There has been a lot of chatter about the chance of an "iPod tax" being imposed on digital music players in the UK. Thanks to Dutch approving plans to bring in a levy on iPods and other players, there is increased interest in such a system.
The reason is fairly straightforward: advocates say a surcharge for digital players would help compensate for "seepage" by those who copy tracks between multiple systems, or give them to their friends for free. Many countries already have such charges on cassette tapes, and Germany even has a hotly-disputed copyright levy on PC hard drives.
But some see it as a "filesharing tax", used to compensate people for what they claim is a lack of revenue from songs which are illegally downloaded. Is that fair? Well, certainly the impact on profits is far from crystal clear - and in any case, should those who want to buy legitimately be forced to pay for the transgressions of pirates?
As Doug D'Arcy, formely of Chrysalis and Dedicated, points out:
"Strictly speaking, a home copying/fair use right does not actually exist in the UK. So a token levy on MP3 players would be a practical and sensible way of compensating for this kind of 'seepage' - similar to how blank tape levies work in various countries. [But] I certainly do not believe that such a levy should be introduced as a counterbalance to music piracy (which is illegal)."
So the question is: is such a levy fair... and, if it existed, how would you feel about paying such a tax?
