RIAA To Target CD-R

mike skoglund writes: "According to this 8/20 RIAA press release, the RIAA is concerned about CD burners. Hilary Rosen, president and CEO of the RIAA, said: "Many in the music community are concerned about the continued use of CD-Rs . . . and we believe this issue deserves further analysis. A preliminary survey of tech savvy online music enthusiasts recently conducted for the RIAA showed that nearly one out of two consumers surveyed downloaded in the past month and nearly 70 percent burned the music they downloaded. All of this activity continues to show the passion of the consumer for music and the need for both legal protection and legitimate alternatives.'" I enjoy Rosen's claim that "consumer loyalty to the physical product still dominates and we are committed to providing the quality product listeners desire." I wonder if they'll eventually push through a Canadian-style tax on anything that can carry data.

Re:Canadian CDRs

[stevens]

The tax we have here (aside from various compound sales taxes) is only on the CDR media specifically for audio. (read: the kind that works with those near-useless standalone CD copying whizmos).
...

There is no tax on the vanilla CDRs because those have business uses.

Bullshit. The levy (not "tax, but levy", sounds less like ripping you off) is on all kinds of blank media [neil.eton.ca]. Even audio tapes and CD-RWs.