Lan Barnes wrote:
BZZZZZZZZZZZZT. Bad analogy. The DMCA or Patriot act have nothing
whatsover to do with funding anything by anybody nor do they involve
taxing anybody for anything. The BBC funding mechanism is a
fee-for-service mechanism. If you don't like the service, don't buy
it. You seem to be under the misperception that you aren't "taxed" for
television programming here. Instead of the government taxing it here,
the corporations are doing the taxing. You pay a little more for every
item you buy that is advertised. The corporations then spend that
money to advertise on TV and they put programming in between the
commercials. In return they get to veto programming. If they don't
like it, it doesn't get shown between their commercials.
Hi Neil,
If memory serves, (I didn't google it) ALL televisions are
taxed in Britain to fund the BBC, whether you watch BBC or not.
I recall that the authorities enforce the tax rather enthusiastically
and I wouldn't be surprised if the tax collectors drive by houses
looking for TV emissions. (I think they used to look for local
oscillator emission, but do modern tubeless tuners emit enough
signal to track?)
Thus, your choice is to own a TV or not, hardly a way to
introduce competition in programming. Your opinion of advertisement
supported TV is rather cynical, isn't it?
Not cynical at all. Economically accurate.
I just wonder about how much influence the advertisers have on
content. Certainly, advertisers will jump ship if they find they
don't like the content.
I wonder how all you privitizers would feel if you had to pay tolls
every time you used the roads to run to the store.
A true privitizer would be in favor of such a scheme in that
the net costs would be lower. Coincidentally, I heard that
The Governator's appointee to DMV wants to set up a system
wherein every vehicle would have a gps receiver that would
monitor location so that charges could be levied for "freeway"
usage. Government tracking your every move? This will go
over like a turd in the punch-bowl.
Regards,
Lew
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