Vendors Sue Dutch Government Over Media Levies

An anonymous reader writes with news that hardware vendors aren't too happy about expanded levies on media. From the article: "Hewlett-Packard, Acer, Dell, and Imation are suing the Dutch government over new levies on hard disks, smartphones, tablets, and MP3 players that are meant to compensate the music and movie industries for losses caused by home copying. The entertainment industry estimates lost income of €40 million, which is much too high, according to the hardware companies. 'That amount is excessive and completely unfounded,' they said. The €40 million also incorporates damages for illegally downloaded music and movies which, according to the companies, legally cannot be recovered by a levy on devices. Furthermore the Dutch government established a levy on all devices including devices for professional use that are not used for private copying, they said."

Re:Germany

[TeslaBoy]

True. This is all a little pointless in a free market zone as we in Holland can just order online from abroad, in the same currency, with nominal delivery fees. Amazon, for example, deliver from Germany for free on orders over 25 euro, which is pretty much any computer component or decent-sized order of blank media.