And in a sense there would be no "censorship of the wallet"- when anyone can read science papers, books, etc., there's a lot more intellectual freedom.
Hopefully I've allayed your concerns, at least in theory. The government has a hand in almost every walk of life, and not all of it takes a fascistic turn. The Founding Fathers even used government to make patents and copyrights possible :).
Ignoring that, do you really want guys like Al Gore (want to censor Prince), Hillary Clinton (wants to censor GTA) or John McCain (wants to censor the Sopranos) having the ability to stop payments to artists they don't like?
My argument for why nothing should be excluded or censored, is that it isn't presently censored, and since fans of every type of music and media pay taxes, it should all be covered. And I'm certainly not suggesting politicians have any influence over that; I'm suggesting putting that in the hands of judges or arbitrators.
But, the whole idea is really to figure out a rough idea of what the artist would have earned under the "old" (present) market. That might be doable simply by tracking radio play, pop culture references, BitTorrent shares, downloads, how many remixes get made, sales numbers from concerts, Youtube views, etc. That would not be very invasive at all.
By the way, government courts are already frequently called in to assess how much one company owes another for something, or the market value of a service, etc. So the government already does this- however good it already does it, is probably the baseline on how good it would be implemented without any unusual data.
And I understand you promote doing this in a content neutral way. Perhaps it will be content neutral at first. Then Bill O'Reilly (a popular Fox pundit) or Oprah play "objectionable" songs, and point out (correctly) to their viewers that their taxes are paying for it.
(Some examples, selected from one of my favorite artists.)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=8hPvtuu9CbM
http://youtube.com/watch?v=R37H38bMVec
http://youtube.com/watch?v=lk06_ll_vgo
Remember, it's for the children. If we don't do it, little johnny will grow up to be a gay cannibalistic terrorist! Censorship is another thing McCain and Hillary can agree on.
Anyway, it wouldn't really be "their" tax dollars paying for the music you like, any more than it would be your tax dollars paying for their Christian music (remember, there's no discrimination in what's purchased). Faced with also having their free Christian music taken away, I'm pretty sure they'll ease up in their opposition. It's better to think of it as your tax dollars paying for the music you like, their tax dollars paying for the stuff they like.
I hope that if ever a law like this were to be passed, you would continue to be concerned. But, I gotta say I always find it annoying when people criticize what might otherwise be a wonderful idea, by arguing that some people might be stupid about it, so we shouldn't do it. It's time to stop being so afraid of stupid people.
Government pays for and administers roads, the military, the justice system, and a host of other things that are much more abusable than our entertainment. They don't completely mess up all those other things, and I don't think it's likely to go badly when it comes to music. Given that the worst thing the government could do would be to not pay for certain things, meaning the artists would have to sell the music just like before, that's not exactly devastating.
AT&T has assisted the government in illegally spying on you. Barack Obama did what George Bush asked him to do: he voted to give them immunity for their crimes. Is that "Change we can believe in"?
To address your comment somehow- the law you cite is probably unconstitutional. It was struck down by the Supreme Court once before, before being modified and passed again. I doubt the present form is constitutional, since it obviously does restrict speech.
Ironically, you, me, and the far right are the ones who most agree the law is bad :). Conservatives hate that law much more than do liberals. The conservatives' argument is "money is speech".
This might be partially solved by my commercial idea for #17. But, that idea breaks down for things which are only rarely sold. And it would be very difficult to apply to corporate buyers, who have varied and changing needs and behaviors.
This is where the government could take the lead. The govt. could declare all patents and copyrights, or just certain classes of them, to be public domain immediately upon creation. Then the government would (anonymously) track usage of all of them. It would then take that info, and estimate how much the creator would have earned in the typical monopoly market patents and copyrights have. And then pay that much to the creator.
Example: a company makes some enterprise software. Once released to the government, it can be downloaded by any company, from a government website. The government collects as much data about usage as possible. They find that, say, 50,000 companies are using it as their primary software. In a normal market, they estimate the company would have earned $25 million for the year for that many users. That's what the developers earn. If they think the data is undercounting (or the government thinks the data is overcounting), it can be arbitrated.
Advantages of this approach are myriad and overwhelming- the first country to adopt this approach will have a major competitive advantage over all other countries, because all their businesses and individuals will be using the highest quality software, health care drugs and devices, manufacturing processes, etc. The collective cost to society, paid via taxes instead of private expenditures, would be roughly the same, since the government would only be trying to pay the creators the same amount they would earn under the old market.
For the creators, while revenue would be the same, profit margins would go up, since their marketing and administrative costs would mostly disappear. Basically, they would get paid more for focusing on what they do best- creating useful things. No longer would they need to be experts on numerous other aspects of distribution.
For the taxpayers, instead of paying for one copy of software, and that's all they got, they would pay the same amount in taxes, but be free to try any software ever made. Apply the same logic to anything else that was covered by copyright and patents, and you will see that's quite a deal, don't you think?
For those crying "socialism!", well, yes, I am suggesting the government increase taxes in order to gain a valuable common good. But this would actually reduce the amount of bureaucracy people have to deal with- no more DRMs, RIAA after your butt, piracy warnings before movies, dealing with insurance bureaucrats (once prescription drugs and medical devices are public domain, there is much less need for insurance and other complicated stuff, because medical care becomes much cheaper (without creating more government regulation of healthcare. Yay!)), unnecessary business administration, etc. etc. etc. The government would only be monitoring usage, and paying money. That's a pretty light hand.
12. Fix advertising.
If "fix advertising" means "eliminate advertising" (OK, that's my definition), the idea above would eliminate most advertising. Once the content of newspapers, magazines, TV shows, online web content, etc., is free (the creators being paid by the government), advertising has lost its function- anyone would be free to publish an advertising-free version of something.
This would do wonders for the psychological health of humanity.