Music firms hit pause button over new tax
Producers and distributors of MP3 players and iPods have challenged the introduction of a new tax on digital music players, due to come into force on March 1. They have written to the Federal Court asking for a postponement so they can contest the new tariffs for authors’ rights, which they claim are “astronomically high”.
The tax will affect three different product categories: digital music players with flash memory (MP3s); hard drive-based music players (iPods); and audio/video recorders with a built-in hard drive.
The decision to introduce the new tax was taken by a federal arbitration commission on January 17, responding to a demand by a group of collecting societies including Suisa, the organisation responsible for administering music rights. But the tariffs were only announced last week, which led to the uproar.
Spearheading the opposition is the Swiss Association for Information, Communications and Organization Technology (Swico), which has asked for a postponement of 60 days to prepare its case.
“There are many things that we intend to attack. For example, we feel the tariffs are astronomically high,” Swico President Jürg Stutz told swissinfo.