I shouldn’t be updating my site right now, since I’ve got a shitload of words to put together for my paper due tomorrow, but this article in The Register just kills me. Apparently, the Netherlands are planning to tax portable mp3 players, in order to reimburse the music industry for possible use of pirated music on those players. This is common practice already for blank CDs, CD burners and harddisc-drives. The argument that all those devices aid in the unlafwul reproduction of music doesn’t sound any better today than it did a few years back when they introduced it. It’s still pure robbery, nothing else. Here’s a quote from the article:
If this legislation comes into play, the surcharge will be as much as €3.28 ($4.3) per gigabyte. This might put €180 ($235) to the price of a top end iPod.
So, if you want to buy a portable mp3 player in the Netherlands, you’ll have to shell out that extra money, and you still don’t have the right to download any music for free. You’ll still have to either rip your CDs or download music from one of the legal portals, resulting in you paying twice, and the music industry getting double. What the hell? What sort of industry is this, which a priori regards its customers as thieves? And what sort of idiots are the ones who are lured into passing such kind of legislation? Has the whole damn world gone mad?
Oh well, I’ve got my mp3 player, so screw them.