The Netherlands introduces new pirate tax

From January 2013 the price of new mobile devices and PCs will include a tax that compensates the creative industries hit by music and film piracy.

Dutch mobile technology fans will face a tax of up to €5 ($6.50) when buying new smartphones, tablets or notebook computers from January 2013.

The tax, based on the storage capacity of the device, is being introduced to help offset the damage being done to the music and film industries by illegal copying and sharing.

"European rules determine that authors are entitled to fair compensation for damage caused by a member state that allows home copies," the Dutch ministry of Security and Justice said of the new tax that will be implemented for the next 12 months. "To keep complying with this regulation, it is necessary to add new devices to the levy list for the period of one year, pending further decisions on a better system."

Under the new law, anything with a hard drive or internal storage capacity, from set-top boxes to flash drives and mp3 players, purchased after January 1 will be taxed in line with its capacity. The move is a stop-gap measure to address the current system whereby blank, recordable media such as CDs, DVDs, mini disks were all subject to a levy. But as the methods of copying, storing and disseminating have evolved, so must the way the tax is collected in order to ensure those parties most affected can still be compensated.

It remains to be seen whether the Dutch parliament will be able to arrive at a more permanent system that can react to technological changes and innovations in piracy and content sharing over the next year.