For someone like me, who doesn't actually consume (and don't pirate) much of the content covered by those laws and taxes, I kinda feel wronged every time I buy a DVDR, a usb hard drive or key and so on. I use those to backup my own data (documents, photographs in raw+jpg, system backups..) and I feel sick to see even a cent of my money going to some random French singer I couldn't be bothered to care about. What little music I actually listen to (it's not a primary hobby for me) isn't even French. None of the money from the tax is ever going to the artists I do listen to from time to time.

Why should we subsidize a dying business anyway. Is this business that important to our daily lives ? I don't think so. Did they whine the same when modern technology destroyed other business practices or destroyed obsolete jobs, replaced by machines ? The music industry (the main whiner here) has existed for what, a century at most ? Let's just say it was a short-lived way to make a profit. People centuries ago didn't buy CDs or Vynils to listen to in their home. Is that business so essential to the world that we have to impose a tax on every citizen to sustain its existence ?

I'm not a pirate. I don't defend piracy. I just don't care for the music industry. It can completely disappear for all I care. There still will be music to listen to, just maybe not the drivel they're producing en masse.