EU Court Rules E-Books Are Services, Not Goods(wsj.com)
wsj.com
EU Court Rules E-Books Are Services, Not Goods
http://www.wsj.com/articles/eu-court-rules-e-books-are-services-not-goods-1425552050
77 comments
Totally agree. Ebooks, unless sold in a DRM-free format with no restrictions on reselling, are services.
Goods are a thing you own, can use for whatever purpose you want and can sell on after you've bought it.
This way of looking at things present new questions: Should phones on a contract be regarded as services too?
Goods are a thing you own, can use for whatever purpose you want and can sell on after you've bought it.
This way of looking at things present new questions: Should phones on a contract be regarded as services too?
>> Should phones on a contract be regarded as services too?
Legally, you own your phone, even when on contract.
Philosophically, the manufacturer and/or OS developer own most phones, even those not on contract.
Legally, you own your phone, even when on contract.
Philosophically, the manufacturer and/or OS developer own most phones, even those not on contract.
A good number of Android phones are unlocked, or unlockable, and are rootable, and have custom ROM support. The only really bad parts are the proprietary GPUs and cellular radios.
I don't think you appreciate the impact. Services are something you lease and use for a specific period and you never own. This seems at least to be an affirmation that ebooks cannot ever be owned by anyone but the publisher and there will now need to be legal mechanisms for revocation of ebooks from your device and reporting and even penalizing and prosecution of anyone who prevents revocation or even simply does not delete a book that is a service and therefore possibly being used illicitly.
I totally appreciate the impact which is why I said "this sucks right now".
The thing is that publishers who continue their user-hostile practices can now be disrupted by more user-friendly publishers whose offerings will only be taxed at 5% VAT instead of the 20 plus % the user-hostile variant is charged for.
We'll have to see whether publishers can keep this up or whether they have to fix their hostile attitude. I hope it's the latter, because if it's the former, then ebooks are dead.
The thing is that publishers who continue their user-hostile practices can now be disrupted by more user-friendly publishers whose offerings will only be taxed at 5% VAT instead of the 20 plus % the user-hostile variant is charged for.
We'll have to see whether publishers can keep this up or whether they have to fix their hostile attitude. I hope it's the latter, because if it's the former, then ebooks are dead.
do you think non-DRM'd ebooks will be seen as goods? Being digital, I can lend it or resell it but I would still own a copy, so how can that be a good?
It's ok for a good to be copyable.
A good can be "nonrivalrous" and still be a good: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivalry_(economics)
Lemon mint might be another example. It has a pleasant taste and smell, so you might want it as an herb. It's also very, very aggressive. Once you have a little, you can--and will if not careful--have more than anyone would ever need in a very short amount of time.
Excludability is another interesting property of goods: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excludability
An incredibly deep water table provides a source of water that could be considered both nonrivalrous and nonexcludable. Your digging a well doesn't prevent anyone else from digging a well and drawing water. If you have the only well making technology, though, access to the water table is "excludable," ie, you can charge people for access to your well.
DRM is usually an attempt to take a nonrivalrous, nonexcludable good and turn it into a nonrivalrous, excludable good.
That's the best case for producers, since it means they can charge everyone for each new copy, but marginal cost is zero. That is, each new copy costs them nothing to make. So after the first few sales, every purchase is 100% profit.
Calling e-books services in this case affects their tax rate, but probably also affects a bundle of consumer rights that are highly specific to the EU and fairly complex.
We tend to thing of goods as tangible things, and services as when we make someone spend some time to produce some change (paint a house, fix our hair).
Nothing is inherently a good or service though, so that's really a bit of oversimplification. Hiring a painter? You're actually paying for the paint as well as the work. Buying from a restaurant? You're paying for waitstaff as well as food. A freelance journalist? Seems like providing a service when tasked to report on a certain story. A magazine at a drugstore? That seems really good-like. All of this blends together in messy ways, and it's easy to get wrapped up too much in the significance of a distinction that's mostly historical convention.
