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In Spain we get the worst version of this. Media organizations (the equivalents to MPAA or RIAA) get a percentage of the price of all storage devices (hard drives, flash memory, anything) that are sold, implying that they might be used for piracy. But it's still illegal to pirate! So we're paying for something we MIGHT do, but we still can't do it.

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The same is true in Belgium. But i heard there is a strange benefit: You are allowed to copy anything if the source is legally yours at the time of copying.

So person A lends some music to person B, person B copies it and returns the original to A. This scenario is legal. The nice thing is person A can be a library.

Now if person A makes a copy and gives it to person B, this is illegal, even if the end result is identical. Bits have color.

Same in Germany.

There would be no levies on storage medie. And it would be opt-in. It would only be illegal when you torrent and have not opted in to the p2p fee.

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