MPAA pushes for increase in hard drive tax

If you ever wanted evidence that the MPAA are clinically squirrel-food, just look at the logic behind this one.

Even if you were insane enough to grant the MPAA their logic (which reasoning is about a straight as epileptic spaghetti in an earthquake) I'm sure you could find some maniac somewhere who used 98% of his hard drive space for illegally copied material, thus justifying a "200GB" hard drive which only contained 4GB of available storage.

I use Linux, so I have no need to illegally appropriate anybody's software. I have no spare time for watching them, so I have no motivation to download movies which would sit unwatched on my hard disk forever. WTF should I be taxed part of every hard drive I buy?

The only other company reknowned for taxing people for stuff that they'll never use (ie, requiring OEMs to sell MS-Windows with every system regardless of whether the buyer is actually going to use it or not) is Microsoft, convicted illegal monopolists, so... why haven't the MPAA been done under the Sherman Act yet?

Sorry, for those who won't understand the way I've phrased this, the article is basically a reframe of the MPAA's real position. The illiustration is different, but the logic is the same.

AC, you've doubtless noticed how many folks think businesspeople are smart folks who base decisions on logic and research. That their goal is smart business decisions. Nothing is further from the truth. All the huffing and puffing from the MPAA and RIAA is like junior high, when my little brother and his friends had peeing contests. The main difference between that and what they are doing now is they are trying to micromanage their own customers' behavior. I just bought a new cheapie DVD player- it won't let me skip the idiotic FBI warning message at the beginnings of the disks. Same ole microsoftian tactics- co-opt the hardware, and you're stuck like a tick.