HP Pays Music Surcharge On CD-Rs

Remember the plan, in the U.S. and Canada, to tax DAT and send the profits to the music labels? Bubblehead writes "GEMA successfully sued HP over the fact that music CDs can be copied with CD-Rs. Now HP has to pay DM17 (US$8) for each CD burner sold since February 1998. So far I only found a German article on this (AP). You can translate with Babelfish. I think this is going too far - it's like adding a surcharge to a camera, because you might take a photo of an expensive painting."

Comments

What about pirated software? Let's cut them in!

[coyote-san]

I recall hearing a rather humorous ad (unintentionally humorous, I'm sure), where Microsoft claimed a quarter of all MS discs are counterfeited. These shady duplicate discs supposedly have a far greater incidence of viruses than 100% Pure MS discs, and are the (sole) reason why Windows systems are always crashing.

Since CD-Rs can be used to burn duplicate software discs -- and in fact *are* routinely used to duplicate "working copies" of discs so the originals can be kept in a scratch-free environment -- and many of these discs illegally find there way onto unauthorized systems despite all reasonable efforts by the IT staff, doesn't it follow that MS should get a similar surcharge on all CD-R drives because of similar abuses?

I'm not seriously suggesting this, only pointing out that the same logic can be easily used by other groups to demand their own surcharge. I'm sure still others can find reasons why millions of law-abiding consumers should also chip in some cash. Should we accept all of these claims -- claims which paradoxically make it far easier for people to justify such illicit copies "since they already paid for it" -- or should these groups grow up and go after the handful of bad apples breaking the law instead of the vast majority of law-abiding consumers?