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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  14  <h1>
  15      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  16
  17  </h1>
  18
  19 </div>
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  22     <div class="entry">
  23       <div class="title">Why isn't the value of copyright taxed?</div>
  24       <div class="date">17th November 2012</div>
  25       <div class="body"><p>While working on a
  26 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">Norwegian
  27 translation of the Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig</a> (76% done),
  28 which cover the problems with todays copyright law and how it stifles
  29 creativity, one idea occurred to me.  The idea is to get the tax
  30 office to help make more works enter the public domain and also help
  31 make it easier to clear rights for using copyrighted works.</p>
  32
  33 <p>I mentioned this idea briefly during Yesterdays
  34 <a href="http://www.farmann.no/2012/11/14/john-perry-barlow-in-oslo-friday-nov-16
  35 -15-30-19-00/">presentation
  36 by John Perry Barlow</a>, and concluded that it was best to put it
  37 in writing for a wider audience.  The idea is not really based on the
  38 argument that copyrighted works are "intellectual property", as the
  39 core requirement is that copyrighted work have value for the copyright
  40 holder and the tax office like to collect their share from any value
  41 controlled by the citizens in a country.  I'm sharing the idea here to
  42 let others consider it and perhaps shoot it down with a fresh set of
  43 arguments.</p>
  44
  45 <p>Most valuables are taxed by the government.  At least here in
  46 Norway, the amount of money you have, the value of our land property,
  47 the value of your house, the value of your car, the value of our
  48 stocks and other valuables are all added together.  If the tax value
  49 of these values exceed your debt, you have to pay the tax office some
  50 taxes for these values.  And copyrighted work have value.  It have
  51 value for the rights holder, who can earn money selling access to the
  52 work.  But it is not included in the tax calculations?  Why not?</p>
  53
  54 <p>If the government want to tax copyrighted works, it would want to
  55 maintain a database of all the copyrighted works and who are the
  56 rights holders for a given works, to be able to associate the works
  57 value to the right citizen or company for tax purposes.  If such
  58 database exist, it will become a lot easier to find out who to talk to
  59 for clearing permissions to use a copyrighted work, which is a very
  60 hard operation with todays copyright law.  To ensure that copyright
  61 holders keep the database up-to-date, it would have to become a
  62 requirement to be able to collect money for granting access to
  63 copyrighted works that the work is listed in the database with the
  64 correct right holder.</p>
  65
  66 <p>If copyright causes copyright holders to have to pay more taxes,
  67 they will have a small incentive to "disown" their copyright, and let
  68 the work enter the public domain. For works with several right holders
  69 one of the right holders could state (and get it registered in the
  70 database) that she do not need to be consulted when clearing rights to
  71 use the work in question and thus will not get any income from that
  72 work.  Stating this would have to be impossible to revert and stop the
  73 tax office from adding the value of that work to the given citizens
  74 tax calculation.  I assume the copyright law would stay the same,
  75 allowing creators to pick a license of their choosing, and also
  76 allowing them to put their work directly in the public domain.  The
  77 existence of such database will make it even easier to clear rights,
  78 and if the right holders listed in the database is taxed, this system
  79 would increase the amount of works that enter the public domain.</p>
  80
  81 <p>The effect would be that the tax office help to make it easier to
  82 get rights to use the works that have not yet entered the public
  83 domain and help to get more work into the public domain and .</p>
  84
  85 <p>Why have such taxing not happened yet?  I am sure the tax office
  86 would like to tax copyrighted work values if they could.</p>
  87 </div>
  88
  89       <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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