It comes unexpected to many companies that copyright levies are also imposed on refurbished and remarketed cell phones, tablets, PCs, hard drives, etc. However, it is meanwhile a well-known practice. 1cc has been providing information on this issue for a long time: More and more countries are taking a clear position on the subject of the levy obligation on professionally inspected, cleaned and, where applicable, repaired used equipment. Moreover, the responsible authorities are increasingly emphasizing that this is by no means to be understood as a recently introduced obligation. It is rather a requirement that has always been in place. In the opinion of collecting societies in various countries, it never made a difference under the law in force whether a device came onto the market as new or used. The only decisive element was and remains to be whether a device fell in the scope of the relevant legal provisions. That is, if a device put on the market may store, copy, or reproduce content.
The French collecting society, Copie France, stresses in its current communication that levies for remanufactured products have not been introduced for 2021, but that a separate tariff catalog has instead been defined for this purpose. The Polish and Swedish authorities express similar views. In Germany, it is no arbitrary coincidence that the claim for levies on certain refurbished products dates back to 2014. Since roughly that time, it has been the designated devices that are also subject to levies as new devices. Product-specific levies in Germany are usually based on a contractual agreement between industry and collecting societies. It remains controversial for now whether such an agreement also covers refurbished equipment (cf. position of the recycling and resource management industry). At the same time, there is considerable consensus throughout Europe that the rapidly growing market of refurbishment should also be taken into account with regard to copyright.
The suppliers of such products - the refurbishers themselves, specialized dealers and also specialized departments of the brand manufacturers -, have acknowledged their obligations. In some cases, however, the concretization of far-reaching claims for copyright levies for refurbished products means further adaptations in internal processes. The reason being that such suppliers cannot wait for the explicit claims of competent authorities or the establishment of an own tariff system for refurbished products in this or that country. Instead, they have to carefully examine the existing levy systems in the countries, for their own range of products and for their distribution channels.
Contact us with questions: copyright@1cc-consulting.com