Hear us Roar
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Piracy is Progressive Taxation, and Other Thoughts on the Evolution of Online Distribution
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Property tax on IP ? |
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2002-12-13 08:15:54 |
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anonymous2
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One thing I fail to understand about the intellectual property business is why it does not pay property taxes ...
If a landlord pays property tax on his buildings, and income tax on his renting profits, why does a movie/music/etc company pay only the second kind of tax on its intellectual property ? After all, both get the same protection for their property from the State.
I'll accept the argument that limited-time copyright protection is equivalent to taxing, in that N years of 0% tax, followed by reversal to public domain, are equivalent to X% yearly tax.
Making that clear, and giving definite values to X and N, would probably enlighten us all about who's getting tax breaks. And, somehow, I suspect the State would find it more profitable to collect the property tax if the property owner is really bent on keeping perpetual control ...
-ABL
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