Welcome to the new reality. The party is over and the piper is in need of payment. The States of which we are United of are now waking up to this cruel new reality. Deficits abound and politicians are scrambling to keep the lights on. Instead of taking a pound of flesh from the Rich and the Corporations, New York's Governor, David Patterson, wants to take it from music lovers.
From Nikki Finke's Deadline Daily:
I can't even imagine what new taxes California's Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger will impose to make up the state's $11.2B deficit. But his counterpart in New York, David Paterson suggests bridging that state's $15.4B budget gap by calling for 88 new fees. These include an "iPod tax" on the sale of downloaded music and other "digitally delivered entertainment services."
Welcome to the wonderful wild world of regressive taxation. The Rich, the wealthy, the fatcats aren't hurt when digital music gets taxed. Hell, they'll barely notice. The people that get screwed are the people that are always screwed by regressive taxation, the people that can't afford it. We live in dark days where every penny must be accounted for twice over. Why should little Timmy, who got a $15 iTunes Card for his birthday -- because his Father died in Iraq and his mother is working four jobs to stave off the Bank and a $15 iTunes Card is all she could afford this year -- be forced to fund the State of New York when he buys the new Black Angels album?
Sure, David Paterson could opt instead to raise state income taxes on those making $250,000 a year and thereby shift the tax burden to people that can afford it, but hey those people vote and give money to political campaigns. They wouldn't much care for it. Lil' Timmy -- with his shitty birthday present, Dead Father, and Overworked Mother -- doesn't complain and in fact can't complain. He can't protest regressive taxes on the small glimmer of entertainment in his increasingly bleak life. Brilliant idea! Tax Timmy! Tax the Music! Tax the people that can least afford it. Meanwhile the Bernie Madoff's of this foul world are face down in a plate of blow, surrounded by supple high class hookers, downloading as much music as they please.
Not only is taxing digital download morally bad policy, it is also simply bad policy. Taxing digital downloads assumes that iTunes, or Amazon's Music Store are the only delivery systems for download entertainment. If I don't have enough money to pay for a .99 cent song and the couple cent tax, or simply want to be a dick and make a point about David Patterson's idiotic tax policy, I am going to go to any number of Torrent sites, or boot up LimeWire and download said song/album/t.v. show/movie for free. A practice the Squares at the RIAA and AMPTP call piracy.
So, not only does a tax on digital entertainment punish the poor and the middle class, it encourages a whole new generation to do what my generation learned to do back in 1997 with Napster, namely not pay for music, movies, or T.V. shows and download them for free anyway, thereby further imperiling those industries and the artists that depend on them.
Good work there, Gov.