Posted by Technobarbarian on 12/29/05 21:10

"Sla#s" <phil@KNOTslatts.fsworld.co.uk> wrote in message
news:dp183m$cbf$1@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk...
>
> "Technobarbarian" <Technobarbarian-ztopzpam@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:SuadnU3j79iX-i7enZ2dnUVZ_t2dnZ2d@giganews.com...
>>
>> "Morton Davis" <antikerry@go.com> wrote in message
>> news:vpFsf.682574$xm3.199156@attbi_s21...
>>
>>> Yet the largest new group of persons sentenced to prison in the UK are
>>> young
>>> single mothers who had an unlicensed TV.
>>
>> What, it went from none to one? Do you have a cite for this amazing
>> factoid?
>
> http://www.spiderbomb.com/tv/womenprison.html
> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/11/08/nfee08.xml
> http://www.centreforcitizenship.org/tv.html

Thanks. Only one of these sites speaks directly to this question and
its figures are 10 years old. And there's also a bit of a language
difference here. In the States, in general, we only speak of it as having
been sent to "prison" if the person is incarcerated for more than a year.
Most of the people who default on their fines are only getting "jailed" for
a week.

That said, I do agree that the situation in the UK is a good arguement
against using that particular taxation model. Maybe I'm missing something,
but I don't see any taxation model that's particularly appealing and past
performance by any of the industrial nations government's don't give me much
hope of seeing a fair and effecient system being implemented. All of the
proposals I've seen either completely ignore any linkage between the use of
copyright protected media files with the tax paid or don't link them in any
realistic manner. Just looking at the combined income of the industries
involved should give any rational person some idea that whatever model used
the amount the average person paid would not be insignificant. Here in the
States the consequences of our government getting involed in artistic
pursuits to this extend does NOT sound like a good thing.

TB

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