You joke, but this is actually how it works in places. As recently as 2015 we paid some % of all storage media sales (think HDDs, nvmes, flash drives, anything that can hold data really) to our RIAA equivalent to ”compensate for private copying”. Now it’s no longer baked into the prices, but they are paid directly by the government, as in through taxation.

They really have you all wrapped around their fingers, don’t they? Your democracy is literally on fire around you and the best both ”sides” can do is bicker whose fault it is.