A Tax To Pay Artists For Music Copying?

Harvard professor William Fisher has a proposal for a tax on digital playback devices. Music could be downloaded and copied freely and artists would be paid from the tax fees. “He predicts that his plan, debated at a recent copyright conference, eventually would boost music revenues. Since online distribution is cheaper than printing CDs, overhead should shrink. Promotion costs could drop, too, as fans spread the word themselves about talented artists. Legal costs should vanish along with copyright lawsuits.”