Canadians [Will] Pay Levy on MP3 Players - Updated 665
Capt. Canuck writes "According to this Toronto Star story,
the Canadian Copyright Board may approve a 20% levy on electronic media tomorrow,
including MP3 players and hard drives. With the Canadian Dollar
rising and this on the horizon, maybe now is the right time to get that
iPod." Update: 12/12 16:33 GMT by M : rcpitt writes "The Canadian Copyright Board has (finally - a year late) issued its ruling on the latest round of blank media levy - the controversial (in the rest of the world as well as Canada) private "tax" on recordable media used to copy music which proceeds go to the music artists in Canada. The ruling by the board and a press release were posted to the Board's web site at 10AM Ottawa (CST) today. The ruling continues the levy amounts from the previous 2 year period (2001-2002) to the end of this period (2003-2004) at the same amounts as previously set but adds new levies on portable (MP3) digital audio recorders of from CDN$2/unit to CDN$25/unit depending on internal storage capacity."
Abolish copyright--a solution to the insanity. (Score:4, Interesting)
Agree on abolishing copyrights and patents? The poster argoff does as well. You are not alone.
Re:Abolish copyright--a solution to the insanity. (Score:5, Insightful)
How does the legal right to prevent others to do something allow them to set up and benefit from a tax?
I honestly fail to see how copyright becomes this thing where we assume that all hard-drives are used to infringe on it.
Side effects for sure (Score:5, Interesting)
I backup stuff regularly to cd's. I've NEVER burned a music cd.
I also have a handy little 128mb key drive. Wonderfully handy for transferring stuff I'm working on.
I could very well have a 40GB iPod and use it to hold music I own - why carry all those cd's when I can pop'em on my iPod, or use to start story all the music I CAN NOW LEGALLY buy online.
So add a huge tax to that and how do I feel?
Do my morals change? Do I all of a sudden feel that since I am paying for music via this tax that I had may as well benefit from this? Or do I happily understand that because someone else doesn't something "they" don't like that I should pay more?
Re:Side effects for sure (Score:5, Interesting)
it's like putting a tax on balaclavas and giving the tax money to banks that had been robbed. i agree. however, there are other bad things about this. consider:
as a side note - and this is important for all you canucks out there - the blank cd levy means that canadians can legally copy sound recordings for personal use. the details are here [dyndns.org]. please go easy on my server.
Re:Side effects for sure (Score:3, Funny)
Actually, I think the most efficient way to get rid of these taxes would be to lobby for the fair distribution of this money. Those whose content is being copied most should be the ones getting the most money.
As the number one 'killer app' download appears to be pr0n, I'll bet the tariffs wont survive many weeks after the news headlines about 'government subsidizing the pr0n industry' get going.
Re:Side effects for sure (Score:3, Funny)
Technically it's more like taxing balaclavas (that's ski masks for the non-Northerners) and giving the tax money to banks whether they have been robbed or not. But only the Canadian owned banks, even though a lot of the stolen money probably is in US Dollars and British Pounds.
Re:Side effects for sure (Score:5, Insightful)
The worst side effect of this is the punishment of the not guilty.
I tell you what, if they do pass this, what is to prevent the average law abiding person from simply saying, "Well, since I already paid a tax, I guess that means I have the moral right to download all the music I want for free." Seriously, if I have to pay for it already, I shouldn't have to pay for it again.
Re:Abolish copyright--a solution to the insanity. (Score:5, Insightful)
Shakespeare vs Brian Herbert (Score:5, Interesting)
A middle ground would definitely be a good idea, though. I would be happy if copyright was limited to the lifetime of the artist, and/or non-transferable. An artist gets paid for their creations for their whole lifetime, but Brian Herbert and Disney have to come up with something original if they want to pass themselves off as artists.
Re:Shakespeare vs Brian Herbert (Score:5, Insightful)
Justice Breyer, back before he was on the Supreme Court, wrote a paper on that, where he concluded that the costs of copying were high enough so that artists/authors didn't really need copyright, at least in some areas. Books, for example, usually made most of their sales soon after release, and by the time someone, using the best technology of the day, could get a knockoff out, it would not be profitable.
However, the costs of copying have gone WAY down since then. At the time Breyer wrote, it was close. The results now would alsmost certainly go the other way.
Re:Shakespeare vs Brian Herbert (Score:5, Funny)
Mozart (and other "classical" composers) were funded by the royalty and/or the church.
