The BSA Fighting For Consumer Rights? Is This A Dream?
from the twilight-zone dept
Are we in some sort of twilight zone episode? Is this opposite day? Something must be going on to find the Business Software Alliance (the BSA) coming out against private copy levies and saying that consumers are being "double taxed" on content. The BSA? Fighting for consumer rights? This is, of course, the same BSA who every year comes out with a bogus study claiming billions and billions in losses by counting every piece of unauthorized software as if the user would have paid for it otherwise. So why are they suddenly coming out against extra taxes on blank media (something the entertainment industry is all for)? They claim it's because, thanks to copy protection technology, it's a "double tax." Of course, that might lead you to question why people should be "taxed" in this manner on a product they buy. Why do specific industries get a special government mandated fee when you buy something for a purpose that may have nothing to do with those industries? Of course, the more cynical among you may wonder if this is just a little horse trading by the BSA. They'll offer to drop the private copying levy in exchange for fewer fair use rights and more stringent anti-circumvention rules.
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Why the BSA is against a tax on media
JMHO.
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Re: Why the BSA is against a tax on media
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Re: Why the BSA is against a tax on media
We pay a tax on most (if not all, I'm not sure) blank media. In return, copying for personal use is allowed and legal on a fine line.
Legal: If I borrow a CD and copy it for myself.
Illegal: If I copy a CD and give it to you (distribution).
It was ruled that making files available and/or downloading them from file sharing networks because the action(s) we're closer to the legal example above (ie: when I download from kazaa, I copy the file for myself rather than the server distributing it TO me)
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now lets play nice...
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