blog/Why_isn_t_the_value_of_copyright_taxed_.html

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   6     <title>Petter Reinholdtsen: Why isn't the value of copyright taxed?</title>
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  12  <h1>
  13      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  14
  15  </h1>
  16
  17 </div>
  18
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  20     <div class="entry">
  21       <div class="title">Why isn't the value of copyright taxed?</div>
  22       <div class="date">17th November 2012</div>
  23       <div class="body"><p>While working on a
  24 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">Norwegian
  25 translation of the Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig</a> (76% done),
  26 which cover the problems with todays copyright law and how it stifles
  27 creativity, one idea occurred to me.  The idea is to get the tax
  28 office to help make more works enter the public domain and also help
  29 make it easier to clear rights for using copyrighted works.</p>
  30
  31 <p>I mentioned this idea briefly during Yesterdays
  32 <a href="http://www.farmann.no/2012/11/14/john-perry-barlow-in-oslo-friday-nov-16
  33 -15-30-19-00/">presentation
  34 by John Perry Barlow</a>, and concluded that it was best to put it
  35 in writing for a wider audience.  The idea is not really based on the
  36 argument that copyrighted works are "intellectual property", as the
  37 core requirement is that copyrighted work have value for the copyright
  38 holder and the tax office like to collect their share from any value
  39 controlled by the citizens in a country.  I'm sharing the idea here to
  40 let others consider it and perhaps shoot it down with a fresh set of
  41 arguments.</p>
  42
  43 <p>Most valuables are taxed by the government.  At least here in
  44 Norway, the amount of money you have, the value of our land property,
  45 the value of your house, the value of your car, the value of our
  46 stocks and other valuables are all added together.  If the tax value
  47 of these values exceed your debt, you have to pay the tax office some
  48 taxes for these values.  And copyrighted work have value.  It have
  49 value for the rights holder, who can earn money selling access to the
  50 work.  But it is not included in the tax calculations?  Why not?</p>
  51
  52 <p>If the government want to tax copyrighted works, it would want to
  53 maintain a database of all the copyrighted works and who are the
  54 rights holders for a given works, to be able to associate the works
  55 value to the right citizen or company for tax purposes.  If such
  56 database exist, it will become a lot easier to find out who to talk to
  57 for clearing permissions to use a copyrighted work, which is a very
  58 hard operation with todays copyright law.  To ensure that copyright
  59 holders keep the database up-to-date, it would have to become a
  60 requirement to be able to collect money for granting access to
  61 copyrighted works that the work is listed in the database with the
  62 correct right holder.</p>
  63
  64 <p>If copyright causes copyright holders to have to pay more taxes,
  65 they will have a small incentive to "disown" their copyright, and let
  66 the work enter the public domain. For works with several right holders
  67 one of the right holders could state (and get it registered in the
  68 database) that she do not need to be consulted when clearing rights to
  69 use the work in question and thus will not get any income from that
  70 work.  Stating this would have to be impossible to revert and stop the
  71 tax office from adding the value of that work to the given citizens
  72 tax calculation.  I assume the copyright law would stay the same,
  73 allowing creators to pick a license of their choosing, and also
  74 allowing them to put their work directly in the public domain.  The
  75 existence of such database will make it even easier to clear rights,
  76 and if the right holders listed in the database is taxed, this system
  77 would increase the amount of works that enter the public domain.</p>
  78
  79 <p>The effect would be that the tax office help to make it easier to
  80 get rights to use the works that have not yet entered the public
  81 domain and help to get more work into the public domain and .</p>
  82
  83 <p>Why have such taxing not happened yet?  I am sure the tax office
  84 would like to tax copyrighted work values if they could.</p>
  85 </div>
  86
  87       <div class="tags">Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.</div>
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