Frank Wilson
is a retired Inquirer book editor who blogs at http://booksinq.blogspot.com
I am writing this in a secure location well outside the city limits.
I mention this because it means I won't have to pay the city in order to have the privilege of earning some money as a freelance writer.
On the other hand, it looks as if I will have to pay for the privilege of continuing my blog - at least if I try to make some money off it - should I ever return home.
It seems that anybody who makes money doing anything in Philadelphia is obliged to get a business-privilege license, which costs either $50 a year or $300 for the lifetime version.
Which is why, as reported in The Inquirer on Tuesday, "some bloggers who make a few dollars from Web ads were informed recently that they had to obtain a license."
Doug Oliver, spokesman for Mayor Nutter, conceded that "there's often a blurry line when someone's passion becomes their profession." But, according to Oliver, once a blog starts generating revenue, it's a business like any other and needs to be licensed if it wants to operate here: "It is the same standard for any business operating in Philadelphia."
Remember that the next time your kids set up a lemonade stand. Or you have a yard sale. And what about people selling stuff on eBay? Seems to me that if they're doing it in Philly, they need to get a license, too.
I doubt if the city has any idea of how many people blog here, and there probably is no easy way to find out. It only discovered the bloggers who were ordered to pay up by checking IRS records. This means, of course, as far as bloggers are concerned, that the law cannot possibly be enforced with anything resembling fairness.
Speaking of fairness, what's fair about charging somebody $50 a year for making less than that, which is likely the case with most bloggers?
There is also the matter of discrimination. People blogging for their employers - those blogging for this newspaper, for instance - don't have to worry because the boss already pays for the glorious privilege of operating in this prime business venue. But the private citizen who blogs and manages to make some chump change doing so is classified on a par with every profit-making enterprise in the city, even if the blogger doesn't turn a profit.
