The British lawmakers and ISPs are now seriously mulling the idea of a preemptive piracy tax; a yearly fee that would be imposed on everyone who uses the Internet - say, 30 pounds - collected by the ISPs, and given back to the artists.
I've already written about this proposal and its stupidity; now I'd like to explore the funny side of it.
So, without going into details of who owes what to whom and what's fair (I've explored that in the previous article), simply think of this ridiculous situation. Do they really expect that a granny from Sussex will pay a yearly fee to use the Internet, which will go into the hands of artists (the most popular of which are burning more money by the minute than our granny receives in a month), just because the music industry is "in trouble" because of "illegal file sharing"? Is she a "regular downloader" if her grandson sends her a link to a music video? What does all this taxation business have to do with her? Or anyone who's merely using the Internet and doesn't really care about the latest Duran Duran comeback, or perhaps music in general?
Furthermore, is the music industry really doing some special favor to the world that everyone needs to pay them a fixed tax, no matter how much and in what way they consume their products? What about writers? Actors? Software engineers? Anyone who creates any sort of work that can be easily copied and shared over the Internet? Who decides on who gets the biggest share? And how do you compare Keith Richards to, say, William Gibson?