As long as you don't mind listening exclusively to religious and/or patriotic music, I guess there's no problem.
Re:Shakespeare vs Brian Herbert (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Shakespeare vs Brian Herbert (Score:5, Insightful)
Copyright laws in general worked better well back when copying was much more difficult. It's easy to enforce this kind of "thoughtcrime" law when there are only a handful of pirate book publishers with big heavy sticky printing presses.
It's a lot harder today when every 12-year old has a high-volume distribution channel in their bedroom. Changes in technology threaten to make copyright laws unenforceable without imposing a police state.
Is promoting useful arts and sciences worth this price paid in freedom? Would progress really grind to a halt if, for example, non-commercial duplication of all copyrighted works were legalized?
Some people claim that the answer to those questions is obviously yes. I'm not so sure. Counterexamples like RedHat and the Grateful Dead prove that at least some content providers can feed their families without a total ban on copying.
If technology has changed and the price to society for enforcing a total ban on copying has increased, I would argue that maybe the number of content creators we can support should shrink correspondingly. Fewer content producers could be supported without a total ban on copying, but given that we are currently awash in a sea of content crap, I say that the media and software industries could stand a little weeding out. They certainly don't deserve to be allowed to turn this country into a fascist IP enforcement camp.
Re:Abolish copyright--a solution to the insanity. (Score:5, Insightful)
You really are talking complete and utter crap.
Copyright in no way whatsoever prevents an author or musician from publishing their own work. I can write a book this year, publish it myself next year, and the only thing preventing me (the guy doing it by himself with no middleman) from being royally screwed by the big guys is copyright.
Re:Abolish copyright--a solution to the insanity. (Score:3, Insightful)
Spoken like someone who has never created anything of worth in their life.
Copyright is essential. It gives the average Joe who is good at - say - writing or music the chance to elevate themselves and get enough money to do *other things*. Otherwise, everyone would be working 24x7 just to make ends meet.
Re:Abolish copyright--a solution to the insanity. (Score:5, Insightful)
For example, attribution is a VERY important part of the copyright laws, that should in no way be abolished. Removing the laws that guarantee an author, musician, artist, etc. recognition for their works is the surest way to halt the creation of new works.
Destroying the laws that allow the creator of copyrighted works to make money off of his works is also very likely to reduce or even eliminate the incentive to create new works and the ability to make a living doing so.
What needs altering in the copyright laws are the sections dealing with work for hire and the length of time that copyrights last; these sections need to be altered to deter abuse of the copyright laws by, in today's world, large corporations, and to make it harder for artists to be exploited.
The destruction of copyright may seem to provide relief for the current issues concerning it, but that is no more a viable solution than disallowing the creation of works, so that there would be no artists to exploit.
Re:Who needs an incentive to create work? (Score:4, Interesting)
I imagine anyone who does much creative work (writing, coding, composing, whatever) feels the same way, even if they choose to share it for free, they expect to be able to get credit for the work they have done. Taking this away WOULD drastically undermine people's incentive to share creative works with their community.
Re:Abolish copyright--a solution to the insanity. (Score:5, Interesting)
Now consider the original purpose of copyright. It was not developed to bring profit to those who distrubute conent. The founding fathers, and others around the world who introduced copyright, intended it to be a legal mechanism to shut down people who pass off the work of others as their own for commercial gain. Copyright periods were very short-only a few years-and typical cases involved large operations that mass produced works without permission.
A modern example of true copyright violation can be found in the movie bootleggers of Hong Kong. Take a walk down the street, and you'll see a variety of dirt cheap dvd's with good enough quality that only the most sophisticated consumers can spot the fakes. The pirates reap massive profit and gain control over how the work is presented while the creators are marginalized. This is what copyright was created to stop.
However, corporations bent on extracting maximum profit have perverted copyright into something it was never meant to be. In fact, through the contractual transference of copyright, companies now use copyright laws to screw the original artists! This is why we see non sequitors such as the tax on media: Corporations have no regard for the rights of customers or artists. They will abuse both in the name of profit-that is the purpose they were created for, and they would be deficient if they were not to do so. Lobbying for bad laws is only one mechanism for maximizing profit.
