Taxes on hard drives

Tom tom at ricardo.de
Fri Feb 16 01:14:36 PST 2001


Alan Olsen wrote:
> Personally I see the whole unauthorized copying issue as a reaction to the
> excesive prices charged for music.  Think of it as "market forces" at
> work.  

exactly. it's not so much that the market has become illegal, it's more
that the legal walls have been moved, and are still moving. but then
again, laws become irrelevant if the market forces are strong enough.
lawmakers have been trying to make drugs or prostitution or religion
illegal at various times over the past 5000 years or so and the success
has always been pretty much zero. with the new technology, we'll just
add a few more areas, that's all. the law can move out of the way or get
shoved aside (as in prostitution laws, which are largely ignored even
where they still exist). of course, in the short term, there'll still be
lots of victims and the inquisitors will get rich before they're seen
for what they really are.





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