Ministry of Cultural Heritage: decree updating the amounts for fair compensation.

The Minister for Cultural Heritage Dario Franceschini has signed the provision confirming the application of fair compensation on physical storage media and devices that integrate the latter. Here are some examples of the new amounts: in the case of internal and external Hard Disks and SSDs, the fair compensation starts from 0.01 euros for media between 160GB and 500GB up to 0.009 euros for those from 500GB to 2TB. 0.008 euros over 2TB expected up to a maximum of 18 euros for each unit (not foreseen under 160GB). Contributions for smartphones start from 2.90 euros up to 8GB, 3.90 euros from 8 to 16GB, 4.80 euros from 16 to 32GB, 5.2 euros from 32 to 64GB, 6.3 euros from 64 to 128GB and 6.9 euros over 128GB. On the other hand, the situation is different for computers for which a fixed fee of 5.2 euros has been defined, for televisions and decoders the fee is instead 4 euros. New entrance for smartwatches, smartbands and fitness trackers for which the provision provides for 2.2 euros up to 4GB, 3.2 euros from 4 to 8GB, 4.1 euros from 8 to 16GB, 4.9 euros from 16 to 32GB and 5.6 euros over 32GB. In the specific case, the application of compensation has not failed to arouse controversy considering that in many cases these are accessory devices to devices such as smartphones. Even taking into account the legitimate need to remunerate authors and publishers, the confirmation of fair compensation appears today an anachronistic operation that does not take into account the fact that only an extremely marginal share of users uses physical media to save copyright-protected content.

 (Source: Web site Mr. Webmaster News – Author: Claudio Garau –  Ownership of the contents:  IKIweb Internet Media S.r.l.)