France Copie Privée Levy: Smartphones Could Cost More in 2027

A mechanism from the cassette era

The levy dates from 1985 and compensates rights holders for private copies of legally obtained works. It is a flat fee based on storage capacity, paid by manufacturers and importers and passed on in the retail price, whether or not the buyer ever copies anything. Copie France collects it; a quarter funds cultural projects. Smartphones account for 70% of receipts and tablets 13%. A March 2026 Cisac study ranks France first worldwide for collection, ahead of Germany.

Critics question its relevance. Most music and film is now streamed, and on 16 April 2026 the EU Court of Justice ruled that files downloaded for offline use in apps such as Spotify or Netflix fall outside the private copy exception. The studies used to set rates are not public, and lawmaker Philippe Latombe has criticised the broad definition of private copying given to survey teams.

Rights holders argue copies now live in the cloud, yet the levy is still calculated on a device's local storage, while cloud providers pay nothing. Only online video recorders for TV and radio, such as Molotov, have paid since the 2016 law. Extending that to general cloud storage would require new legislation.

If adopted, the new rates could apply from 1 January 2027, with the final decision depending on the two commission meetings.