Clearly copyright has lost its original purpose and is now used to restrict the arts rather than encouraging them. Commercial interests, not artistic integrity, drive popular modern artistry. The artists themselves have no power and loathe the corporations that keep them on a leash. Small steps will not fix this. Shortening copyright terms or removing levies will not discourage those who make a living by abusing the system.
To encourage the arts and give artists true freedom we must go back to the models of the past. Artists can make a living through live performance, patronage, and teaching. Corporate middlemen should be removed, and profit should take a back seat to improvement of the human experience. This can only be accomplished by abolishing copyright as we know it.
Of course, you ask, "What will happen to the professional pirates that caused the creation of copyright in the first place? Won't they run rampant after copyright is abolished?" This problem can be solved through existing mechanisms. We already have trademarks. Trademarks are a mechanism for guaranteeing that the stated brand or credits are accurate. We can simply link content to brand. Suppose an aspiring artist writes a song that turns into a hit. The artist names the song, and trademarks that song name in association with the artist's own name. Much like how patent implementations are provided along with statements, the song itself is given as an implementation of the trademark. Now, it is illegal to make use of that specific implementation without naming the original artist as its creator, and it is illegal to use the artist's name and trademark without permission. Professional pirates are outlawed, and bringing a case against them is trivially easy. Artists gain total control of their works, and noone owes anyone anything except the truth.
That's what copyright was meant to be after all-a method of forcing people to tell the truth, and not lie about where content came from. By abolishing copyright and using more limited mechanisms to enforce honesty we can bring back artistic integrity and remove the subversive corporate influence from the humanities.
Re:Abolish copyright--a solution to the insanity. (Score:4, Interesting)
Ex:
1. Joe copy's a song, == legal.
2. Joe copy's a song and sells it, == illegal.
3. J-corp copy's a CD and sells it to distributors, == even more illegal!
This of course applies to song/CD 's that they didn't create. And in my personal(and controversion I guess) opinion, it is up to the content pushers to get us to actually pay for thier stuff, whether through good(bonuses, artwork etc.) or bad(anti-copying technology.) .
Re:Abolish copyright--a solution to the insanity. (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, it's $2.50usd and here near Cancun we charge 50 pesos (40 if you bring your own CD).
Collected Money Going To American Artists? (Score:5, Interesting)
Over here in Mexico there's a tax on CD's that goes to Music distributors to compensate for CD piracy.
Yeah, it's the same in Canada.
But the funny thing is that we're being forced to pay for piracy of music that no intelligent human being would tolerate in an elevator, let alone pay for.
The tax levied on Canadians goes exclusively to Canadian artists to pay for all the copies of Tragically Hip's Bobcaygeon and Rita McNeil's Now The Bells Ring allegedly floating around on Kazaa Lite.
Of course, that's bullshit; Canadians with MP3 collections have stashes of the stuff that gets little airplay here because of the 40% Canadian Content laws. And those Canadian artists who have actual talent have generally fled to greener pastures south of the border... think of Rush, Celine Dion, Barenaked Ladies.
If they really wanted to help out those being hurt by people with large MP3 collections, send the money south of the border! (But, of course, that will never happen. Some Liberal-appointed 85-year-old Supreme Court justice *knows* that good Canadian kids are only listening to all that top-flight good Canadian music that has to be forced onto listeners with Canadian Content laws!)
If it's anything like that in Mexico, you must be as frustrated as I am. I'm paying a tax - for music that I couldn't be paid to listen to - to burn Knoppix demo CDs for friends.
I'm *so* proud of the protectionist pandering-to-special-interest-groups stupidity of my country.
Re:Collected Money Going To American Artists? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Collected Money Going To American Artists? (Score:5, Interesting)
FUCK YOU! The Tragically Hip are a great band. And Canadian music is better than American music. Just have a listen to latest Matthew Good CD, it is much better than anything on your top 40 list.
*MY* Top-40 list? Well, for one thing, I am Canadian. And *my* Top-40 list is reads along the lines of Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, CCR, Dire Straits, ZZ Top, etc. You might or might not get the picture by now.
To illustrate the folly of your argument that Canadian music is great, I submit to you the very thing you're arguing as proof of the abomination of radio stations "forcing" American music on us:
The reason for content laws is because American music music (Which is complete SHIT) is forced down on us. Even With these laws, the radio stations manage to force the American popculture down on us. This is an abomination. The real artist get little attention will while your fucking britteny beers is played over and over again. If anything, we should ban American music.All righty, then.