Well, except that it's not mere convention once you realize that legal systems around the world treat this as a very important distinction, and vary in how they treat each category in bizarre and unpredictable ways. VAT is one. Why should taxes on booksellers be high but taxes on bookbinders be low? Trade and immigration is another. Why can people pay for a rake from Tanzania but not a Swiss gardener? Warranties and remedies in contract disputes and commercial law are filled with nutty discrepancies.
Each one of these has some historical reason, I'm not saying we should just treat everything like a good, that probably wouldn't work. But it's important to realize that no one could guess all these rules in advance from first principles.
So if you're sitting down and thinking, "what's the best set of policies for e-books?" The answer you want is probably not as simple as, "We should just treat them like goods" or "We should just treat them like services."
Nor does it make sense to make up a whole body of law from scratch to deal with every funny new case. There's really no easy answer, that's why the law evolves really slowly to deal with new technology.
A good can be "nonrivalrous" and still be a good: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivalry_(economics)
Lemon mint might be another example. It has a pleasant taste and smell, so you might want it as an herb. It's also very, very aggressive. Once you have a little, you can--and will if not careful--have more than anyone would ever need in a very short amount of time.
Excludability is another interesting property of goods: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excludability
An incredibly deep water table provides a source of water that could be considered both nonrivalrous and nonexcludable. Your digging a well doesn't prevent anyone else from digging a well and drawing water. If you have the only well making technology, though, access to the water table is "excludable," ie, you can charge people for access to your well.
DRM is usually an attempt to take a nonrivalrous, nonexcludable good and turn it into a nonrivalrous, excludable good.
That's the best case for producers, since it means they can charge everyone for each new copy, but marginal cost is zero. That is, each new copy costs them nothing to make. So after the first few sales, every purchase is 100% profit.
Calling e-books services in this case affects their tax rate, but probably also affects a bundle of consumer rights that are highly specific to the EU and fairly complex.
We tend to thing of goods as tangible things, and services as when we make someone spend some time to produce some change (paint a house, fix our hair).
Nothing is inherently a good or service though, so that's really a bit of oversimplification. Hiring a painter? You're actually paying for the paint as well as the work. Buying from a restaurant? You're paying for waitstaff as well as food. A freelance journalist? Seems like providing a service when tasked to report on a certain story. A magazine at a drugstore? That seems really good-like. All of this blends together in messy ways, and it's easy to get wrapped up too much in the significance of a distinction that's mostly historical convention.
Well, except that it's not mere convention once you realize that legal systems around the world treat this as a very important distinction, and vary in how they treat each category in bizarre and unpredictable ways. VAT is one. Why should taxes on booksellers be high but taxes on bookbinders be low? Trade and immigration is another. Why can people pay for a rake from Tanzania but not a Swiss gardener? Warranties and remedies in contract disputes and commercial law are filled with nutty discrepancies.
Each one of these has some historical reason, I'm not saying we should just treat everything like a good, that probably wouldn't work. But it's important to realize that no one could guess all these rules in advance from first principles.
So if you're sitting down and thinking, "what's the best set of policies for e-books?" The answer you want is probably not as simple as, "We should just treat them like goods" or "We should just treat them like services."
Nor does it make sense to make up a whole body of law from scratch to deal with every funny new case. There's really no easy answer, that's why the law evolves really slowly to deal with new technology.
Wouldn't the "good" be the DRM free license and not the digital copy of the book itself? i.e. if you resell your license you would no longer have it.
I think it's really interesting to differentiate the license from the e-book -- rather than breaking the "e-book" category into two. Thanks for making me think about that in a different way.
Yes, squatting on a piece of land does not transfer title, which is a legal construct.
Except, of course, when, as a matter of law, it does:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/adverse_possession
Well, except for adverse possession.
> I don't think you appreciate the impact.
