Living in the Netherlands, I used to be fine with this. It used to be that you'd pay a bit extra for storage media, but that piracy was tolerated. Downloading, that is. But recently the government caved to EU influences and now downloading content is also enforced to be illegal, yet the storage media taxes remain.

>... pay extra-taxes on any digital support with the excuse that people use them to store pirated material.

That's not what the blank media levy is for. It is a compensation for the right copyright law gives you to copy works you bought in one format to a different format. Think buying conversion of an audio CD into mp3 for listening in your car.

Not that the real justification makes sense, but please stop associating it with piracy: it is wrong and serves to perpetuate this levy.

>Think buying conversion of an audio CD into mp3 for listening in your car.

How is it a "right" if I have to pay extra for it?

wow. that's even worse.

and i wonder if companies continue to receive that free lunch even after they inflict DRM on their customers.

The blank media levy may well be unfair, but I don't see how enabling or engaging in widespread piracy helps fight against that. It probably does the opposite, given the rationale behind such taxes.