By now you've probably heard about Old Media vs New Media - television and radio making up Old Media and the Internet (with Blogs, web sites, IM, and more) being New Media... Well now Germany is putting into place a means for the New Media to keep the Old Media in business...

It works like this... Germany has two public broadcasting corporations (ARD and ZDF) covering both television and radio... These two corporations are funded by public licence fees (Rundfunkgebühren)... If a German citizen (or married couple) has a television (or a television and a radio) they owe a fee of about 16 Euros and 15 cents (about $20 US) per month to the central fees office (GEZ)... People who only own radios still pay about 5 Euros (about $6.20 US)... And kids (or parents) living in the same house pay separately if their separate incomes are above a certain level...

Well starting next year (going into full effect by 2007) people who dump their radios and TVs in favor of computers and the Internet no longer escape paying these fees! And they are raising the fee besides! Which means if you live in Germany and don't own a TV or radio, you'll need to start paying a fee of about 17 or 18 Euros (about $21 to $22 US) for the priviledge of owning a PC capable of connecting to the Internet... That's 17 Euros to keep in business Old Media companies whose services are not being used!

And don't forget the fine print! The fee applies to computers capable of connecting to the Internet whether you actually connect to the Internet or not... And if multiple people (like your kids) meeting certain income levels live in the same house, they all pay separate fees... And busiesses get charged for the computers they own as well... And this is all in addition to whatever fees are paid to access the Internet in the first place...

(This is wrong on so many levels... Why don't ARD and ZDF just offer pay-per-view content like other media sites on the Internet? If this catches on in other countries - talk about a quick and easy way to price the Internet out of reach of most people around the world!)