https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_Biz%2C_Inc._v._United_Stat...
My personal fave is when morning TV host Lorraine Kelly successfully argued she wasn’t hosting as herself but acting a character called Lorraine Kelly, with very favourable tax consequences.
It would make sense why he’s never even jokingly gone back into that character on his new show.
Yes, you can be enjoined from using your own name.
This is not that case.
In popular media when "The Colbert Report" was broadcast, Steven Colbert was very open about the fact that he was playing a character on TV who happened to have the same name as him.
In the case of "The Tonight Show featuring Steven Colbert," he is not playing the character from the Colbert Report.
The very specific bit was from after the 2017 election when Trump was elected. Steven Colbert did a bit, in character as "Steven Colbert", with props from "The Colbert Report", and a guest appearance from Jon Stewart. (Because the main focus of "The Colbert Report" was to mock conservatives.) Otherwise, everything Steven Colbert (the person) does on "The Tonight Show featuring Steven Colbert" does not involve the "Steven Colbert" character from "The Colbert Report."
Craig Kilborn was able to leave the Daily Show and take bits like 5 questions with him. However, CC was a much smaller network at the time.
Nobody should have been getting their "news" from Tucker Carlson, Don Lemon, or Rachel Maddow.
IMO they shouldn't be allowed to call themselves news without putting entertainment in front.
> IMO they shouldn't be allowed to call themselves news without putting entertainment in front.
Agreed but the average person wouldn't understand that Entertainment News was different than News. The problem goes deeper. I despair.
Meanwhile, OAN sued Maddow for calling them Russian propaganda and her lawyers responded by flexing, doubling down with receipts under oath. Signing up for consequences if they were wrong, and receiving none because they were correct.
So no, these are not the same, and anyone who argues that they are immediately reveals themselves to be partisan hacks.
They are literally the same with one case having a text message.
They are both not news and if you think that one and not the other is news than you might be the partisan you are trying to label others as.
[Judge Smith] found OAN and its parent company were unlikely to prevail on the defamation claim because the challenged speech was not a statement of fact and the context of Maddow’s show made it likely her audience would expect her to make political opinions.
Putting the details of the court case aside, the judge is clearly saying that he does not believe that Maddow's show was "news" and it shouldn't be treated as such. That's what GP was pointing out: the defense of being "not news", which both shows have in common.
> the context provided by Maddow’s commentary before and after she made the statement disclosed all relevant facts and contained colorful language.
If you listen to the clip in question, you'll observe that Maddow explains the facts, makes an exclamation, and then explains the facts. The complaint here only works if you clip chimp the exclamation. Contrast this with the complaint against Carlson, where he engages in what was by his own admission sustained deception.
I think the 'average' person thinks of 'Entertainment News' as celebrity gossip, e.g., E! News[0] etc. Telling them the entertainment news/opinion/commentary they watch is not actually 'News' but is entertainment "news" doesn't compute
Like WWE is Sports Entertainment.
I've (somewhat sardonically) wondered if they're both false flag operations. Imagine CNBC started with the idea "we'll parody the left to make them seem radical and unreasonable" but accidentally developed a huge following who didn't get the joke.
That feels like a fairly reasonable assertion for anybody watching Tucker Carlson.
[1] https://popehat.substack.com/p/fox-news-v-fox-entertainment-...
Let's say you were involved in a freak hunting accident and shot somebody, but you were never charged with any crimes.
If the Fox News "hard news" program (if such a thing exists) said "skrebbel is a murderer" that is more likely to be understood to be a statement of fact, asserting something in a legalistic sense. [IANAL, but I think even this is unlikely to be defamation, although there is a somewhat similar case where ABC settled with Donald Trump over saying he was "liable for rape"]
If somebody on Tucker Carlson Tonight said "You can't trust anything that skrebbel guy says, he's a murderer!" that is more likely to be understood as an opinion based on disclosed facts, not a fact. That person isn't asserting that you committed or were convicted of a specific crime of murder, but rather that you killed somebody and it might be your fault. On a show were people are arguing and exchanging opinionated views, viewers should understand that these things are opinions. And therefore that's not defamation, because it's an opinion.
I am deeply offended and contemplating to sue you for defamation.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandco...
The UK's exemption from VAT covers lots of things, but not an entirely logical selection: cakes are considered staples and are exempt, but drinks (including soft drinks, beer and mineral water) are taxed at the full 20% rate.
In general, I would personally prefer that the UK not have VAT, as it's a regressive tax (people with lower incomes pay a greater percentage of their income on it than high earners do).
[1]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43805741-daylight-robber...