I don't think you appreciate the degree to which definitions of categories in law (and thus rulings on the boundaries of such classifications) are specific to narrow domains or even particular enactments. This is about categories under European Value-Added Tax (VAT) rules, not the general philosophical category you are describing.
I don't think you appreciate the degree to which definitions of categories in law (and thus rulings on the boundaries of such classifications) are specific to narrow domains or even particular enactments. This is about categories under European Value-Added Tax (VAT) rules, not the general philosophical category you are describing.
> Services are something you lease and use for a specific period and you never own.
Yes. This is the reality of ebooks, downloaded music, and online games.
Anything with a TOS attached to it is a service. We are a society of renters - never able to actual own something, but yet we pay the dollars and delude ourselves that we "own" DRMed ebooks and music.
Yes. This is the reality of ebooks, downloaded music, and online games.
Anything with a TOS attached to it is a service. We are a society of renters - never able to actual own something, but yet we pay the dollars and delude ourselves that we "own" DRMed ebooks and music.
I don't think of my ebooks as purchased knowledge. I think of them the same way I think of articles I read online. I just pay for these and they take somewhat longer to read. If they disappeared the second I finished the last page, 99% of the time I wouldn't miss them. If I could pay less money for a temporal copy, I would, but the marketplaces and UX for borrowed books are completely inferior to buying on Kindle, such that I pay the price premium. I can't complain too much, I can't expect the market to create a perfect solution for my niche use case. As it is, books make up a tiny percentage of my spending.
If I'd needed to refer back to it often, I'd buy a hard copy, and have a handful such hard copies of technical books. I rarely crack any of them open, the Internet provides all. The only hard copy I have that I've read in its entirety is Metaprogramming Ruby 2.
I'm starting to think of consuming information as applying an 'insight delta' to your brain. Trying to actually hold facts and stuff is foolish, the Internet does that sort of thing much better than your brain does. So concrete information gets shuffled out after awhile, which is fine for my purposes. The stuff I'm dealing with every day, like how to refactor what kinds of code, that stays with me.
If I'd needed to refer back to it often, I'd buy a hard copy, and have a handful such hard copies of technical books. I rarely crack any of them open, the Internet provides all. The only hard copy I have that I've read in its entirety is Metaprogramming Ruby 2.
I'm starting to think of consuming information as applying an 'insight delta' to your brain. Trying to actually hold facts and stuff is foolish, the Internet does that sort of thing much better than your brain does. So concrete information gets shuffled out after awhile, which is fine for my purposes. The stuff I'm dealing with every day, like how to refactor what kinds of code, that stays with me.
You are think of just technical books. You are in the tech/SF bubble.
How many tech books make it to the NYTimes best seller list? Zero. Or any best seller list? Zero.
Most books sold are not "knowledge books" - they are fiction, cookbooks, self-help, etc. I have fiction books from years ago that I still re-read on occasion. Which is not possible with DRMed ebooks.
How many tech books make it to the NYTimes best seller list? Zero. Or any best seller list? Zero.
Most books sold are not "knowledge books" - they are fiction, cookbooks, self-help, etc. I have fiction books from years ago that I still re-read on occasion. Which is not possible with DRMed ebooks.
I'm not entirely clear if this decision was about all e-books or only those that are provided as services (the article cites Amazon, which I would classify as a service, and it is not entirely clear if a download of an unrestricted file is covered or not)
The argument is:
> The Court points out, first of all, that a reduced rate of VAT can apply only to supplies of goods and services covered by Annex III to the VAT Directive. That annex refers in particular to the ‘supply of books ... on all physical means of support’. The Court concludes that the reduced rate of VAT is applicable to a transaction consisting of the supply of a book found on a physical medium. While admittedly, in order to be able to read an electronic book, physical support (such as a computer) is required, such support is not included in the supply of electronic books, meaning that Annex III does not include the supply of such books within its scope. Moreover, the Court finds that the VAT Directive excludes any possibility of a reduced VAT rate being applied to ‘electronically supplied services’. The Court holds that the supply of electronic books is such a service. The Court rejects the argument that the supply of electronic books constitutes a supply of goods (and not a supply of services). Only the physical support enabling an electronic book to be read could qualify as ‘tangible property’ but such support is not part of the supply of electronic books.
