[Oletros]

Having DRM is not the cause of higher VAT, is being an electronic document what makes the VAT being the standard and not the reduced one.

And it is and European categorization, all the countries members of the EU must use that VAT

[ernesth]

France is battling Europe's notion of what electronic books are. At the moment, contrary to Europe's advice, France taxes ebooks as books (5.5% in France) while Europes wants ebooks to be taxed as services (20% in France).

This law plays on that distinction, considering that DRMed books are licences hence should be subject to 20% VAT while non DRMed books are indeed books hence subject to low tax.