bk99.de entertain the web since 1997

bk99.de
hß · NetworksCurated

Internet broadcasting fees as a brake on innovation

Summary

In 1997, ideas of charging broadcasting fees for internet-capable PCs met with fierce opposition. The industry association for information technology threatened to sue, and research minister Rüttgers spoke of a brake on innovation: a company with 1,000 PCs would have had to pay almost 30,000 marks a month. The fee collection agency GEZ admitted that the state treaty had not foreseen the technology and waived fees for the time being.

Ideas

  • The state treaty defined every device that can reproduce broadcasts without a time delay as a receiver.
  • This formally made internet-capable PCs liable for the fee as well.
  • The IT industry argued that internet transmissions were asynchronous and not broadcasting.
  • A new regulation needed the approval of all German states.

Insights

  • Technology-neutral legal wording often covers devices nobody had thought of.
  • Fee models per device fit poorly with workplaces with many computers.

Facts

  • Under the rules of the time, a company with 1,000 computers would have paid almost 30,000 marks a month.
  • The GEZ did not want to charge fees for internet PCs until a workable regulation was in place.

References

Critique

  • The report mainly reflects the industry’s view; the arguments of the broadcasters hardly appear.

Remarks

  • The fee for “new types of broadcast receivers” came in 2007; since 2013 a device-independent broadcasting contribution per household and business premises has applied.

Recommendations

  • With new classes of devices, check early which existing levies or obligations they could trigger.
  • Take part in consultations when rules are being made for technology you operate.

Read the original article

Search the Web Archive

hß · 2015

Free Wi-Fi: Freifunk volunteers provide internet for refugees

In 2015 Freifunk initiatives provided refugee accommodation in Hamburg, Stuttgart, Hanover, Dortmund and other cities with free Wi-Fi. There was often no internet connection there; the Freifunk volunteers built the infrastructure, partly using directional radio, and financed it through donations. Authorities held back because of the German “Störerhaftung” (secondary liability), which the volunteers circumvented by routing the traffic via VPN to their own provider.

hß · 2008

IETF discusses transition scenarios for the new internet protocol IPv6

In Dublin in 2008 the IETF discussed how IPv4 devices could continue to communicate during the transition to IPv6, since all 4.3 billion IPv4 addresses were expected to be allocated in around three years. Comcast engineer Alain Durand presented “Dual-Stack Lite”: IPv4 is tunnelled through the provider’s IPv6 network and translated there using carrier-grade NAT. Experts such as Fred Baker and Gert Döring warned that such NAT could delay IPv6 and called for native deployment.

hß · 1996

Internet chess: Karpov wins in 32 moves

On 26 August 1996, world chess champion Anatoly Karpov played publicly against the internet community and won after 32 moves. The online players had ten minutes each, after which a computer played the most frequently proposed move. Around a quarter of a million people visited the website, but most of them only watched the four-hour game.