If I lived in a country where the "pirate" levy was in place I would feel justified in copyright infringement because I would feel I have already paid for it.
What country you do live in? I'm just curious where this doesn't exist. In Slovakia (and also Czech Rep.) you have to pay for empty hard drives, DVDs, ... But pirating movies/music isn't illegal so I guess it evens out?
In many countries, downloading (which I assume GP means by "pirating") is fine, redistribution is not. Example: the Netherlands, where the govt. has recently affirmed that not only is it legal, it will remain so: https://torrentfreak.com/dutch-parliament-downloading-movies...
I doubt that this is a "pirate levy" at all. The fee on storage media is usually supposed to cover media shared with family and close friends, which is legal in many countries and does not count as piracy.
So when i buy media to back up my own work i have to pay a fee intended as a taxation to people that listen to music or watches movies with their family and friends?
The way the laws worked out to allow pirate taxes in Canada means that a lot of "piracy" is now legal. Though the media companies are now working on having the tax and making it illegal so we'll see how that goes.