Fact 1: Radio stations make money by selling advertising time.
Fact 2: Advertisers pay more money to run their ads when more people listen to a given radio station.
Fact 3: Increasing a radio station's listenership increases their profits.
Fact 4: To increase the listenership, the radio station has to play what people want to hear.
Summary of Facts 1-4: The radio station will make more money if it plays what people want to hear.
Therefore, if Canadian music is so great, listeners would want to hear it, and radio stations would play it on their own. No Canadian content laws would be required.
The fact that most radio stations play *exactly* their Canadian content requirements, many of them filling their 40% requirement during non-peak hours and playing their good stuff at drivetime (peak hours), should serve to illustrate the fact that Canadians don't especially care for Canadian music.
The one notable exception to this - the one national broadcaster who actually exceeds (massively or otherwise) the Canadian content requirements is the CBC. Nicknamed "The Corpse" in the broadcasting business, their ratings are tiny and their demographics are primarily shut-ins, 74-year-old women who would change the station but lost the owner's manual for the new-fangled radio they bought in the 1970s, and the 0.5% of 1% who actually think that Jean Poutine had been doing a good job as Prime Minister.
The fact that the average American can't appreciate music that is a little bit more sophisticated is another matter.A recent Arbitron (radio station ratings) study in Toronto showed something very interesting.
First, prime time in radio is drive time [arbitron.com]. Morning and evening commutes. People listen to the radio in their cars.
Second, superheterodyne radio receivers (which is just about every radio receiver made since the 1930s) leaks an RF signal mathematically related to the station to which the radio is tuned.
Radio station ratings services like Arbitron use the above facts to calculate drivetime ratings for a given radio station very easily. Point some special equipment at a freeway, count the number of car radios leaking a local oscillator signal which would indicate the radio is tuned to that station, and compare that to the total number of cars going by tuned to other stations.
Arbitron found that, on one day in Toronto, close to 50% of radios were tuned to Buffalo NY radio stations. Granted, of course, Arbitron studies presuppose that your station's listeners will be employed (which is good, because you don't care to try to advertise to people who have no money) and who drive (again, good, because few reasonable people will take the bus to work if they don't have to).
Apparently, even in Canada's biggest market, Canadians aren't any more sophisticated than Americans.
Re:Collected Money Going To American Artists? (Score:4, Interesting)
For example, a number of years back, the local CFL [www.cfl.ca] franchise Toronto Argonauts were having a great season, averaging 39 points a game! On offense, not total game score! Come September, the run to the playoffs is on, and they draw something like 20000 fans to a game, maybe less, I don't recall. That same weekend, an NFL [nfl.com] pre-season exhibition game also in Toronto drew 55000 people! Buloads of Torontonians regular travel down to Buffalo Bills games.
Toronto doesn't dislike Canadian music on it's merits, only because it's not American.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
RIAA crossed the border (Score:5, Interesting)
The Copyright Board decision comes as the Supreme Court of Canada begins a landmark copyright case that will determine whether Internet service providers must pay a tariff for being a conduit for the rampant downloading of free music.
Hmmm... we should also charge them for the lost business from gaming that they create! Oh, and let's tax them so that the telephone industry gets a cut since so many people are using instant messaging and IRC rather than calling people. Hell, let's just shut them down entirely because they can be a conduit for crime!
Remember, what you choose to spend money on is no longer up to you.
In Canada it's the R.I.eh.eh (Score:5, Funny)
Re:RIAA crossed the border (Score:3, Interesting)
If the Levy goes through (and I have every belief that it will because non of our politicians are smart enough to understand that the CPCC is pulling one over on the entire Canadian public) and taxes MP3 players, harddrives, DVDs and every other media format these assholes can get their hands on to generate a buck...
I WILL BUY ALL MY MEDIA AND HARDWARE FROM THE U.S.A.
I refuse to give the bastards a cent, so I'll buy it from the US and bring it across. Imports from the US are N
I'll trade you! (Score:3, Funny)
Canadian Dollar (Score:5, Interesting)
Or gauging the Canadian consumer will continue... (Score:5, Informative)
The US prices for iPods [apple.com] are $299, $399, and $499 for the same above. If you're not in California you only pay shipping and no tax.
