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The iPod tax?

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And not just on iPods too. Japan is making steps towards taxing Personal Music Players and giving the funds to recording studios, artists, etc.
morgantepsic

30 responses
The iPod tax?

  • What a silly idea.

    The scary thing is that if it makes it big in Japan, it will be here, in a slightly watered down version with bad over-dubbing, in a few years.
    jpoRS
  • In Canada, we've been paying a "tax" on any purchased blank CD/DVD's, for a few years now. They assume that we are burning music and movies illegally and want to pay out to the Music/Film industries.

    I'm guilty before proven!
    bjlawrence11
  • I'm fine with paying a sales tax on an iPod, but I'm not fine with paying a tax only on iPods. In some states including my home state of Idaho, sales tax is now added onto a purchase from iTunes. I'm now paying over one dollar for a song.
    Future_America
  • The article states, "...sales of iPods and other portable digital music players, as well as on digital hard disk recorders,"

    So not only iPods are being taxed, but nearly every device that can carry music.
    morgantepsic
  • Taxes on music downloads should be part of the price of the song. Duh!!! Buying music from the itunes website is no cheaper than buying the CD of the same music in most cases... and you don't get the liner notes and other collectibles you'd normally get with the CD.

    I don't think this tax idea will live long... you can't tax the device because the usage of that device will very from customer to customer. For example I have a lot of live music on my ipod that doesn't have a price attached to it. It would be un-constitutional to charge me for something that's free. That being said... I won't be surprised if I do.
    xenomode
  • A very peculiar idea. Even though downloading music from sites like Limewire (guilty!) is hurting artists they still have much more money than the common person. I don't think the tax is a good idea but it may not last very long.
    Aletta
  • the only people who're losing revenue off ripped albums are the labels .
    malathion
  • "The proceeds would go to recording companies, songwriters and artists."

    Why do I suspect that the "recording companies" will get a dime for every penny that goes to artists and songwriters.
    seeker561
  • I guess when you can't target "pirates" directly, everybody pays the "consequence" of paying a tax on media players.
    morgantepsic
  • The ipod destroyed the music industry, and now they're trying to give back. But aren't we sick of the music "industry"? do we really want to help revive this industry? The unsigned artists on your ipod probably won't see a cent of that tax. What about smaller, unrecognized, labels? Who will actually be seeing this money?
    This tax sounds very suspicious to me.

    celestialceiling
  • Again,

    I think it's all a plan to give back to the record labels and other exec's.

    We all know that artists primarily get their revenue via ticket sales and merchandise. I think this is just another step towards separating artists from labels, and letting them run their own show.

    I disagree with your statement saying that the iPod destroyed the music industry, and this is no way has any affiliation with Apple trying to "give back". iPod's were simply just the first to have music in your pocket, and it was easy.

    We can't "revive" this industry, this is simply just a step towards changing it. Radiohead is being a pioneer in this force towards this "revolution" or whatever you want to call it.
    morgantepsic
  • watch this comment being used here, here, here, here, here, and here
    What about people who use their ipods to carry tracks they generate themselves (like me), or use it to have a copy of their music library?
    celestialceiling
  • Good idea or bad, at least that's one less thing music executives can grip about.
    devo64
  • that would probably make people think twice about stealing music
    knightlynight200
  • It's not going to make people think twice about stealing music. People are going to be illegally getting music for a good part of our future, with or without a stupid tax on iPod's.
    morgantepsic
  • Fined for hypothetical crimes? Glad to know I'm trusted by my government. Don't forget, trust is two-way street. This tax seems a little sketchy.
    guntown_kid82
  • I'm confused by the claim of "the iPod destroyed the music industry"....how?
    ipodrulz
  • well, F- that...
    thedez
  • The ipod, took the "industry" out of "music industry." The ipod enabled a generation to carry in the palm of thier hands a device which could play music that they never paid the industry for.
    celestialceiling
  • I love apple by the way, and meant no harm. I'm a mac user too.

    Apple took advantage of the situation when labels were trying to sue people for downloading music. Record companies have been in terrible decline since 2000. Apple is the one making the money.

    http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/15137581/the_rec...
    celestialceiling
  • Keep in mind that this is Japan's government, so stop complaining that the government is taking away "your" rights. This isn't affecting the US...yet.
    morgantepsic
  • The music industry must be desperate for money.
    And yet I'm sure people will find a way to get around the problem and make this "iPod tax" a useless effort.
    saverio
  • if anything this will make more people steal music, people that have always brought music legally will now be charged for something they didnt do, and if thier being charged, they may aswell download it illegally, because either way the same people are getting money..

    i think its unfair to put the whole class in detention instead of finding the one kid who made the paper aeoplane...
    R7
    • R7
    • 8 days ago
  • watch this comment being used here and here
    I just read that the annual fee would be around 100 yen...

    It's not the end of the world: it's less than 1 euro, less than 1 dollar and around 0,50 quid.

    saverio
  • How much more of our money do the artist and record companys really need?!
    Ice_cream_Man
  • I'd be more sympathetic to the artists and the record industry if they didn't charge $15 for a CD that cost 10 cents to make.
    Varex_Sythe
  • No one can expect the new generation to keep cluttering and bothersome discs.
    Excessively taxing Mp3 players is just taxing a new and useful technology for no acceptable reason.
    In the words of Walt Disney... keep moving forward.
    Wicker_duh
  • In the U.S. we also already pay a tax whenever we buy blank CDs - and that fee goes into a fund that gets split up by the record companies. This has been going on for many, many years, yet very few people are aware of it.

    Actually, this "iPod tax" is a pretty interesting idea if you think it through. It's not some kind of punishment for "stealing."

    Imagine if, instead of record companies suing people for downloading music and losing millions of dollars while pursuing a moribund business model, we simply paid a small monthly tax that got added on to our Internet connection fee. That money would go to the record companies and we could download as much music as we wanted without paying anything else and without any DRM.

    Many people have suggested this solution but, of course, the record companies have not signed on. I think this would be an elegant solution. Everyone would win! Consumers would pay a small fee of a couple dollars extra a month, something they would barely notice but which would generate considerable revenue for the record companies.

    And Apple did NOT destroy the music business. If one must think of things that way, then a more reasonable culprit would be Napster. But I think the record companies destroyed themselves by failing at every single step along the way to take advantage of a great new way of distributing music until it was much too late. Apple entered the game at THAT point.
    Blazesboy
  • Fantastic idea! I hope some day a Noise pollution tax--from music off course-- would be introduced to help our environment. It would be a win-win scenario
    Auddy
  • I wanna know how the money will be distributed.
    iknew

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