> The Court points out, first of all, that a reduced rate of VAT can apply only to supplies of goods and services covered by Annex III to the VAT Directive. That annex refers in particular to the ‘supply of books ... on all physical means of support’. The Court concludes that the reduced rate of VAT is applicable to a transaction consisting of the supply of a book found on a physical medium. While admittedly, in order to be able to read an electronic book, physical support (such as a computer) is required, such support is not included in the supply of electronic books, meaning that Annex III does not include the supply of such books within its scope. Moreover, the Court finds that the VAT Directive excludes any possibility of a reduced VAT rate being applied to ‘electronically supplied services’. The Court holds that the supply of electronic books is such a service. The Court rejects the argument that the supply of electronic books constitutes a supply of goods (and not a supply of services). Only the physical support enabling an electronic book to be read could qualify as ‘tangible property’ but such support is not part of the supply of electronic books.
What does this imply for downloadable music files, DRM and non-DRM? Neither is bundled with a computer or speakers for listening. For that matter, CDs are not bundled with CD players.
Are there any exemptions/lower rates for recorded music? From a quick google search I only found campaigns for it.
If they exist(ed), downloaded music probably would fall under an analogous ruling. CDs are already physical mediums, so the "they are not bundled with players" is not important. eBooks on CDs should count as books if I understand it correctly.
Except for the legal mechanisms it's all in place already. That the implicit becomes explicit is good, in my opinion.
Except this means there's ZERO chance of any sorts of rights granting later. DVD's have protection and what we would categorize as DRM today. Yet, in 2012 the U.S. Copyright Office ruled that we have a right to rip these things into other formats for certain uses. It has also made similar rulings regarding jailbreaking, which Apple asserted was a DMCA violation.
If everything is a service, then you own nothing, and pretty much have no historic property rights. Ever changing EULAs rule. How that's a good thing is beyond me. We should be attacking this ruling not praising it.
I bought a book. Its my property. Hopefully, this stupidity won't come to the states.
Lastly, if you think books sold in the EU without any DRM mechanisms will be seen as property.. well I've got a bridge to sell you. To EU bureaucrats, those are services too.
If everything is a service, then you own nothing, and pretty much have no historic property rights. Ever changing EULAs rule. How that's a good thing is beyond me. We should be attacking this ruling not praising it.
I bought a book. Its my property. Hopefully, this stupidity won't come to the states.
Lastly, if you think books sold in the EU without any DRM mechanisms will be seen as property.. well I've got a bridge to sell you. To EU bureaucrats, those are services too.
Lastly, if you think books sold in the EU without any DRM mechanisms will be seen as property.. well I've got a bridge to sell you. To EU bureaucrats, those are services too.
It's not just EU bureaucrats, sadly. I can't immediately find it, but one of the most depressing things I ever read was some proceedings from a government review of copyright here in the UK prior to the recent legislation that finally added various new statutory exceptions.
It consisted of a bunch of unelected people with power to legislate (members of the House of Lords), many of whom declared an interest as people with ties to Big Media one way or another, cross-examining IIRC a senior civil servant whose department were making formal recommendations about the new rules, who stated bluntly that his primary interest was "UK PLC".
The general tone of the entire hearing was that obviously any changes to copyright law should make sure big business still gets its money one way or another, and the only interesting question was how.
The idea that copyright might simply no longer be a reasonable model for the digital age and some other economic model might be more effective didn't seem to occur to anyone.