At $1.32 Canadian exchange rate, assuming no skimming by your bank, the US prices to Canadians are $395, $527, and $658. Aside from the difference in price, to then bring it across the border you will be charged 7% GST and unknown amounts of excise, brokerage, inspection and other taxes, and they're not small change. I can guarantee you that it will end up costing you more to order it from the US if you're in Canada.
More proof that the Canadian dollar should be at around $1.50 or that prices in Canada should fall. Every Canadian iPod sold makes Apple in Cupertino extra profit at this point, and there's nothing that Canadians can do about it.
Re:Or gauging the Canadian consumer will continue. (Score:5, Informative)
The reason the purchase power parity can very so much from currency to currency is primarily because of the financial interest in the U.S. Markets which drives the demand for our currency up.
Unfortunately for us American's, eventually the worth of our strong dollar must eventually fall to put it back into line with PPP.
Having a high PPP is a double edged sword though. If you have a high PPP, it means you can buy a lot of stuff from abroad with your dollar. However, conversely, your stuff looks high priced compared to other country's stuff. Thus, you tend to run trade-deficits. Eventually, it will balance out.
re: Canadian Dollar (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Buy an iPod in the states - import duties? (Score:5, Informative)
But it means they cannot collect the levy if I order DVD-Rs from the U.S., or take a trip south and bring back an iPod.
(Note: it can be difficult to get consumer electronics mailed across the boarder, but picking them up yourself isn't hard.)
(thats how I got my Tivo; and it was fully declaired to customs when I came back).
Re:Buy an iPod in the states - import duties? (Score:4, Interesting)
However, many people don't, especially if it's an item (like an iPod) that they could easily say that they owned it before hand. Especially at busy ports of entry, Customs officials (at least a couple of years ago anyway) are general hesitant to stop the flow of traffic (whether it be cars or people at airports) unless they figure something major is going on (or see something so glaringly obvious that they can't ignore it).
If you move into Canada, and have acquired posessions abroad, they will also charge you duty on them as well. I recall that the company I was working for at the time, in California, was considering relocating the QA team (which was almost exclusively Canadians) back to Canada, and rent office space there. In order to get our test lab equipment into the country though, we were looking at paying somewhere around $100,000 to get it through Customs.
I deal with this stuff every Christmas when I go back to Canada to see my family. The bitch of it is that I'm treated better by Canadian customs than U.S. Customs (probably because I'm Canadian and have a Canadian passport).
-- Joe
What the retailers should do... (Score:3, Interesting)
Since it appears that consumers in Canada are able to be trampled on just as much as they are in the U.S., why don't some of the retailers who are going to feel the pinch put pressure on the lawmakers?
Everything happens (Score:5, Insightful)
Or you could just get one from a country outside Canada. Say, like one that's big on technology, with small(er) taxes, not too far from Canada and with a currency that's falling through the floorboards
Hint: it's not Mexico, Greenland or Russia.
Re:Everything happens (Score:5, Funny)
Why must my government stymy me again and again? (Score:5, Insightful)
Then, the blank-CD tax (20$ for 10 blank CDs? Madness!)
The proposed internet bandwidth tax. Grrr!
Now a hard-drive tax?
I'm going to have to pirate music extra-hard from now on, just to get my money's worth!
Re:Why must my government stymy me again and again (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, that's because when they download a song from Madonna, the computer they download the song from doesn't recount their download requests and send them a Waylon Jenning track instead.
Re:Why must my government stymy me again and again (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems that one fair way to proceed is for the government to levy these taxes and then tell everyone to go nuts, copy everything you want, because it's all paid for. The problem seems to be that the copyright holders want it both ways: to collect the tax money but still have copying be illegal.
They do (Score:5, Informative)
With others (Londons Drugs) they charge the tax at the time of sale. You then get a bill a lot larger than expected (for CD-bundles), and many people blame it on the store rather than placing blame retarded laws and corporate hand-holding as it should be.
I think that having the tax inclusive is one of the reasons that people aren't awake/more-pissed-off about this. If everybody who bought CD's found that they increased by 25-50% at the point of sale, I think there would be a lot more of a push to have the laws repealed.
As somebody who buys the media to store data or legal music, I wonder if I would be in my rights to pursue a lawsuit for being wrongfully charged what is equivilent to a fine on anyone who buys digital media.
