The Finnish Supreme Court ruled that taxi driver’s have to pay royalties for backseat music. Talk about policing every last iota of social space. The taxi???

This is just plain wrong and, surprising, as I thought it would happen first here in the US and not a place like Finland. I mean, the first thing I thought is: “wow do they even have taxi’s there?”‘

It makes me think of the “Mambo Taxi” guy in one of my all time favorite movies Women on the Verge of A Nervous Breakdown . If this law was applied in Spain, the mambo taxista would no longer be just one kick ass taxi driver and part-time amateur therapist, but a total copyright infringer/pirate (yarrr!) as he plays all this Mambo music and has all this cool Mambo paraphernalia in his taxi. Aldomovar whose specialty is the comic, the absurd, the atrocious, and the unthinkable, should consider doing a work on the “ExtreMe CuLture” of legally policing that seems to be creeping up everywhere.

But hey, maybe the powers that be should try to pass this law in the True and of the Taxi, NYC, because maybe the taxi drivers there would like all revolt and wage war. Now wouldn’t that be ironic if the fight against IP came not from scientists, artists, or hackers but taxi drivers? Taxi Drivers of the World, UNITE!