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In Norway, there was a tax levied on blank media, as everybody supposed a significant portion of them would be used to make, ah, evaluation copies of copyrighted material. The tax income was put in a fund, from which copyright holders were compensated by market share (methinks).

It so happens I have excellent memory for numbers; my preferred blank media in the late eighties/early nineties and their associated prices:

Blank Fuji VHS tape, 240 minutes: NOK 89/ea (In today's money: $20) Maxell XLII-s 2x45 min cassette: NOK 65/ea ($14 today) 5.25" floppy, 3M: NOK 179 for pack of 10 ($40 today) 3.5" 1.44MB floppy, Esselte: NOK349 for pack of 10 ($80 today) CD-R (1996): NOK39/ea ($7.50 today)

I'll hand Maxell that, though - the tapes I used to record live music on back in the nineties still sound excellent today, so for longevity, they're hard to beat!




They tried adding a tax in the UK but it never got there: http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2017/09/endless-cycl...




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