My goverment is stupid- Piracy tax

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
USA pays taxes on all but medicine and food bought to prepare at home.

Quit whining. Get no sympathy from me.

We're not talking about a standard sales tax on everything - which is already applied to this product. We're talking about an advanced penalty fee for assumed criminal activity. That's the problem.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by MRT144
Well, that should be incentive for you to actually make a profit cort.

:sigh:

Hmm, maybe I won't bite.

[KrazyHorse]

If they assume that I'm committing criminal activities using the blank media that I purchase then they're absolutely correct. However, they're paying royalties to the wrong people. The MPAA and software companies are more entitled to taxes on my blank media...

[SlowwHand]

Since 1992, the U.S. Government has collected a tax on all digital audio recorders and blank digital audio media manufactured in or imported into the US, and gives the money directly to the RIAA companies, which is distributed as royalties to recording artists, copyright owners, music publishers, and music writers

[MRT144]

i think that

a. it is imposible to create an economic incentive or compensation program that will cause a decline in piracy. that pack of cds is still cheaper than buying the music retail. the tax would have to be so high that it would make buying music cds cheaper. but that would have economic impact so far reaching that it would be far more damaging than piracy could even hope to be.

b. the technological efforts to defeat piracy are a waste of time because both teams are equally adept at creating and defeating strategies. they also would wind up costing more than they are worth to defend against piracy.

c. the only ways to defeat piracy are through novel new distribution schemes that add value to the product, creating new ways of making money from the music from non individual users ( think movies, ads, etc etc), promote live music more, and focus more on adapting to the market forces rather than trying to establish them from the top down.

d. the equilibrium is shifting so that while less people are making megadollars off music, many more are making small amounts of money of music. amatuer musicianship is on the rise as the technology to record and distribute is very cheap relative to previous eras. diy is pretty much the future.

d2. and while this seems like it could be good news for many there are some drawbacks: actual musicianship may not be fostered as much or noticed as a glut of crap is pushed out by wannabe rock stars and producers. in this atmosphere the public may become aathetic towards the new medium of distribution and cause rise to new types of gatekeepers who help guide people to good music. so far things like myspace, soundclick doesnt have that very well insituted.

d3. as the economic payoffs change the type of music will change with it. live music and commercial music may become more important to many people than music that they like. we can se this already with pop music but it definitely filters down. young producers of dance and hip hop are far more concerned often times with identifying trends, specfic sounds used by current artists and other metamusic industry crap that doesnt improve artistic expression.

d4. the best course of action is to resign yourself from the idea of being a star and be realistic about your chances in the market, then actually work towards over achieving.

e. the consumer will at some point realize its no longer economical to pirate because the fruits of piracy will become worse and worse. some say we are at that point already.

f. there will be a time where because the need for expensive and high quality equipment will be extinct due to the fact there wont be many large artists or labels to support large expendituresinto recording. weve already seen the loss of 2" 24 track tape, this will be sort of like a condenser on technology, the best will get worse, the worst will get better.

g. music is too interesting an industry to get involved with as a career

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by SlowwHand

That tax is only 3%, and only applies to blank CDs marketed as music CDs (if the product is labelled a "computer" CD it is not subject to the tax)

In Canada, that tax is more on the order of 100% (21 cents per CD-R)

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


That tax is only 3%, and only applies to blank CDs marketed as music CDs (if the product is labelled a "computer" CD it is not subject to the tax)

In Canada, that tax is more on the order of 100% (21 cents per CD-R)

Sounds very expensive.

In germany it depends on wether the medium is a CD or a DVD (as both differ in storage size)

For every blank DVD 17 cent go as Royalty to the GEMA, much more expensive than the price for a blank CD for which the GEMA gets only 1,4 cent and in contrast to the DVDs Royaltires have only paid for 30% of the bllank CDs sold (as it was argued that only a small part of the blank CDs sold will be used for storage of music).

(but on the other hand GEMA gets royalties not only for blank media, but also for recorders (around 5 Euro for a single CD burner for example))

[Aeson]

The tax is stupid. Copy protection is stupid. Piracy is stupid.

[Arrian]

Throw rocks at it... err... them.



-Arrian

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Proteus_MST


Sounds very expensive.

Filesharing of copyrighted music is legal in Canada as of this posting.

[SlowwHand]

It's really only in USA where thay have their panties in a twist.

[_BuRjaCi_]

Not only has my government seen it fit to implement this stupidity, but it has chosen the worst possible form. Its not a % based tax but a fixed tax somewhere around 0,70$ on CD’s and DVD’s.
Its absolute crap, since the tax doesn’t change with the actual price of the DVD.

And they don’t even have the guts to call it an Anti-piracy tax either, they either think all citizens are either stupid or that all citizens are criminals, but they should make up their bloody mind.

And nobody here seemed to notice that my government taxing not just carriers but computer hard-drives as well (it actually raises the cost of a computer by 10-15 %!!!!).

20 or so years in the future this would be cause for a revolt!!!
Most people don’t realize how important it will be for the lower class to have access to computers for their education and employment in a few years time.

I am considering acts of cyber resistance if my stupid right-wing government’s tax isn’t shot down by the constitutional court.

I’d consider a referendum on the subject but the turnout would be near zero and I’d never get the 20000 signatures needed.

[_BuRjaCi_]

It's really freaking me out. This law is just stupid but the other laws border on religious (almost American in nature) orientation with full support of the RCC.

I wish the Liberal Democratic party of Slovenia wasn't so incompetent or that the Social Democrats would have a better leader or that any party at all would realize that we live in an information society. Why do the politicians always live 10 years in the past?