They do it for a reason (Score:5, Informative)
Check out London Drug's official position [londondrugs.ca]. Also worth a look is the Canadian Coalition for Fair Digital Access [ccfda.ca] - a non-profit group against all this foolishness. Especially look at their member companies - they include the likes of London Drugs, AMD, Intel, Creative Labs, Apple, Dell, FutureShop/Best Buy, Hewlett PAQard, Wal-Mart, Radio Shack and (sweet Jesus, is this one right?) Sony Canada.
Yes but... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Yes but... (Score:5, Insightful)
At the moment, I don't download music (I just don't care enough), but if something like this were to go into effect here, I think I would probably start downloading music, just to make up for the cost.
Got to hand it to the people that thought this one up, they may have created a self fullfilling prophesy. Assume everyone pirates music, so charge a tax for it. People either think that its now OK, becuase they are paying for it, or people get pissed about it and start pirating music, just to get their money's worth. Suddenly, everyone is pirating music, and the initial assumption becomes correct.
Not can copy, but can't block copies (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, copyright holders are forbidden from encumbering their material for sale with copyright protection technology which would otherwise hinder consumers from making their personal use copies.
It's not enough to just say "OK, you can make personal copies" -- the industry will just push DRM and other onerous systems which prevent you from making copies. At this point, they are violating the spirit of a law which grants them royalties without having to prove a loss.
BTW, thanks to the guy in NYC on park ave & 37th with an open access point. My gay room in the Sheraton doesn't have hi speed access.
Re:Yes but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Your analogy is flawed though -- the fine/ticket's given to you after you litter.
Different analogy: There's a park that's always getting filled with trash. Finally, the government puts a gate in front of the park, and charges everybody who enters it a $5 "trash fee" because they figure you're going to litter.
Can you litter then?
Re:Yes but... (Score:3)
Rise in traffic accidents (and you're not one of them) --> increase in your insurance to pay for it.
Increase in shoplifting --> you pay more for the goods in that store as prices rise.
We constantly pay for other people's acts. Holding to that reasoning, the media levy isn't incurred "because they think I'm going to illegally cop
But this is government, not private industry (Score:3, Insightful)
Paid to your insurance broker, not for to a third-party. In music-world this would be equivilent to putting the levy on commercial discs, not recordable media.
Increase in shoplifting --> you pay more for the goods in that store as prices rise.
Same as above. You are not paying the government a "shoplifting levy" at every store you buy from, you pay more on the merchandise in a particular store.
Re:Yes but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Kinda tempting to actually break something, huh?
Re:Yes but... (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't get fined $50 preemptively because there is a presumption that you will litter.
These taxes, however, are charged indiscriminately, whether or not I have actually pirated anything. The justification for them is a business justification and their proceeds go to private companies.
If the government forces me to pay $100/year to some commercial recording or music outfit, I certainly feel morally justified in getting my money's worth by actually copying that much music. After all, the justification for transferring that money to that company is that they assume that I'm doing it anyway. Whether I can legally do so is another question.
Re:Yes but... (Score:3, Insightful)
You have that right regardless of whether or not this levy is in place. That right has been around for a long long time.
The levy is not a tax on doing that. So what is it a tax on? Because if you're being ta
So does that make P2P legal in Canada? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:So does that make P2P legal in Canada? (Score:3, Informative)
What does this solve? (Score:2, Interesting)
So I say: Come up with something better, will ya?
Improvement (Score:5, Insightful)
Treated like a criminal, act as a criminal (Score:4, Insightful)
too powerful (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't know anything about Canadian Law, or Canadian internet/music habits, but I'd guess only a minority of users are downloading (copyrighted) music. I think it's absurd the entire industry could be forced to pay a tariff.
It's almost enough to make me glad that in the US, the RIAA has to sue individuals, and haven't (yet) been able to bill ISPs directly.
CD-Rs more expensive too? (Score:5, Interesting)
My laptop uses the same HD type found in small mp3 players, would it fall under the tax?
So, I assume all this money will be going directly to the artists, who have been so badly hurt by the mp3 downloading craze? Yeah... right.
The best of both worlds (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The best of both worlds (Score:3, Informative)
It is 311 km from TB to Duluth. You have to buy a lot of CDRs to pay for your gas. Even at $0.49/CDR.
Look on the bright side... (Score:5, Informative)
Use this stuff for legitimate reasons only? Go buy in the US. You have a right to do that.
