Socialists create revenue source with new anti-piracy laws

Sweden has finally adopted laws that bring the country into compliance with the European Union Copyright Directive. Sweden is home to the bulk of copyright law offenders in Europe. One of the largest file sharing applications (DC++) operates a majority of its server hubs within Swedish borders. The Local reports:

Sweden on Wednesday passed a law banning the sharing of copyrighted material on the Internet without payment of royalties, in a bid to crack down on free downloading of music, films and computer games.

The law, which was approved by a large majority in parliament, will go into effect on July 1st. Those who violate the law will be ordered to pay damages.

The law is all well and good, but as is the case with most legislation written by the socialist cranks in Sweden, it goes a step too far:

More controversially, the new laws also make downloading unauthorized copies of copyrighted material illegal, and they impose levies on blank media of SEK0.0025 per megabyte for recordable discs and SEK0.007 for re-recordable discs.

Uhg... I could vomit. The tax doesn't sound like much when it's broken down to a per megabyte basis - especially to American readers who have no clue what the Swedish Krona (SEK) is worth - but this tax is ridiculous!

Let's break it down considering the 50 pack of 4.7 GB (4700 megabytes) recordable DVD's I have sitting on my desk. The disks are not rewritable, so I will apply the lower of the two taxes: (4700 * .0025) * 50 = 587.5 SEK. At today's exchange rate that works out to $79.95! Considering I paid $13.99 for this pack of 50, that's a 570% tax.

Disgusting.

I guess this explains why the laws in Sweden are so sexually permissive; otherwise the entire parliament and department of taxation would be sitting in prison for fiscal sodomy. Besides, it's not as though the tax makes any sense. The flawed logic behind this law is so typical of socialists. When will leftists realize that taxing the hell out of law abiding citizens does nothing to prevent criminal behavior?