The tribunal decided that Jaffa Cakes were cakes because when they go stale they go hard like a cake whereas a biscuit tends to go soft when it goes stale.
Walkers lost the case.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/19/walkers-min...
Hah.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-is-why-your-c...
https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2017/02/snuggies-ar...
I also expected somebody from this community to enlight me :)
The tax on popcorn is also totally crazy. "Unpackaged and unlabelled popcorn with salt and spices is categorised as 'namkeen' and taxed at 5%. Pre-packed and labelled ready-to-eat popcorn attracts a 12% GST rate. Caramelized popcorn with added sugar is taxed at a higher rate of 18%."
Raw ingredients are taxed less than ready-to-eat or sugar-coated ultra-processed good. And I'm totally ok with that.
So I looked it up. And yes, that is exactly the case, and it's an absurd situation that is causing massive headaches.
"It's a nice story and the court won't prevent you from telling it, but legally these beings in that story are clearly NOT humans"
Hilarious.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43805741-daylight-robber...
[1]: https://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2015/10/time-compan...
Mallowpuffs are so much better than tea cakes. Squiggles, Tim tams, chit chats, sultana pasties, griffins macaroons, toffee pops, hundreds and thousands, mint slice.
Whereas here it's mostly shortbread or bourbons/custard creams.
https://www.ft.com/content/5af5b182-349a-4a25-b4fb-4551908f2...
https://www.ft.com/content/a6a54008-6059-4052-99ae-282f148f2...
https://www.ft.com/content/a8d6413e-1184-4f89-9bcb-4f6cb8d7a...
Most of their equipment is made in Portugal and finished in Germany, with whatever WTO agreed % of value added that allows them to stamp "Made In Germany" on the goods.
So for US markets they issues a series of lenses that were more fully finished in the Portuguese factory such that they could be stamped "Made In Portugal".
This makes it a jacket, and jackets are taxed at a lower rate than shirts.
The same shenanigans more or less work for most types of taxation. There’s always an angle to reduce or even eliminate taxes, unless you work on salary or for wages. It’s clear who the system is built for lol.
15% of a $33 shirt is $5
5% of a $33 jacket is $1.65
...it's definitely gamesmanship but if you squint you can see where it comes from.
How much tax for a laser printer? Well it depends how fast it prints:
Up to 14 pages/Minute: 25,00 € Up to 39 pages/Minute: 50,00 € From 40 pages/Minute: 87,50 €
For every storage medium this tax has been paid, because of the possibility of making a pirated copy. Technically we all paid already to make pirates copies.
It has upsides like having an army for defense, roads and other common things. But don’t forget the primary nature and motivation behind it. They just want your money, and your offspring to please them in various ways.
Isn't that true though?
Still not a fan, and probably the EUCD makes most of this useless.
The funnier thing is, you can't use the videos out of your camera for commercial purposes, because the video codecs inside your camera doesn't come with commercial licenses out of the box.
So if you are going to use your camera for production which you'll earn money, you need to pay commercial licenses for your cameras.
Hah.
> About using MP3 files
> This product has been licensed for nonprofit use. This product has not been licensed for commercial purposes (for profit-making use), […]. You need to acquire the corresponding licenses for such uses. For details, see […]
Best use an open audio codec instead.
You will still need a separate license (or multiple separate licenses) for commercial purposes.
Music licensing is unbelievably complicated
Do you have a link? Could only find a 2010 article[1] that appears to have been debunked by MPEG-LA themselves (per the updates in the blog post).
[1] https://www.osnews.com/story/23236/why-our-civilizations-vid...
From Nikon D500 User Manual [0], page 22:
From Nikon Z6/Z7 User Manual [1], page 236:
Sony has a similar note for A9 [3], but can be grouped under here, which is almost the same:
AVC Patent Portfolio License: THIS PRODUCT IS LICENSED UNDER THE AVC PATENT PORTFOLIO LICENSE FOR THE PERSONAL AND NON - COMMERCIAL USE OF A CONSUMER TO (i) ENCODE VIDEO IN COMPLIANCE WITH THE AVC STANDARD (“AVC VIDEO”) AND/ OR (ii) DECODE AVC VIDEO THAT WAS ENCODED BY A CONSUMER ENGAGED IN A PERSONAL AND NON - COMMERCIAL ACTIVITY AND / OR WAS OBTAINED FROM A VIDEO PROVIDER LICENSED TO PROVIDE AVC VIDEO. NO LICENSE IS GRANTED OR SHALL BE IMPLIED FOR ANY OTHER USE. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION MAY BE OBTAINED FROM MPEG LA, L.L.C. S EE http://www.mpegla.com
From Canon R5 User Manual [2], page 939:
“This product is licensed under AT&T patents for the MPEG-4 standard and may be used for encoding MPEG-4 compliant video and/or decoding MPEG-4 compliant video that was encoded only (1) for a personal and non-commercial purpose or (2) by a video provider licensed under the AT&T patents to provide MPEG-4 compliant video. No license is granted or implied for any other use for MPEG-4 standard.”
