The Russian Union of Copyright Holders earlier in October has developed and perhaps completed systems meant to be put in place to tax Russians $5.5 a year for downloading anything on the Internet that has a copyright (this being applied to paid and free content, of course, not pirated content.) Meaning, Russians would have to pay additional taxes on top of the cost of the product simply for acquiring it online – to, as the Union says, collect copyright fees. Even if you don’t ever download anything, you have to pay up. Now, mind you, $5.5 a year isn’t the world – but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a very, very dumb reason to tax people. “The planned tax payments,” begins the anonymous author of a petition to stop the implementation of the taxation, “would not be in the interests of the entire Russian population and not even in the interests of the country’s internet users. They would benefit only a limited number of personalities and there is no guarantee whatsoever that any money would reach the authors of the downloaded content,” reads the petition. This isn’t the first time the union tried to line its pockets with citizens money through copyright tax – in 2010, they tried to pull a similar trick with a 1% tax on everything used to record and play copyrighted works – and while 1% may not be much, again, try and imagine the millions of online users and copyrighted-media consumers in Russia, and the money begins to pile up rather quickly. This tax money wouldn’t be building bridges or schools, either – it would literally just flow straight into the hands of anyone with vested interest in the union. Usually, governments don’t get away with this anymore. This year, Hungarian netizens took to the streets after a tax was implemented on internet traffic – it took a month of protesting before the government ended the tax. - See more at: http://www.datsyn.com/article/3390/2014/12/11/Russian-netizens-petition-against-Internet-tax#sthash.xJgc1nXQ.dpuf

• published: 12 Dec 2014
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