That's a dumb system as it doesn't account for the fact that a piece of property's value can change over time. You write a book, you have to declare its value prior to knowing it's value to consumers. If you aren't independently wealthy already you will never be able to become wealthy by writing books, paintings, songs, etc. as you will have to declare their value quite low in order to pay taxes on them. If it becomes popular the publishing company comes along and forcibly buys it from you for the low value you had to put on it because you couldn't pay the tax, then raises it's value far beyond what the author could afford and profits from the movies rights and etc.

The effect of a Harberger tax on intellectual property would probably be an upwards transfer of ownership of intellectual property, from people who can't afford to pay taxes on whatever those 100,000x more wealthy are willing to pay.

A Harberger tax might work well in economist-land, where any discrepancy between what wealth I could extract from my property and what wealth I actually extract from it represents an inefficiency that can be addressed by a transfer of ownership at market value at no inconvenience to the original owner. In reality, there are many other reasons than market value that I might hold onto intellectual property.

My mother wrote some tiny-selling (at the time) books; I own the copyright now. There is zero revenue (which is fine).

Should I be forced to pay something every year to prevent some AI company from bidding $1 and taking ownership?

I think so, yes, or you could place the copyright in the public domain.

Your current situation is a prime example of the failure of current copyrights. You aren't incentivised to produce any new art, it was unearned as you weren't the author, and yet still the state enforces the copyright for you.

This is only a solution if you think it's fair to have a regular ownership tax on top of the tax paid when purchasing / selling something.

It's a solution to the problem raised by the GP - how to fairly value IP.

This whole thread is about how many countries with land taxes don't similarly tax other assets like IP. Whether you think it's fair or not is another question - the blocker isn't fair valuation.

the solution to how to fairly value IP was provided by the owner, capital gains tax happens on sale of IP

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47220210

capital gains does not happen on sale of land generally. These two things are obviously taxed differently because it is to the value of the government to do so, and the value of the government is supposed in many countries to somehow translate into a value for society.

Profits from property sales are often tax as CGT. It's only a select few jurisdictions that don't tax property sales, often with both CGTs and stamp duties.

The difference in how their taxed in the US is certainly not standard globally, nor is it likely to be optimal.

OK I did not know this about the U.S, having never owned property there.

Actually seems a bit weird to find a tax situation in the U.S that seems less beneficial to the person paying the tax than many other countries.