THIS PRODUCT IS LICENSED UNDER THE AVC PATENT PORTFOLIO LICENSE FOR THE PERSONAL USE OF A CONSUMER OR OTHER USES IN WHICH IT DOES NOT RECEIVE REMUNERATION TO (i) ENCODE VIDEO IN COMPLIANCE WITH THE AVC STANDARD (''AVC VIDEO'') AND/OR (ii) DECODE AVC VIDEO THAT WAS ENCODED BY A CONSUMER ENGAGED IN A PERSONAL ACTIVITY AND/OR WAS OBTAINED FROM A VIDEO PROVIDER LICENSED TO PROVIDE AVC VIDEO. NO LICENSE IS GRANTED OR SHALL BE IMPLIED FOR ANY OTHER USE. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION MAY BE OBTAINED FROM MPEG LA, L.L.C. SEE HTTP://WWW.MPEGLA.COM
[0]: https://download.nikonimglib.com/archive3/4qUKV00WD5Bh04RdeC...
[1]:https://download.nikonimglib.com/archive5/8Yygr00R9Ojb058Kwq...
[2]: https://cam.start.canon/en/C003/manual/c003.pdf
[3]: https://helpguide.sony.net/ilc/1830/v1/en/contents/TP0002351...
It seems the one caveat, per the Engadget article, is directly distributing AVC video to end users (I suppose like a direct download link on a personal site) is what requires a license but that license is free to obtain.
[1] https://www.engadget.com/2010-05-04-know-your-rights-h-264-p...
There are other license models, which is about manufacturers, publishers and TV stations, etc.
But nowhere it says "there's a free license for these cases, just get it from here".
This all looks like a rabbit hole for me.
Similar to software that is free or low cost for non-commercial use only, even with the same functionality.
The good news is typically nobody will chase you down on this unless you are making real money. The bad news is, once you are, they will.
Not getting caught for some time doesn't count either. You'll pay retroactively, with some interest, probably.
Licensing page is at [0]. Considering the previous shenanigans they pulled against open video and audio formats in the past [1], these guys are not sleeping around. These guys call people for patent pools in a format, and license these pools as format licenses.
[0]: https://www.via-la.com/licensing-2/avc-h-264/avc-h-264-licen...
What about if you're a YouTuber, surely they don't pay?
Can you show a single court case or even a press release where someone using a legit licensed product bought on the open market was sued for codec patent infringement?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhaustion_doctrine_under_U.S....
You license the right to use the patent pool for commercial purposes, not the device itself.
Edit: Missed the last part where you said the same
[I jest, but these were almost literally the questions being asked by various commissions]
E.g. study: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3860576/
But of course as you say it's largely semantics.
This assumes everyone acts in good faith.
A popular one these days is the "gun show 'loophole.'"
Rather than calling it "renegging on an explicitly-legislated compromise", it's a "loophole" that needs "closing."
It looks like a loophole, it could be in the textbook describing them. You have a law that establishes a rule, then creates a small exception that in effect opts out of the rule entirely. The people who want this provision eliminated don't know it was intended. That's pretty in the weeds of congress' internal negotiations
> You're assigning a single mind to a group of uncoordinated actors to create a hypocrisy that probably doesn't exist in any specific individual.
POSIWID
Now, it might be reasonable to remove this exemption, but the only way it's a "gunshow" loophole is that gun shows are a place where gun fans wanting to buy are going to meet gun fans wanting to sell.
Making it trivial for someone to do firearms checks seems like an easy thing that everyone should support, but alas no one in power seems to actually want such a thing.
If we negotiate and make a binding deal, I need to believe you will hold your end of the agreement.
The post pointing this out has different content to yours, which reads as if your meaning is “this reminds me of another bad thing caused by tax policies” - even if that’s not what you meant.
But I also never said OP’s anecdote was a bad thing. (Why shouldn’t countries be able to tax video cameras coming in…). What’s the difference?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatonium is used to make it unpalatable. Fun fact: the same chemical is also coated onto Nintendo Switch cartridges to discourage children from putting them in their mouths.
