Several net and consumer rights groups in Spain are set to go to court to formally object to the so called iPod tax which was introduced in the country last month.
The iPod tax is the levy charged in some countries on digital music players - and sometimes, as in Spain, other storage devices like USB sticks - which is meant to compensate artists and music owners for any private copying of tracks from CDs to said devices. It is the digital age equivalent of the levy previously charged in some European countries - though not the UK - on blank cassettes and CDRs.
The levy is not without controversy because some argue it penalises those who only put music bought from legit download platforms onto their digital music devices - ie music licensed for transfer to an iPod and which therefore does not fall under the private copying banner.
Many Spanish groups lobbied against the levy prior to its introduction and now that it is law they are stepping up their efforts by trying to have it over-turned through the courts on the grounds the tax is unconstitutional. The country's Internet Users Association presented its appeal earlier this month, and now several other interested parties say they will mount similar appeals before the end of September.
Confirming his group's appeal, the Internet Users Association's top man Victor Domingo said this weekend: "It is a tax that goes against the presumption of innocence because it takes for granted that somebody who buys, for example, a USB flash [drive] is going to use it necessarily to copy a song or a record".