EU to Roll Back Hardware Levies

June 29, 2006 at 5:35 pm - by Dale Dietrich

The European Commission is starting to move forward with a directive to EU countries to roll back levies on hardware devices. The levies were introduced in the 1960s to compensate artists for the fact that consumers used photo copiers and cassette recorders to make private copies of books, and records. They have been extended to all manner of devices that handle content in electronic form.