The idea that copyright might inherently cause harm in terms of the public being able to enjoy works they had already paid for, and that any such harm should therefore be outweighed by some greater benefit for the existence of copyright in law to be ethical and justified at all, was mentioned briefly by I think one or two speakers right at the end of the discussion. They received the parliamentary version of a five-year-old being patted on the head and told how adorable they are. And this was in a debate specifically about new rules to allow people who had obtained lawful copies of a work to enjoy them in perfectly reasonable ways -- indeed, ways millions of UK citizens enjoy every day already, often blissfully unaware that they are even breaking the law, because the idea that what they are doing might not be completely reasonable and could possibly be against the law doesn't even occur to them.
I have seen plenty of evidence of governments pandering to special interests. I have seen plenty of evidence of governments being completely disconnected from reality. I have seen plenty of evidence of government "debates" that were nothing of the kind. Few of these made me as nauseous as seeing that particular example of "democracy in action".
It's not just EU bureaucrats, sadly. I can't immediately find it, but one of the most depressing things I ever read was some proceedings from a government review of copyright here in the UK prior to the recent legislation that finally added various new statutory exceptions.
It consisted of a bunch of unelected people with power to legislate (members of the House of Lords), many of whom declared an interest as people with ties to Big Media one way or another, cross-examining IIRC a senior civil servant whose department were making formal recommendations about the new rules, who stated bluntly that his primary interest was "UK PLC".
The general tone of the entire hearing was that obviously any changes to copyright law should make sure big business still gets its money one way or another, and the only interesting question was how.
The idea that copyright might simply no longer be a reasonable model for the digital age and some other economic model might be more effective didn't seem to occur to anyone.
The idea that copyright might inherently cause harm in terms of the public being able to enjoy works they had already paid for, and that any such harm should therefore be outweighed by some greater benefit for the existence of copyright in law to be ethical and justified at all, was mentioned briefly by I think one or two speakers right at the end of the discussion. They received the parliamentary version of a five-year-old being patted on the head and told how adorable they are. And this was in a debate specifically about new rules to allow people who had obtained lawful copies of a work to enjoy them in perfectly reasonable ways -- indeed, ways millions of UK citizens enjoy every day already, often blissfully unaware that they are even breaking the law, because the idea that what they are doing might not be completely reasonable and could possibly be against the law doesn't even occur to them.
I have seen plenty of evidence of governments pandering to special interests. I have seen plenty of evidence of governments being completely disconnected from reality. I have seen plenty of evidence of government "debates" that were nothing of the kind. Few of these made me as nauseous as seeing that particular example of "democracy in action".
Looking at the ruling, it says nothing at all about lendability or copyability. Their point was that ebooks are not tangible goods. The ruling seems to apply equaly to ebooks with or without DRM.
Makes sense for Amazon's store, where your books live in the cloud and you download some of them locally if you want.
Doesn't make sense if you are provided an .epub file to download.
Doesn't make sense if you are provided an .epub file to download.
If you as publisher are claiming the ownership of some content (by enforcing various restrictions upon its users, through DRM or just by imposing an agreement on which you can hold later) even after it was downloaded, then you are very close to service definition. It's like the way the provided service reach the client may differ, but the basic value for which the interested client actually pays stay the same.
Between this, the constant nag screen on every European site I go to about "evil cookies," and their relentless attacks on Google and MS, which always results in a major payout to EU countries... what the hell are they thinking?
We've lost more property rights again. I think the left leaning aspects of the EU are great for welfare benefits and social services, but the way its applied to business practices always seems more than a bit off. I fear this is the slipperly slope here where I own nothing and everything is a "service" somehow. The sad part is this was done, ostensibly, to avoid a VAT discount that paper books enjoy. EU corruption knows no bounds.
We've lost more property rights again. I think the left leaning aspects of the EU are great for welfare benefits and social services, but the way its applied to business practices always seems more than a bit off. I fear this is the slipperly slope here where I own nothing and everything is a "service" somehow. The sad part is this was done, ostensibly, to avoid a VAT discount that paper books enjoy. EU corruption knows no bounds.