Nowadays we just measure pressure differentials.
Methanol sales were banned in Finland prior to EU and Finland applied for the exemption already in the EU application in the early 1990s. It was finally granted in 2019. Probably around 500 people died and many got blinded meanwhile.
If you close your nose the taste is just bitter, but bearable. The additives are supposed to make you vomit, but for me I only had vomit reflex for ~5 seconds after swallowing. I could live with that if I was addicted and couldn't afford a regular alcohol. I'm sure many people do.
Not sure what the moral is. I guess that addiction is a really strong motivator, and tax evasion is not a good enough reason to justify killing people with poison.
I suppose wormwood is an acquired taste, but it's one I happen to like. They still put it in many different bitters here in Sweden.
I have never seen this as anything other than the death penalty for evading taxes. If the tax were designed to reduce consumption across the population, it needs to scale with income or net worth. Otherwise, it's just a tax on the poor.
This "oil" is basically diesel. It smells and feels identical to diesel. But it's about 70 cents cheaper per litre compared to road diesel. It's dyed red, and you are not supposed to put it in your car, but I reckon it'll be more than fine for older diesel engines.
The red diesel is not taxed like road diesel, and is much cheaper.
Though primarily done to trucks, there are occasional fuel tests done by police. Even if your tank is currently clean, they'll occasionally pull out the fuel filters and check those for dye.
There's always the risk of getting your fuel tank dipped if you're on road. Moreso for trucks, but some jurisdictions will set up inspections and check for dyed fuel and tear you an absolute new one when they catch it.
Examples: Leica (for Fotos) charged a princely sum for various trifles before removing these fees.
Naim: charged £35 for the control app - which I paid - before going free, and now the app is the only way to control whole swathes of their increasingly-execrable hardware.
These two companies’ kit is expensive, luxury, premium, however you want to refer to it, and so they probably felt comfortable wringing their customers a little more. Probably understandable in the case of Leica owners who will pay £250 for a viewfinder dioptre correction lens (puts hand up again) but less so for hifi owners.
It is not that audiophiles haven’t been shown to spent inordinate sums on the dumbest, snakiest, oiliest tat this side of an Oxford Street souvenir shop, but it has to be material and palpable.
I have yet to find a professional sound engineer, producer, or artist that calls themself an audiophile or uses the insanely overpriced gear marketed to them. Lots of that stuff is demonstrably bullshit and only valuable because it’s expensive.
It looks like they have firmware for the G5 X, but not the G5 X 2. :/
I love the EU but it certainly has its idiosyncrasies.
Tariffs around the world have weird stuff like that. Very little to do with the EU itself. Expect a lot more weird things like that to happen in the US now with the new US government implementing new tariffs.
My personal favourite example is when the Irish Supreme Court determined that Subway bread was not bread: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/01/irish-court-ru... (Bread had advantageous treatment for VAT purposes, but Subway's 'bread' has too much sugar to qualify.)
There's also the famous Jaffa Cake case, of course: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffa_Cakes#Legal_status , but I think the Subway one has an extra element of absurdity because it went all the way to the _Supreme Court_.
Because it is not. Cola is not water either.
Without the EU, there would be a worse patchwork of rules and exceptions.
That is an acceptable position and you will likely nor require further investigation as long as the criticism remains vague and is offset by positive sentiment. I too love the EU.
After a few months of this they received a phone call on their landline warning them that such public expressions are inappropriate and that there could be consequences should they not find a new hobby.
I too love the EU but I loved it much more 15 years ago.
But tons of money coming in from the EU. I can imagine a lot of public quiet, private ‘angst’ about the kind of situation you’re describing.
Wild guess - Romania? (If not Bulgaria)
This issue does not appear weird.
There is some legally technical difference between a video camera and a still photo camera. Probably different tariffs or something. Not weird at all and it is not uncommon anywhere in the world for different classes och products to be classified differently, infallibly because of industry lobbyism to reduce their costs or to reduce their prices for their specific product.
The manufacturer chose to limit the product for the consumer for their own economic benefit. Nothing is stopping them from playing ball except their own profit motive.
It is I the customer who will pay the tariffs (they are always paid by the importer) - the manufacturer gets the same amount per unit.
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2016-00127...
If there is one thing the EU has absolutely achieved it is to massively reduce and harmonize tariffs and trade rules, and make the rules less susceptible to the whims of political favor and lobbying of local industry.
I'd still have to pay tax on it, though. IIRC there wasn't any personal exemption amount if you'd left Canada for under 24 hours, unlike they have now. Sometimes they'd just wave you through even when trying to declare something, which was always a nice little bonus savings.
