Quote:
Originally Posted by darryl
I posted in another thread my belief that bad laws lead not only to increasing disrespect for the law in general but also to many people applying their own moral standards in lieu of the particular offending law.
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Is there any evidence that piracy is lower in the US, where eBooks don't face higher taxes than paper books? What about France and Luxembourg before this ruling, as compared to Spain and Germany? If you are right, shouldn't there be evidence that the former have less piracy than the later?
A couple years ago, it was, to me, a good law because eBooks, due to the cost of eReaders, were a luxury item. In the less affluent EU countries, it probably still is a good law. Only when eReader and/or tablets become ubiquitous among the less affluent does it become a bad law, in my opinion. And I'm not quite sure we are there yet. If anyone actually has statistics on the average income and wealth of eBook vs. paper buyers, I will be interested.
Now, if you believe form factors prized by the more affluent should be taxed at the same rate as a well-used paperback, you'll have a different opinion. So may low-income persons who spend a lot of their meager income on eBooks. So may those who have other reasons for opposing the EU regulation. But varying opinions don't equate to bad law.