How is it, that the RIAA gets a "media" tax on every blank cassette, CD and NOW DVD, along with the MPAA getting a bigger one for DVDs?

Assumptions and payments are far and wide NOT fair. The (RI|MP)AA have FAR to much power and far to much influence on the "Laws" that surround copyright (and patent for that matter). They are wielding the DMCA and now newer "soon to be" laws much like the Grim Reaper wields his scythe during a nuclear explosion over a populace in a city.

They don't care about "what is fair" they care about the money and only the money. Not recovering payments for artists. Artists don't get ANY money from the quick $3700 settlements. Nor do they get any funds from the $750,000 lawsuits they have won. But the Artists pay the "losses" the RIAA has suffered out of the "royalty fund". How is that? Yes, fair?

And those less than 24 year old kids, they have been sharing music since they have been able to share. Since the first affordable reel to reel tape machines, to the affordable cassettes, to the affordable CDs, to now the affordable DVDs, and soon affordable HD-DVDs and Blu-Ray.

These same "sharing violators" are the same people that (used to) buy HUGE amounts of music later on in life. They (The RIAA) are biting the hand that feeds, later on. They claim they are losing with current pirating... I can see it. But they are tearing up the foundations for many of these same "pirate" that can't afford the music now, that will be able to afford the music later, once they get job and have finances to pay for them. The RIAA are turning off the spigot themselves and the RIAA doesn't see the problem.

I've bought (as an example) "Rush - Moving Pictures" so many times, I've really forgotten the true number. But right now, I have an two versions of it in CD form, "Moving Pictures" and "Moving Pictures - The Rush Remasters" in my collection. I know I've bought at least 4 more CDs of it (scratched, broken, driven over) and at least 5 cassettes (maybe more due to wear out and being "borrowed" (stolen) more than once) and I have 3 Vinyls of it, one so worn it is HORRIBLE, One played until I got CDs and another I bought at the same time as it was a "Buy one get one half price" at "Believe in Music" at the time. ("Believe in Music" is dead and gone)

So, summary goes like this: The RIAA doesn't want ANYONE to listen to ANY music the RIAA isn't paid for. This includes seed music to get people to buy later in life. They want the money NOW rather than later. This bodes horribly for them, as they are trying to change a phenomena that has been going on since "Reel to Reel" tapes were affordable. They are holding on so tightly they are killing the "for pay" music themselves. If they want to really make the industry right, they need to pay the artists properly and gently guide the channel(s). If they don't they will become (and largely have been already) a non-player in the industry that is seemingly passing them by.