"I own nothing and everything is a «service» somehow"
You got it right. You happen to be "serviced" with a knowledge that is owned by someone. For a while already you had to agree on all kinds of EULAs all the time, in which it was required for you to redefine (read "to limit") what you might thought is owned by you. Now you have it in more clear terms. The non-EU space will catch-up soon, don't worry.
You got it right. You happen to be "serviced" with a knowledge that is owned by someone. For a while already you had to agree on all kinds of EULAs all the time, in which it was required for you to redefine (read "to limit") what you might thought is owned by you. Now you have it in more clear terms. The non-EU space will catch-up soon, don't worry.
Why is this "corruption"? Are you alleging that EU officials are running off with the VAT money for private gain?
My suggestion is that their ability to tax EU buyers is limited via paper book exception. Recategorizing them as digital products means more taxation without any ugly legislation issues that would come up in a traditional attempt to raise taxes.
That wouldn't bother me if the buttons on ebook selling sites didn't say "Buy Now" but said "Lease Now" or "Rent Now". But they don't.
https://twitter.com/evmcl/status/261661956681908225/photo/1
http://www.bekkelund.net/2012/10/22/outlawed-by-amazon-drm/
http://the-digital-reader.com/2012/10/23/kobo-says-youre-no-...
https://twitter.com/librarythingtim/status/14262859728958259...
https://twitter.com/evmcl/status/261661956681908225/photo/1
http://www.bekkelund.net/2012/10/22/outlawed-by-amazon-drm/
http://the-digital-reader.com/2012/10/23/kobo-says-youre-no-...
https://twitter.com/librarythingtim/status/14262859728958259...
Completely the correct decision based on the restriction on ebooks.
Does anyone have the complete reasoning behind the service designation?
It would be cool if ebooks sold without DRM would get the real book tax treatment.
Does anyone have the complete reasoning behind the service designation?
It would be cool if ebooks sold without DRM would get the real book tax treatment.
I always thought of e-books as an intangible good. What confuses me on the ruling is what part of the e-book's labor becomes a service to tax?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intangible_good
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intangible_good
Paywalled
paywall
Go here: https://www.google.com/#safe=off&q=eu-court-rules-e-books-ar...
Click on the first link that leads to wsj.
Click on the first link that leads to wsj.
This just brings me to Googles homepage with some stuff added after https://www.google.de/
Is it because I'm in Germany and they have the .com --> .de redirect?
Is it because I'm in Germany and they have the .com --> .de redirect?
Is it, strictly speaking, possible to pirate a service?
The product/service distinction is orthogonal to the relevant category in (U.S.) copyright law: the work. Only "works" can be copyrighted, but a work can be provided as part of a service, sold as a product, or one of any number of other possibilities. Nice try though. :)
But it's still a product! I can sum this up that all services are products but not all products are services. So if I were to publish a book which would classify as "work" which I can copyright. At this point, I have a product that doesn't exist yet other than a word document ready to be sent off to publishers. The publisher will take my "work" and print it out into a physical book which we can clasify as a product. They can also format it into a electronic version of the book which is also a product. Now, how the publisher can send it off to a service provider like Amazon Kindle to distribute it (that's a service)
I assume pdabbadabba meant "sold as a good".
> Nice try though. :)
Yesterday's XKCD immediately comes to mind.
http://xkcd.com/1494/
Yesterday's XKCD immediately comes to mind.
http://xkcd.com/1494/
Strictly speaking, "piracy" means something involving international boundaries, planes/ships, and violence or coercion...
But seriously (and colloquially) "piracy" is still not specific enough if you're asking a legal question.
Do you mean only plain copyright infringement?
Unlicensed use of spectrum with "pirate radio"?
Secretly re-selling portions of you phone's data plan via tethering?
Bypassing electricity-meters and wiring your house up to the grid directly?
...Abusing a promotional offer that says "one massage per person"?
But seriously (and colloquially) "piracy" is still not specific enough if you're asking a legal question.
Do you mean only plain copyright infringement?
Unlicensed use of spectrum with "pirate radio"?
Secretly re-selling portions of you phone's data plan via tethering?