Remember, Kids (Score:3, Insightful)
Barter system anyone? (Score:5, Funny)
BTM
My copyright (Score:3, Insightful)
How to destroy an industry..101 (Score:4, Interesting)
Enough is enough with these thugs in Canada (Score:5, Informative)
Great. The deal is then that I will get all of my software, music and books from warez newsgroups, filesharing networks and wherever else I can.
Does this make any sense whatsoever? Because if these groups think they can tax all this blank media, they will utterly destroy retail sales of both original media and blanks and the incentive of the consumer to engage in purchases thereof. This will end up hurting the artists represented by the collective. They will also drive blank media into the underground where trucks haul this stuff into black markets. Who loses in this scheme? Everyone but the people who supposedly get these taxes.
I consult for a living in the video editing and commercial production field, and now I have to tell my clients to make an emergency purchase tomorrow of spindles of DVD-Rs, CD-Rs and any other media and stockpile them because of this ridiculous tax. My clients don't deal in pirated material, and often we have to license music, images and footage from the creators anyway. They will never be able to apply for the proceeds from these taxes because they'll never qualify.
Enough is enough. E-mail Claude Majeau at majeau.claude@cb-cda.gc.ca and let him know what you think of him and his band of thugs. Find the MP for your riding [parl.gc.ca] and tell them that the Canadian Copyright Board needs to be stopped before they destroy retail sales in Canada and end up fueling mass piracy and the black market for the sake of artists who should be paid based on the merits of their music, not because they have been somehow directly robbed.
Re:Enough is enough with these thugs in Canada (Score:5, Interesting)
If the cost of recording media goes up, it makes it more expensive to record, and makes it much more costly to distribute one's music for free. If it costs me $4 to make a demo to give away, then it's costing almost as much to make music to give away for free, as it would cost to buy some music produced by a corporation!
This isn't about piracy, it's about controlling whose art gets distributed. Stalin had different methods, but it's the same goal.
I should become a Canadian artist... (Score:5, Funny)
Wow.. so that's like about what, 2.75 mil per Canadian artist then?
*ducks and covers*
MP3 player levy loophole (Score:5, Interesting)
not an isolated case, but still angers (Score:5, Insightful)
This does happen elsewhere. We pay for increased insurance rates when other people have more accidents. The prices in our stores go up when other people shoplift. The difference? The government doesn't raise the prices on tangentially connected items in order to compensate.
I'm not screwin around here. Several years ago I bought a hand-held dictaphone that used normal-sized cassette tapes. Sure, it's bulkier, but had a huge advantage -- those mini-tapes were mondo-expensive. I'd buy ten cheapo no-name standard cassette tapes (all I'd need for a lecture, etc) and I'd be set. Enter the levy -- doubling the price or more of the cheap tapes. May as well get pricey ones if I'm gonna get charged a flat fee per tape. And out goes the entire purpose of buying that particular model. Punished for an entirely erroneous assumption. And let's remember: mixed-tapes were legal, too. Mass production and use (as some DJ's would do) was a concern for the powers that be, but fair-use was still fair-use. Now we get slammed whether we break the law or no.
Is this a democracy or not? Who got to have a say on this issue?
The levy (probably) legalizes the copying of music (Score:5, Interesting)
While this has yet to be tested in courts, what consumers get in exchange for the levy is permission to make copies of music for personal purposes. In other words, it legalises the _download_ of MP3s for which you don't own the cd or other media. This is, after all, what the levy is compensating artists for.
However, it does not legalize the _distribution_ of copyrighted works. Hence you're in the clear if you only download, but not make anything available from P2P networks. An interesting compromise.
Canada has not yet signed the WIPO treaties which would be breached by the compromise reached by the copyright board. Naturally, copyright holders argue that this is a mis-interpretation of the law, and that we should be both paying the levy AND barred from copying for personal purposes.
Compare the Canadian Copyright Act to the Australian Copyright Act, and you find that the consumer comes out far ahead in the Great White (as in snow, not culture) North. In Australia, making a backup copy of music that you've purchased is a technical (but again untested) breach of the Copyright Act.
In the end, I'll take a $25-$200 once-off levy over not having permission to copy CD's that I've purchased, or being subjected to the DMCA, or being subjected to the WIPO treaties any day. As an added bonus, artists who have limited distribution of their works (i.e. the Little Guys) see some of this cash. This helps the economy a lot more than slowing down the sales of portable music devices.
