Choose between ecology and culture. In the context of the proposed law aimed at “Reduce the environmental footprint of digital technology in France”, the National Assembly will vote on June 10 on the application, or not, for reconditioned mobile phones, of the payment of the private copying levy. Until now, manufacturers like Apple have paid this tax for their new devices, which allows artists and the creative world to be paid for the private copying of their works. Article 14 of the law provides both to extend this fee to reconditioned devices and to adjust their VAT rate, which will drop from 20% to 5.5%.
The Commission for the remuneration of private copying, which brings together representatives of rights holders, voted on Tuesday 1er June, a specific scale for these refurbished phones, whose lifespan is shorter. It has granted a reduction of 40% compared to new devices, or a tax of 7.20 euros per device with a memory of 64 gigabytes against 12 euros for a new one of the same capacity. Copie France is the collector in France of this tax that must be paid by manufacturers or importers of USB keys, mobile phones, tablets, boxes, external hard drives.
Asian competition
This decision reinforces the war of positions with the industrialists. The Back Market marketplace, one of the French unicorns, believes that this taxation will “Condemn” its partners, the French reconditioners, who will bear the brunt of Asian competition. The inter-professional repackaging union ensures that this taxation will result in an increase in the selling price of these phones by more than 10%. And Back Market has a good time reminding that 40% of its clientele is made up of people in precarious situations.
Opposite, more than 1,600 artists from all backgrounds including Sandrine Bonnaire, Dany Boon, Alain Chamfort, Matthieu Chedid, Gims, Pomme or Vianney, signed on Sunday May 30 in The Sunday Newspaper, a forum aimed at this article which, they say, would weaken the cultural world already very affected by the health crisis. Each year, the sums collected by private copying finance 12,000 cultural projects and support some 200,000 artists. Answer on June 10.