Comment by sharpshadow
Comment by sharpshadow 20 hours ago
This reminds me of maybe the worst tax in human history which is also unconstitutional. The Pauschalabgabe[0] in Germany, which also got adopted in other countries, implements a freely decidable flatrate tax on all mediums which can be used to create a pirated copy.
How much tax for a laser printer? Well it depends how fast it prints:
Up to 14 pages/Minute: 25,00 € Up to 39 pages/Minute: 50,00 € From 40 pages/Minute: 87,50 €
For every storage medium this tax has been paid, because of the possibility of making a pirated copy. Technically we all paid already to make pirates copies.
Isn't this also what allows people to create copies for personal use, and what makes downloading pirated media legally clear, and only producing/distributing illegal? Sounds like a fine tradeoff, as fixing IP laws (and international treaties) is way too hard of a problem.