Judgment_paragraph 31 · Microsoft Mobile Sales International Oy and Others v Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali (MiBAC) and Others (C-110/15)

31The Court has however accepted that, given the practical difficulties in identifying private users and obliging them to compensate the holders of the exclusive right of reproduction for the harm caused to them, it is open to the Member States to establish a ‘private copying levy’ for the purposes of financing fair compensation, chargeable not to the private persons concerned but to those who have the reproduction equipment, devices and media and who, on that basis, in law or in fact, make that equipment available to private users. Under such a system, it is the persons having that equipment who must discharge the private copying levy (see, to that effect, judgments of 21 October 2010, Padawan, C‑467/08, EU:C:2010:620, paragraph 46; 16 June 2011, Stichting de Thuiskopie, C‑462/09, EU:C:2011:397, paragraph 27, and 11 July 2013, Amazon.com International Sales and Others, C‑521/11, EU:C:2013:515, paragraph 24).