Cost of MP3 players to rise

The Japanese government will propose this week a plan to charge copyright royalties on sales of iPods and other portable digital music players, as well as on digital hard disk recorders, a major daily newspaper reported Tuesday.

Read: Japan to propose copyright fees on iPods, digital recorders

Great! I am 100% in favor of this. 100￥ per player? No problem. That's about 100￥ every 2-3 years to remove the last spot of guilt I felt about downloading & sharing music. I certainly wasn't feeling guilty about ripping off mega corporations who sue individual users.

I think this proposal is an admission of failure to stop computer piracy and they are simply adopting the approach of Tax Everyone, even those who do the right thing. So I suggest we support this law, help it go through and then give up buying media once and forever! (though I will always buy originals of Hayao Miyazaki DVD's)

Though if you truly want to support your favorite artist, go to a concert instead. They make more from each performance than they do from the CD.