For the Canon Digital promoted by Daniel Filmus, Vía Libre requests an audience

Next week, a group of people, organizations and companies linked to the use of new technologies, will request an audience with the Senator Daniel Filmus to open the discussion on the Canon Digital project that he promised to present in March of this year in the Argentine parliament. We want that before presenting this idea converted into a bill, the social impacts of a similar tax be evaluated and heard, in addition to the campaign of the beneficiaries (SADAIC, CAPIF, AADI, Argentores, the collective copyright managers) , the voice of those who must bear the burden of the digital canon, communications and computing users, consumers, independent artists and musicians, designers, and any other person, organization and company that regularly uses computing devices, including public administrations, schools, hospitals and NGOs. To those who wish to adhere to this initiative and add their voice to this presentation before Daniel Filmus, we present here the letter that we will send on Tuesday, February 17, at the entrance table in the National Senate. Those who wish to sign it, please send an email to info [at] vialibre.org.ar with your complete data to include in the list of signatories.

Dear Senator Daniel Filmus Honorable Chamber of Senators of the Nation Through an article on your personal blog, we have learned of your commitment to collective copyright managers to present a bill that will impose a "digital canon" on all the devices that allow the storage and transmission of works in digital format. The objective of this letter is to request an audience from you to contribute to the debate the point of view of those who should bear that burden, as opposed to those who benefit from it: users of new technologies, producers and users of free software and culture, bloggers, Freelance musicians and writers, designers, digital artists, professionals and users of communications and computing. A tax of this type, as it has been implemented in countries like Spain, is seriously regressive for our activities and generates high costs for public policies of education in new technologies, an aspect that we know concerns him as a priority after passing through the Ministry of Education. Education of the Nation. The digital canon is strongly resisted by consumer protection associations, Internet users' associations, associations and groups of users of free software in the places where it is implemented. We share with them the concern, even more so, knowing that the legal frameworks in force in the European Union are different from those that prevail in our country. Such a tax increases the costs of: * education * access to knowledge * technical scientific development * development of culture accessible to all social sectors, regardless of whether they can pay for it. * any activity that uses information technology intensively (that is, more and more activities, practically everything). To the eloquent disadvantages due to the increase in the costs of all computing and digital devices, regardless of their destination and uses, are added corroborated data on this practice in other countries, such as the cost of the royalty for the authors themselves. In Spain, the same General Society of Authors and Editors (SGAE, entity in charge of managing the funds from the canon) admits that only 200 of its affiliates receive more than they pay for this concept, in what constitutes an unjustifiable transfer of resources of the whole for the benefit of a strict minority. Thus, a regressive tax that affects all users of computing devices, regardless of whether or not they copy materials from the few benefited authors, should not be promoted without evaluating its real costs on the total of Argentine society that will be affected. Before moving forward with a project of this nature, it is essential to evaluate what the consequences will be of a tax that will be collected in a generalized way but that will be administered by private entities without the proper citizen comptroller. For these and other reasons that we wish to explain to you in greater detail and with more documentation, we ask you to Please grant us a hearing where we can discuss this particular issue before the bill enters the legislative channels in the Senate. For the purposes of this request, we set our email as a means of contact at info@vialibre.org.ar. (If you want your signature to enter the letter, send your data to info [at] vialibre.org.ar)