Replacing DRM With A Music Tax Is Incredibly Stupid

Why are some people always asking the government to step in to solve a market challenge?

[...] mandatory monthly tax in the European Union on broadband Internet and mobile phones of around €4/month that allows consumers to download and consume all the music they want without DRM. Payments will be made to rights holders according to popularity of music - if a song is very popular, it will get a higher percentage of total fees collected.

(TechCrunch in Replacing DRM With A Music Tax Is Incredibly Stupid)

Where is the problem? The customers will decide what they want to spend their money on. And in the case of the music industry artists and customers will decide upon the faith of the record labels, which are just distribution platforms for the product artists create. The artists needs to decide how he wants to reach his audience and what his goals are. And as a customer I do the same. I don't want anybody to tell me how and where to buy a certain product. I vote with my money and choose whatever suites my needs. If there is a match between my needs and what artists provide we have a win-win situation.

Now that I'm living in Panama I'm quite happy to fulfill my entertainment desires in iTunes where I can buy what I'm looking for. But probably I'm not supposed to do that, because I'm not located within the US market. ;-)