Is a licensed, downloaded music recording your personal property? What happens when the state of California says that something is “tangible personal property” even though the EULA says that your rights are still restricted? How would California’s law impact interpretation of the first-sale doctrine as it applies to downloaded music and, by extension, software?
All these questions popped into my brain when I read about a California state assemblyman’s
plan to tax music downloads in the San Jose Mercury News:
A Los Angeles-area lawmaker trying to help raise money to delete the state government’s $8 billion shortfall thinks consumers should pay sales tax when buying from online music stores….
The proposal by Assemblyman Charles Calderon, D-City of Industry, doesn’t seek directly to tax music tracks, but instead would require the Board of Equalization to update a 75-year-old law that authorizes sales-tax collections on tangible personal property.
I am certainly not thrilled with the prospect of more taxes but I am fascinated with the prospect that this law might force a reinterpretation of what it means to buy something on-line.
