You can’t lose revenue you were never getting in the first place, nor would never get in the future. If downloading an MP3 does not mean a lost sale, and we all know the truth of that, how the hell can they think copying a CD to a portable player equals one? I might be able to be convinced that a tax on blank CD’s may be justified some how if they could provide a compelling enough argument backed up by proof, but we all know they can’t and never have. Nor would the money actually go to the artists as blank media taxing in other countries have shown (such as here in Canada). On top of that, not all blank media is used to burn copyrighted material, and even if it was, fair use rights surely must come into play at some point. If anything, I would guess data storage is the more likely use when it comes to blank media. It is around my household anyways, in the form of partition backups and my digital photography. The other problem is that once a tax is in place, good luck getting rid of it even when it is no longer required. The laws recently past in Finland are a good example of this. Once they get their foot in the door, good luck keeping them out, and everyone behind them as well lol.

I’m still trying to decide whether they’re:

1. Deliberately lying.
2. Using legalese that has different meanings to what normal ppl think it has and are thus saying totally different things to what we think they are.
3. Just so incompetent they can’t figure out how to achieve what they’re aiming for and always manage to get it completely backward.

In short, if an Oz politician says something, don’t believe it. Oz kids stop believing in politicians before they stop believing in the easter bunny and santa claus. Of course the politicians will deny this strenuously, but just go anywhere in Oz and ask anyone you meet whether they believe anything that any politician says.

Once they stop laughing at you i’m sure they’ll say no.

A shortsighted approach The “con-artist” protection scheme will be obsolete before the ink dries. Just think….

What of the actors in movies? Soon many movies will fit a memory chip that can be inserted into all sorts of devices, including ipods, which are just glorified memory gadget, a chip attached to a tyny cpu.

And what of of novelist or poet that will soon only be published on the memory gadget whether voluntarily or not?

And what of the scientist or expert or photographer, etc. who formerly published for profit (almost all for the publisher) but must now release everything in digital files that freely propagate like rabbits?

BTW, when “artists” means the cartels, be it the music publishers and the record companies, it should be written correctly: con-artists.

Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com

So dont worry Yanks and Canucks ……

Plus I like Oz, which is what a lot of Australians I know call their homeland : )

Cheers!