Unlike Spain, which apparently learned little from the experience of Canada, Japan has apparently killed efforts to enact a tax on storage devices of the kind found inside music players.
Perhaps Japanese seem to understand that the solution isn't to assume everyone is a criminal and that every storage device will be a vehicle for copyright infringement, and are offended that the honest folks will pay twice for their music -- once when they buy it, and again when they buy something with which to play it. Given the growth in digital-only music, a player tax seems contrary to the growing commercial reality that digital storage is a necessary tool for playing lawfully-acquired music.
Reason has to start someplace. It's certainly not doing well here (except perhaps to the extent you believe Lexmark should be able to use digital signatures to prevent you from accessing competitive vendors for printer supplies, or similar nonsense seemingly enabled by Congress over the signature of William Jefferson Clinton).
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