Debated Thursday in the National Assembly, the law on the environmental footprint of digital technology is both consensus and debate.
The application of the private copying levy on reconditioned smartphones, that is to say, revised before being resold, was the subject of strong tensions between the world of culture - 1,661 artists had signed a forum - and that repair shops.
Read also: Les Ateliers du Bocage, a solidarity company, threatened by the private copying levy on smartphones
A "compromise", hailed by Copie France, has been found. The scale she proposed was approved. Refurbished smartphones and tablets will be subject to the private copying levy, but with a lower rate than that applied to new ones. The discount is 40% for phones and 35% for tablets. This provision was strongly contested by players in the refurbished sector who fear for the future of their activity. The fee depends on the storage capacity of the device concerned. For a refurbished smartphone over 64 Gigas, it is 8.4 euros. Whether sold 400 or 100 euros. However, companies in the social and solidarity sector specializing in this repackaging will be exempt, a sensitive point for many deputies.
The Minister of Culture, Roselyne Bachelot, welcomed a “win-win solution” for artists and the economic sector.
The prospect of seeing a law exempting refurbished cell phones from this royalty had caused an outcry in the cultural world, which saw it as a breach in an important system of support for artists.
The RCP, created in 1985, generated 273 million euros - the equivalent of 7% of the budget of the Ministry of Culture - in 2020 for the benefit of rights holders and cultural projects such as festivals.
Support the recycling and reuse of digital devices
The bill includes many other measures aimed in particular at supporting the recycling and reuse of digital devices to reduce their impact on the environment.
On the one hand, it encourages the reconditioning of devices and on the other, it establishes a levy on these products.
The tension surrounding this precise provision of a text however consensual as a whole was summed up in the declaration of the Breton deputy, Eric Bothorel: "
The telecoms lobbies, the big digital players are sometimes qualified as powerful ... I was able to measure that they are altar boys.
I have never been threatened by Orange and Google in the context of my duties
”.