Bypassing electricity-meters and wiring your house up to the grid directly?
...Abusing a promotional offer that says "one massage per person"?
Yes, happens all the time. In Canada there was a whole industry around freely acquiring satellite TV services from the US.
Theft of services is a common enough occurrence (e.g. someone sneaking a bag of garbage into the dumpster of a business instead of paying for trash pickup).
The basic ruling is that e-books are 'electronic services' and not goods, as a paper book would be. Therefor, France and Luxembourg must apply their standard Value-Added Tax (VAT) of 20% and 17% respectively instead of the lower rate used for paper-backed books of 5.5% and 3% respectively. EU law states that reduced rates for specific categories can only apply to goods, not services.
The countries as well as companies like Amazon will push to allow the lower VAT to be applied to ebooks.
The countries as well as companies like Amazon will push to allow the lower VAT to be applied to ebooks.
As an extra tidbit of information: Luxembourg was already violating EU rules for having a VAT percentage of less than 5%.
Ireland even has a 0% rate on books according to wikipedia.
Lower than 5% tax rates seem to be pretty common: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_value_added_tax#...
Lower than 5% tax rates seem to be pretty common: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_value_added_tax#...
The UK and Ireland have 0% VAT rates which are allowed as they were essentially grandfathered in. They aren't allowed to be expanded, however.
Seeing how these days you're effectively "renting" any cloud-based DRM-enabled digital content, I think it makes more sense for them to be called services for which you get a "license to use" indefinite (i.e. limited, for as long as the deal vendor/publisher is in place) period of time.
IIRC, even some DRM-free digital content (e.g. iTunes downloads) are rented per the EULA. But yes... I agree that anything that is rented is more appropriately be defined as a service rather than a product.
Richard Stallman warned us about this kind of thing: he warned us and we laughed.
I'm trying to understand what has to do the VAT class with anything Stallman has said
Lets say that a ruling that entitles consumers for the same right for digital book "services" as for physical would have been preferable.
The ruling doesn't say anything about rights, just the type of VAT to be applied
Yes. But ruling in the opposite direction could be used as precedent for vendors to loosen the DRM licence crap.
No this is the ruling that could be used as precedent for vendors to loosen the DRM license crap. If they want lower VAT for their products, they need to make e-books more like a good and less like a service.
No, it really couldn't. How something is taxed has little/nothing to do with what it actually is - tax people don't talk to copyright people.
I can't understand how can it be done.
What did he warn us, and who laughed?
This is somewhat relevant, yes, but I don't think anyone here is/was laughing. We can see the oncoming juggernaut, but there's little we can do about it.
I think many more were laughing back when it was originally published. Note that it dates back to 1997.
Yes, but the cautionary tale is about content licencing and access control, and tangentially about copyright. It's a stretch to suggest it's a warning about the content of the article, which is about applying VAT differently to ebooks and physical books and nothing at all to do with access control. It's not even a warning about ebooks, which are implied but not mentioned in the cautionary tale.
You can easily do something about it. Do not support the business model of holding information hostage, and support those that do not (ie, buy DRM free books, and even moreso completely free as in freedom books, to support the business model)
Stallman warned us that EC rules did not allow lower VAT rates for ebooks?
[deleted]
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The press release for the ruling
http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2015...
http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2015...
Can someone paste the text of this? wsj paywall is making wsj useless again.
Non paywalled news from another source at http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/05/us-europe-ebooks-t...
Do a bing/google search for " eu-court-rules-e-books-are-services-not-goods-1425552050 " and link from there
Paywall.
For all intents and purposes, eBooks are services. Between DRM, vendor lock-in and other consumer hostile "features" of ebooks, seeing them as services and consequently taxing them as services totally makes sense.
As an ebook publisher, you can't have it both ways. You can't ask for the lower VAT of the easily lendable and copyable books and at the same time rent out a product that has none of these "drawbacks".
What will come out of this long-term is much more user friendly ebooks.