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April 29, 2005
iPod tax
iPod tax: Netherlands proposal would tax MP3 players because they might be used for music theft... looks like US$4.30 per gigabyte, to be paid to the Big 5 copyright holders, presumably with some vigorish to the pols who enacted the scheme. Considering that mobile phones are increasing flash and drive memory, these seem like they'd be targeted in a later incremental stage too. I've got a better idea: since every born in The Netherlands *might* turn out to copy some music, why not just tax them all at birth, like $10,000 for a license to have a child, and take care of the problem from the start? More at Slashdot (and, of course, I'm not seriously proposing a birth tax).
Posted by John Dowdell at April 29, 2005 04:52 PM
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Comments
well, the dutch tax is a really hefty one.
Here in italy they already did something like that but it also covers blank cds and hard disks.
i think 65% or so of the otc price of blank cds is taxes , of which roughly 30% goes straight to the "music" industry .
Posted by: alessandro at April 30, 2005 02:56 AM