Immediately adopted, immediately questioned. Just one year after being extended to refurbished devices, the private copying tax should soon bow out on smartphones, tablets or laptops refurbished and resold second-hand. This change could allow these products to be a bit cheaper in the future.
10.08 euros including VAT, this is the current amount of the private copying tax applied to the purchase of a refurbished smartphone with 64 GB of storage or more. This fixed fee, calculated according to the storage capacity of the devices, should soon disappear… only one year after being adopted.
Nothing is finalized yet
As relayed by our colleagues from Frandroid from information unearthed by the media The Informed, the public rapporteur of the Council of State will soon recommend the outright cancellation of the “scale of refurbished phones and tablets”. ” One of the arguments put on the table is due to the irregular composition of the commission during the vote on this tariff “, Explain The Informed.
Note that at this stage, the question of canceling the private copying tax has not yet been definitively settled, but according to the media, the Council of State often gives favorable follow-up to the recommendations of the public rapporteur. As pointed out for his part Frandroid, a final decision should be announced within a few weeks, and the track of an abolition of this royalty remains in the most probable state. Logically, the prices of refurbished devices should therefore drop slightly in the coming months.
Enough to make rights holders cough
This possible backpedaling concerning the private copying tax applied to refurbished devices, however, risks upsetting the rights holders (including SACEM for the music sector), hitherto the big winners of this situation. This fee, which is quite unfair for second-hand products (the private copying tax is in fact already paid on the purchase of a new product), brought in some 20 million euros per year for collecting societies and other rights holders, and this, only for refurbished smartphones, reports The Informed.
A few less euros to spend for the consumer in the midst of an economic crisis, or a few million lost earnings and an unfavorable reversal for the rights holders… the Council of State will soon have to decide.
Sources: Frandroid, The Informed
9