blog/data/2012-11-17-copyright-taxing.txt

   1 Title: Why isn't the value of copyright taxed?
   2 Tags: english, freeculture, opphavsrett
   3 Date: 2012-11-17 11:30
   4
   5 <p>While working on a
   6 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">Norwegian
   7 translation of the Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig</a> (76% done),
   8 which cover the problems with todays copyright law and how it stifles
   9 creativity, one idea occurred to me.  The idea is to get the tax
  10 office to help make more works enter the public domain and also help
  11 make it easier to clear rights for using copyrighted works.</p>
  12
  13 <p>I mentioned this idea briefly during Yesterdays
  14 <a href="http://www.farmann.no/2012/11/14/john-perry-barlow-in-oslo-friday-nov-16
  15 -15-30-19-00/">presentation
  16 by John Perry Barlow</a>, and concluded that it was best to put it
  17 in writing for a wider audience.  The idea is not really based on the
  18 argument that copyrighted works are "intellectual property", as the
  19 core requirement is that copyrighted work have value for the copyright
  20 holder and the tax office like to collect their share from any value
  21 controlled by the citizens in a country.  I'm sharing the idea here to
  22 let others consider it and perhaps shoot it down with a fresh set of
  23 arguments.</p>
  24
  25 <p>Most valuables are taxed by the government.  At least here in
  26 Norway, the amount of money you have, the value of our land property,
  27 the value of your house, the value of your car, the value of our
  28 stocks and other valuables are all added together.  If the tax value
  29 of these values exceed your debt, you have to pay the tax office some
  30 taxes for these values.  And copyrighted work have value.  It have
  31 value for the rights holder, who can earn money selling access to the
  32 work.  But it is not included in the tax calculations?  Why not?</p>
  33
  34 <p>If the government want to tax copyrighted works, it would want to
  35 maintain a database of all the copyrighted works and who are the
  36 rights holders for a given works, to be able to associate the works
  37 value to the right citizen or company for tax purposes.  If such
  38 database exist, it will become a lot easier to find out who to talk to
  39 for clearing permissions to use a copyrighted work, which is a very
  40 hard operation with todays copyright law.  To ensure that copyright
  41 holders keep the database up-to-date, it would have to become a
  42 requirement to be able to collect money for granting access to
  43 copyrighted works that the work is listed in the database with the
  44 correct right holder.</p>
  45
  46 <p>If copyright causes copyright holders to have to pay more taxes,
  47 they will have a small incentive to "disown" their copyright, and let
  48 the work enter the public domain. For works with several right holders
  49 one of the right holders could state (and get it registered in the
  50 database) that she do not need to be consulted when clearing rights to
  51 use the work in question and thus will not get any income from that
  52 work.  Stating this would have to be impossible to revert and stop the
  53 tax office from adding the value of that work to the given citizens
  54 tax calculation.  I assume the copyright law would stay the same,
  55 allowing creators to pick a license of their choosing, and also
  56 allowing them to put their work directly in the public domain.  The
  57 existence of such database will make it even easier to clear rights,
  58 and if the right holders listed in the database is taxed, this system
  59 would increase the amount of works that enter the public domain.</p>
  60
  61 <p>The effect would be that the tax office help to make it easier to
  62 get rights to use the works that have not yet entered the public
  63 domain and help to get more work into the public domain and .</p>
  64
  65 <p>Why have such taxing not happened yet?  I am sure the tax office
  66 would like to tax copyrighted work values if they could.</p>