Although it was expected, it still remains a remarkable development: with significant effort, copyright levies were increased across Europe in 2020. At the same time, a wider scope of the levies as well as stricter enforcement measures have been introduced.

The comprehensive revisions of the levy systems in Italy and Sweden in particular should be mentioned here. In Hungary and some non-EU countries such as Turkey, the levy systems have also been extensively revised.

The newly created or revitalized tax systems in Slovenia and Ukraine also place high demands on the companies’ compliance processes. Negotiations about a significant extension of the scope are underway in France, Denmark and Estonia. Especially in Estonia, concrete legal provisions have already been drafted. Of course, the usual tariff adjustments at the turn of the year and the renewal of expiring tariff regulations will be added to the changes in 2020. In Austria, for example, the charges for copiers and scanners will be increased again after a longer period without adjustments, and the tariff system in the Netherlands has been revised.

Certainly, all these additions and adjustments took place this year in order to finally remove legal uncertainties for businesses. Long-term accruals in particular are not in the interests of any company.

Especially the fact that the issue of compensation for the right to private copying is no longer endlessly negotiated in detail (against the background of the revenue loss in the cultural sector) might have played an important role in the changes throughout the last year. With this being said, authors and performers are now being compensated not only through state support but also through the existing remuneration systems for legal private copying of images, music and texts.

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