Apple ordered to pay out the €5 million it's collected in copying levies in France
Apple has to pay out €5 million ($6.5 million) in home copying levies that it's collected but failed to deliver to the appropriate agency, the Paris High Court ruled on Friday.
Apple and other companies that sell tablet computers must by law pay a home copying levy to Copie France. In 2011, the tariffs were between €5.60 for a tablet with a 8GB hard disk and €12 for tablets with a 64GB hard disk and higher, said Charles-Henri Lonjon, general manager of Copie France, an agency that collects copyright levies for the music, film, visual arts and writing industries, on Monday.
While Apple collected the levies from iPads sold to consumers, it did not pay those levies to Copie France, he said. Instead, Apple put the collected money in a separate account and started numerous proceedings and court cases to contest the imposed levies, Lonjon said.
Copie France then started a counter procedure to get Apple to pay the levies, he said. On Friday, the Paris High Court ruled that Apple should pay €5 million to Copie France, €2.2 million less than the €7.2 million the agency demanded. The amount that should be paid is provisional, so it could change later in the proceedings, Lonjon said.
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