Hi,

Just got in idea or question? In Sweden (I live in Spain) where I come from there is a private tax on blank CD. Its the "music - artists union" who impose this tax (of course with government support) due to piracy they say. I would love to have the power to tax as they do! So is this tax against GPL and other terms? The actually tax Swedes when they burn a distro under GPL.

any ideas?

you can tax a physical entity regardless of what's on it...

Ummmm. Did you know that the VAST majority of things burned are not GPL things such as linux? Did you know it is majorly music and pirated games which are burned? If you believe that it is otherwise, you obviously do not know what you are talking about. If blank cds costed alot, it wouldnt stop priacy, or even put a slow to it, but it would irritate alot of people. In new york, you go to chinatown, and know what? Every block there are about 10 guiys with tables selling burned cds. Each is about 5 bucks. To say it is an affront to GPL that they are doing this, you are wrong, they are simply attempting to help preserve their living.

The music industry is full of crapolla, literally and figuratively. I doubt seriously whether piracy has increased because of CD burners. More likely, the same people who were making copies of records on cassettes are now making them on CDs. The reason the recording industry is losing money is because they produce crap that nobody wants to buy. Heck, I won't even listen to it for free.

Another problem with the tax is it punishes independant artists. My friend is an example. He and his friends produce their own CDs so they can sell their music. But the tax means that his band has to pay the record industries when the band makes CDs with their own music on them.

I agree with acid though, the tax and the GPL really don't have anything to do with each other.

Quote:

Originally posted by Greyweather Another problem with the tax is it punishes independant artists. My friend is an example. He and his friends produce their own CDs so they can sell their music. But the tax means that his band has to pay the record industries when the band makes CDs with their own music on them.

Well that just won't do! What happned to the free spread of the wealth? There is something wrong here distribution of Labor and Economics come to mind? high school classes? HELLO

Full of shit! You doubt piracy INCREASED???? Dude, in my high school i was like the first one to get a burner, it cost me about 400 dollars for a yamaha scsi 8X 4X RW. I sold a bunch of music cds for about 1 dollar (to pay for the cd itself). In my last year of high schoool (about 1 1/2 years ago) high speed burners were about 50 to 100 bucks. If you wanted a cd, you had but ask and about 50 people would offer to burn it for 5 bucks for you.

Burners were made FOR piracy, Burners were made FOR Warez, Burners were made FOR going against copyrights, to deny this is ridicious. To claim that piracy wasnt increased by burners truly demostrates your lack to touch with the real world.

Whatever, dude. When I was in high school everyone had bootleg cassettes. Only a moron would claim the tape recorder was invented to rip off the music industry though. Anyway, my point was the music industry is losing more money because of the crap they chose to produce than any increase (if any) in piracy. Just look at that poop-daddy guy and his "making the band" reality show. Record lables think they can take anyone off the street and make them a pop star in the studio. These guys couldn't play a single instrument or write music or anything. But when poop-ditty loses money it's because of piracy. I don't think so.

Dude, 50 cent sold 4 million. There are probably about 10 million copies of his cds out there. I think nowadays, more people are buying bootleg stuff than real stuff.

And about casettes, those are so stupid man It takes how long to record a 90 minute casette? Oh yeah. 90 Minutes. You can earn more working minimum wage than making casettes for people. But it takes about 3 minutes to burn an 80 minute music cd, well ill be damned! Thats a lot easier and a lot more product AND profit for your work! I wonder if itll increase.

And BTW: MTV isnt representational of the music world. #1 That show had so many viewers it was crazy, it was popular. #2 The show stank, but so do all reality shows, but still you morons watch them. #3 I am not talking about P Diddy I am talking about the industry as a whole. There are many more artists who are getting bootlegged constantly. Jay-Z released his black album early because there was SOOOOO much bootleggin that he would have lost much much money.

And know why there was bootlegging? Someone can go out, buy a bootlegged cd, come home and make a bunch of copies and sell them for 5 bucks each. Almost every computer nowadays has a burner, it has increased piracy by so much. if you had to listen to all your music SOLELY on your computer, you would not bother downloading MP3's, but since you can burn this illegal music and play it in your car, it is much much better.

Actually, you could buy high speed dubbing decks back in the day. Think I still have one around here somewhere. Makes a 90 minute copy in about 15 minutes. Anyway, as to 50 cent, he's selling a gangsta image, not music. But, granted, some people who wouldn't know a good tune if it slapped them in the face buy into that kind of crapolla. That's why poop-daddy got so rich in the first place. They just don't have any staying power. Next year someone else will come along to take his place and 50 cent will be forgotten. Good music is timeless and continues to sell well long into the future. Unfortunately, that's not the kind of musician record labels sign nowadays. When their flash in the pan artist dries up they really don't have anyone to blame but themselves. You think Britney will be selling any records when she's a shriveled up 50 year old?

Hmmmm. I never thought about it like that. It's almost like hardware companies were conspiring against software companies and the music industry. I always thought they were made because back then about the best thing you could find to put your files on was a zip drive. I'll be damned. It all seems so clear to me now.

Canada also has this "tax"

qote:
And about casettes, those are so stupid man It takes how long to record a 90 minute casette? Oh yeah. 90 Minutes. You can earn more working minimum wage than making casettes for people. But it takes about 3 minutes to burn an 80 minute music cd, well ill be damned! Thats a lot easier and a lot more product AND profit for your work! I wonder if itll increase.

Dude, we did not have cd burners back then, let alone computers(unless you wanted to pay $3,000 for a top of the line pentium 4Mb ram 48Mb hardrive) Times have changed, get with the program.

Well,

what I don't like is that it's a private tax. PRIVATE not the goverment. Most of MY burned CD 90% are GPL and not music or movies and I did not say that was the case for the rest of the world.

Some say that the music industry shall have the right to punish all of us in group gilty or not. If this would happen in the "crime" sector it would be a lot of protests.