the original copyright law envisaged that they would have a three-year validity. A further review will therefore be due in 2012. While an increase to the recording fees had been expected, their extension had not been foreseen.

Before the introduction of the concept of private recording in most of the European Union (EU), it was not possible to record copies of protected works. In Italy, it is now allowable, subject to the copies being made for private use only and against payment of the appropriate fee to the Italian Society of Authors and Editors (SIAE).

It has been estimated that, with the extension of the law, the fees garnered by SIAE will rise from around EUR70m (USD100m) annually, to up to EUR300m in 2010.

The ministerial decree, which gives effect to the new fees, also contains their structure for each particular product. In most cases, there is a fee which rises dependent upon the gigabyte (GB) capacity in, for example, hard disks or USB sticks. As the GB capacity of most products sold in the market has been increasing, and will increase further in the next few years, the fees payable to SIAE will also rise.

SIAE has pointed out that the fees, after their increase, will still remain at around 50% of those foreseen in France. The electronics industry has, however, asked why products such as mobile phones, computers and games consoles, whose main function has nothing to do with recording digital content, are included. It was pointed out that, in the EU, only four countries have royalties on mobile phones, while computers are taxed in only one other country and nobody else taxes games consoles.

It is considered most probable that the increased fees, payable by the manufacturer or the distributor of imported products, will be passed on to the consumer.

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