EU ruling decides Spain's "digital canon" is against European regulations

The so-called "digital canon" in Spain is "abusive" and does not abide by European regulations, the European Union Court of Justice has ruled. The tax - a levy on all sales of computers and materials for recording and reproducing digital data, which is designed to compensate artists for loss of earnings through piracy - should only apply to individual consumers and not companies and corporations, it declared.

"The application of the canon for private copying on reproduction media acquired by companies and professionals for use other than personal copying does not conform with EU law," the ruling read. But Culture Minister Ángeles González-Sinde said that she will seek "an alternative" to the canon in conjunction with the "other European countries that will be affected" by the ruling. Currently, only Ireland, Britain, Cyprus, Luxembourg and Malta do not apply a similar levy.

The ruling does not affect the application of the canon on mass-usage technology such as cellphones, MP3 and MP4 players, USB memory sticks, CDs and DVDs. "The mere capacity" of these products to copy information justifies the tax, the court said. The canon brought in over

¤100 million for copyright-collecting agencies such as the SGAE in 2009. The Popular Party has called the canon "unjust and arbitrary," while the centrist UPyD describes it as a "medieval tax."