Portugal proposal would tax computer, mobile storage [U]

01602updated 09:30 am EDT, Fri April 13, 2012 Portugese may try copyright levy

(Update: may be shelved) Portugal's opposition-status Socialist Party has made a proposal that could, in at least some cases, hike the prices of computers and mobile devices. Although ostensibly to focus on professionals, what Portugal's Exame Informatica saw (via TechEye) would add a levy of 20 euro cents per gigabyte on storage up to 1TB and 2.5 euro cents for devices over 2TB. The rate would climb to as much as five euro cents per gigabyte for external "multimedia" drives.The levies would also extend to both internal and external flash storage. A memory card or USB thumb drive would incur six euro cents per gigabyte, while even internal flash on a phone would face a 50 euro cents levy. Printers would see an odd levy based on the pages-per-minute rate.

In practice, the costs could see dozens of euros added to the price of hardware, such as

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