To a (considerable) extent yes. But it appears to be going backwards - from 2021 online shops have had to know and apply VAT for a product to the buyers country, not the country in which they are based, and thresholds for charging and submitting this VAT were eliminated. Basically handing over more online retail to the likes of Amazon.
Different products have different VAT rates in each country, the only thing that can't be discriminated on is the (EU) country of origin. This is still absolutely susceptible to the whims of political favour and local industry lobbying. A recent example from Finland: https://yle.fi/a/74-20087643
[Admittedly I'm unlikely to be buying chocolate and crisps online from Germany, but if I were a German seller needs to charge the correct rate of VAT for each, which will likely be different from Germany and every other EU country]
No, I think it's to protect the European producer of devices that can do more from being out-competed by imports.
https://www.reuters.com/article/technology/eu-to-hit-some-di...
As for your point about alternatives, if they add a tax on oxygen you breathe, will you also then say "it's not so bad if the alternative is you are not allowed to breathe at all"?
Backups are already legal in France. It’s pure greed. Why should we pay twice? Also this levy goes to major labels, why should I fund the local Taylor Swift if I want to backup my computer?
> blank media
But we still pay that levy on blank media, phones, tablets, computers, hard drives, and USB keys. They even wanted to put that tax on refurbished items.
> the alternative is that you are not allowed
But it was already legal for the past 50 years. They added this tax, it’s not a gift for us, it’s yet another restriction on what was previously legal.
The alternative is that we download torrents pretty much everywhere except Germany which developed a private industry of lawyers extracting money from leachers and seeders alike.
Germans instead have VPNs set up in Poland or Ukraine and use their streaming websites.
Refs:
https://doctorow.medium.com/a-bug-in-early-creative-commons-...
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Copyleft_trolling
Easy money...
That's of course not the only alternative. But the recording media levy isn't that bad at least in Finland. The income from those is distributed directly to authors and artists, skipping the labels and publishers altogether.
Those bands are not famous but despite making sales, they only get a few bucks every year, or it’s the SACEM saying "we forgot to send you the check lol, no biggies." It’s the biggest legal mafia I can think of right now.
Most of the money collected is sent to huge artists (like what Spotify is doing), there is nothing indie about it even if they pretend it’s for the glory of French music.
It's the same idea as to why reducing the amount of means-testing and other hoops to jump to get social benefits would save taxpayers money - sure, more people who don't need benefits would get them, but that's more than offset by what would be saved by eliminating the workload of (and government jobs dedicated to) gate-keeping those benefits.
Huh? It may have dipped at the time Netflix had everything streamable, but there's been a resurgence in the now years since it hasn't.
I believe that under 30 minutes, allows it to be a digicam, but over, requires it to be classified as a video camera.
Most pros generally take scenes as groups of short runs, so that doesn't matter (Canon is used extensively in professional entertainment).
Large sensors optimized for still photography overheat when operating continuously for video, so they feature safety limits. Sensor heat dissipation is a big problem and a major differentiating feature of top end cinema cameras.
In short, there is no good reason anymore, but originally this was because of EU import tarifs.
It’s a joke.
But yeah technology evolves and the taxes remain. (Though don't complain too much or they will just pick the higher taxes for the newer cameras)
So they just publish some activation code on some consumer forum somewhere and from then on it's the consumer's responsibility.
I think they did the same thing with DVD region restrictions.
Speaking as an amateur photographer with multiple DSLRs: I’ve certainly needed longer than that for a number of gigs.
My (now ancient) Canon 5D mk2 is limited to ~28 minutes of video due to file system limitations.
You can learn about those here: https://taxation-customs.ec.europa.eu/customs-4/calculation-...
We also have VAT (sales tax) which is levied on top of the import duties (so the tax is taxed).
There are even restrictions on the quantities of some products you are allowed to carry between member states, such as alcohol and tobacco, mostly because taxes on those vary by jurisdiction.
So the restriction ends up being between things like security cameras, vtc cameras, and traffic cameras vs all other times of cameras. The relatively shitty camera in a doorbell or on your dashboard end up being more expensive to import than the fancy DSLR just because it is used in a different application.
The problem however wasn't Canon, but that I lived in a region (EU) that would have imposed a customs tariff on cameras that could do that, but by keeping it under that, the camera would be classed as a 'stills' camera and so was therefore exempt.
Admittedly this is different from the case in the article - but it would appear that owning something that could physically do what you want it to is only half the battle for numerous reasons, and in this case it would have been my government demanding extra money to 'unlock' this functionality.