You know what's funny??

[HansG]

Whenever I buy blank CD-R(W) media, I pay a litle bit of 'tax' which goes directly to our Buma/Stemra, the Dutch RIAA.

This was initially introduced to finance the downfall in record sales... since CD-Rs have been booming ever since, I doubt the music industry have lost that much money in the first place...

The funny thing is, besides the fact that the vast majority of my used CD-Rs are not used as audio-cds at all (but they still get paid for it, even if I use it to burn a new game or to make a backup god forbid), is that it is still illegal to copy an audio-cd.

Isn't that a contradiction? If I don't pay the record company for the legal cd, I pay the record company for the illegal copy through the cd-r tax... yet in the second case what I do is still illegal and I could be fined. In that case there's no way I can claim the already paid money for the cd-r back!

How on earth did such a paradox ever make it into the law? Do other countries have the same 'tax'?

[cerialnumber]

you only pay this tax for audio cdr's , the cdr's that you can use in burner of an audioset.
you dont pay tax for datacdr's.
That's why there is such a difference in the price!!!
The real audio cdrs are about 4times more expansive.
So i dont think you got it al right there:tilted

But even so, yeah it's stupid anyway

There even trying to limit the use of regular CD's. So that they wont play on a computer. Stupidly enough this means that a lot of carplayers wont play aswell.

FILESHARING keep it REAL

[PowerMan57two]

wow I didn't know that, must be true we learn something new everyday! lol! :devil

[HansG]

whoops! my mistake... thanks for pointing this out :-)

[guido123]

This "tax" is 45 euro cents for every hour of music wich can be burned on to the cd.

[guido123]

Fore those of you wo speak dutch: jou can read more about this tax in the following articel:

http://www.cdmediaworld.com/hardware/cdrom/cd_tax_nl.txt

And on the page of the organisation that collects the tax:

http://www.cedar.nl/thuiskopie/index.html

[jonny5]

Don't think the American RIAA has placed a tax on cdr's here in the states, but I may be wrong.

[wonderboy2005]

audio cds here in the states are way more expensive than data cds... so i guess you could call that a tax, tho i dont think it goes to the riaa/

[hawkburn]

For the US people here, you can get dirt cheep CD-Rs in 100 pack spindles or 50 pack with cases for really cheap at Sams Club or if you dont have one of those, WalMart which is owned by the same guy, Sam Wall

[jonny5]

sam *walton

off topic.. i'm glad i will soon be quitting walmart :D pushing carts in the snow would suck(which is what i would be doing).

i haven't bought cd's in a while. I usually don't make copies of things i download.. unless i'm backing up my computer, but good to know where to get them cheap when i finally run out :D

[Caitlyn Marble]

gah, don't they pay you less than minimum wage there at Walmart? wish you luck in your future endeavors, you deserve better.

but seriously, at Costco you can get 100 TDK CD-R's for cheap too, thats the alternative if you're a Walmart hater but don't mind huge warehouse stores.

[klimt da man]

Same here in Canada, my friend. And it started with cassette tapes. I think it started with something like 45 cents (30 eurocent) PER tape so if you're picking up a box, that's quite a chunk added on. Similar with CD-R's.

However. I myself own a dictaphone that uses regular-sized cassette tapes -- a nice advantage, huh? None of those pricey mini-tapes. That usually meant that I'd buy a box of those super-cheap low quality tapes, rather than the nice high bias ones. Except the added tax is the same regardless, so suddenly I'm paying twice the price for my tapes, and not violating a single copyright law.

I don't know how they got that one through. I'm going to be punished based on an assumption??!