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I don't understand why this law would directly affect VLC. As far as I understand they provide the software, not the content. Can someone explain?

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People downloading their software.

get.videolan.org

I wonder it bitorrent will provide a solution here?

Either very, it this tax story is true, it is completely rediculous and signifies complete desparation by France.

They could trivially just host it in other EU country s3 bucket, what am I missing? It would be up to Amazon GE/SP/xx to pay the bill (Just the binary the rest could just stay in France if so they want to).

From another comment here somewhere I understand that it is the content provider who is paying the tax, not the receiver.

it is the content provider who is paying the tax

See "tax incidence". Sales taxes are paid by businesses, and yet.

Yes, but that means that any company which previously provided free downloads would have to provide them only against payments, otherwise they would lose a lot of money.

Such a tax would be the end of any kind of free downloads and of any kind of non-profit content providers.

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