SteevAK

Alright, so the interesting thing about this article is not that it’s my favorite tech company (Apple) giving the bird to my least favorite western European country (France) over one my least favorite things (taxes). The interesting point is the purpose of the French tax. It’s a fee on all media that can be used to pirate music, and the proceeds of this go to French musicians for royalties lost due to piracy. Doesn’t that seem strange? If I want to buy a new hard drive or a pack of CD-Rs in France, I have to pay a tax because I might use it for piracy even though I really just want them to back up my own data. It’s as if the government assumes the consumer is automatically guilty of piracy. So, the moral of the story is that even though sometimes taxes in this country seem so backwards and screwed up, it could be worse.

On a somewhat related note, I am now two for two on the Pepsi/iTunes giveaway thingee. Maybe I can win these days.