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elios
join:2005-11-15
Springfield, MO | Re: Another tax? wouldnt it be you know legal then?
and if your paying for it why not start?
im sure you can find some thing you would like to download | |
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Jason Levine
Premium
join:2001-07-13
USA
| Exactly. Taxes like this are stupid for a whole bunch of reasons.
First of all, if the tax is to recoup "lost sales" from piracy, then the government is just giving users a green light to pirate. I don't pirate music, but if I were taxed as if I were a pirate, I would definitely download some illegal music files to get my money's worth.
However, what if I were incapable of pirating music at all. Suppose I was deaf. Obviously, I wouldn't be going around pirating music. However, I would still be taxed as if I was.
Secondly, I wonder where the money will go to. I'm guessing that it will go to the big record labels. But what about a smaller indie label. Their music might be pirated too. Do they get some compensation? If so, how do you divide up the funds. Does some money go to the singers and some to the songwriters?
Lastly, this seems to be slippery slope. Once record companies have a piracy tax, the TV companies are going to want one. And the movie companies. And the software industry. And so on. Before you know it, the price of your Internet connection doubles thanks to piracy taxes. (And going back to the first point, you can bet that I'll be pirating a *TON* if they double my ISP costs thanks to piracy taxes.)
This is just a bad idea all around. Here's hoping it dies a quick, painless (for us) death.
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-Jason Levine
Support a children's charity. Buy a calendar. Shooting For A Cause
Jason's Toolbox | PCQandA.com | |
| basquiat
join:2008-04-04
Montreal, QC
 ·Bell Sympatico
1 edit | Sorry I just have to respond to TK Junk Mail as it seems he/she has erroneously referred to downloading content as "illegal" or "stealing" on a few occasions.
Downloading music is not illegal in Canada, period. Second downloading music is not stealing; stealing implies that you've taken something away whereas downloading is simply making a copy. This is why downloading music is classified as copyright infringement in the USA and is no different and no worse than dubbing a song off the radio or photocopying a book at the library.
That said the argument can certainly be made that it is an unethical practice and not one that I personally support. I didn't mean to rant but the amount of hyperbole that exists in these forums is staggering. | |
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james
join:2001-02-26
antarctica
| Re: Another tax? You are 100% correct, the current law in Canada only outlaws uploading music and so on, downloading is totally legal.
I also agree with you in your opinion that downloading a copy of something is not stealing. If you want to see an actual example of "stealing" Intellectual Property, just look at what the record labels do to the bands they represent. $30 for a CD and an insignificant fraction actually makes it to the band. Hilarious when you consider that a band could distribute their songs on their own website and make more money from a couple of ads and people who order a signed cd or tshirt directly from them.
The record labels are no longer necessary, and are now working against the interests of their clients. | |
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