CDR: Re: Germans to tax PCs for Lars

[Tom Vogt]

Tim May wrote:
> You're missing a more important point: there is no correlation
> between who is using the service or product and who is paying the tax.
> 
> Taxing a computer used for video game playing, for example, when
> absolutely no "piracy" is happening from that computer. An overly
> wide net.
> 
> Governments like this sort of thing, however. Tax everyone, then
> spend the revenues as they wish.

not quite right. it is NOT the government that collects, and this is not
a tax. there's a "non-profit" organisation called GEMA that collects and
re-distributes these things.

the system has been the subject of criticism often, but works
surprisingly well. that might be because the article doesn't mention the
OTHER side of it. for example, paying a fixed sum to GEMA enables you to
play music in public (say, as a shop owner in your shop) without having
to deal with the individual artists and labels for "broadcasting
rights". it greatly simplifies things for small shops.