Re:The levy (probably) legalizes the copying of mu (Score:3, Informative)
Canadians are explicitly allowed to make copies of recordings for private use. Not just backups, recordings of other items too. And the levy is designed to pay for this. To quote:
The amendment to the Act legalized private copying of sound recordings of musical works onto audio recording media - i.e., the copying of pre-recorded music for the private use
What about porn? (Score:5, Interesting)
Throw the bums out! (Score:5, Insightful)
This whole idea of compromise means the industry gets at least half a loaf, right out of the pockets of many people who never recorded a song in their lifetime. People who believe in compromise are the worst sort to have on regulation boards.
And taxing MP3 players is absurd. If you buy the music you should be able to listen to it on your iPod or any other player without additional charge. It's not like you're suddenly listening to it on your home stereo, car stereo, and iPod at the same time.
Canada needs a popular revolution, with a few decapitations thrown in for good measure!
It wil encourge more piracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, this would be completely unfair to those of us who make enough money and have the moral character to actually PURCHASE our own music. The additional tax would be like welfare to support those who didn't feel like they should have to pay for music.
Most people probably don't use digital media to store music on anyway. Flash memory cards are primarily used in digital cameras, hard drives are used in PC's, CD-R's can be used for back-up and fair use rights, DVD-R's are used for making home movies from camcorders. Taxing any of these just to give free money to someone who didn't earn it is just plain wrong.
My suggestion? They should just do more to educate consumers about copyright law, and why it's important.
Re:It wil encourge more piracy (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, it's definitely an issue that blank recording media is used for other things besides recording music. But the issue is that the levy may not be targeted as well as it should be, not that it is "welfare to support those who don't feel like they should have to pay for music".
I really do encourage you to read that fact sheet. It is surprisingly clearly written for something coming from the government. For example, can you believe that this was written by a government board?
4. I buy blank CDs regularly to use in my computer. Are they subject to the levy and if so, how much is it?
Both "ordinary" CD-Rs and CD-RWs and their "Audio" counterparts can be used to copy music. Having said this, most CDs used to copy music are "ordinary" CD-Rs and CD-RWs (for which the levy is 21 cents), not "Audio" products (for which the levy is 77 cents).
CD-R Audio and CD-RW Audio products were created at least in part to comply with US legal requirements. They are encoded so as to be recognized as audio products when played on digital audio recording equipment and may not be readable by all CD-ROM drives. Otherwise, they are technologically identical to their non-Audio counterparts.
CD-Rs Audio and CD-RWs Audio are marketed as such, and are sold at a much higher price (sometimes twice as much or more) than "ordinary" CD-Rs and CD-RWs. They also represent less than one per cent of the Canadian recordable CD market.
From a practical perspective, if the package of blank CDs you purchase does not state that they are Audio CDs or "for music use only", then they are subject to a levy of 21 cents.
The use to which a recordable CD is actually being put does not determine whether it is subject or not to the levy. Manufacturers and importers of blank CDs pay royalties on all the CDs they sell blank.
Note that this page is a little old; those rates they state are probably out of date.
So don't ship blank hard drives. (Score:3, Interesting)
The "levy" is only for blank media.
So put a recording on the hard drive.
Not only would you avoid the tax, you also can claim to be a music distributor, and collect a portion of the tax paid by your less savy competition.
Make the recording an advertising jingle, and you can get someone to pay you to install it.
And maybe you can get a spot on the top ten best sellers list - after all, how many recording artists sell albums for the price of a hard drive?
-- this is not a
SOCAN tariffs going crazy (Score:4, Informative)
Let's see... SOCAN, CMRRA , SOCAN/NRCC, CMRRA, SOCAN, NRCC
Included issues are: radio stations, pay audio services, radio, radio, ringtones, background music, and tariffs tariffs, tariffs
Isn't this a bit insane? I mean, tariffs on ringtones...? Looking at the recent news page you would think that the copyright board only deals with audio issues...
Yes, it is time for music producers to learn some new tricks, and stop milking the consumer.
If you want a brief description of each organization and various others, go here [cb-cda.gc.ca]
Fund my unemployment, then? (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe the copyright board can donate some of that 20% to Employment Insurance, because I can forsee more than a few computer retail jockeys looking for new places of employment. Want to guess how many CDs and DVDs I'll be able to purchase on the dole while I hunt for work in a place that won't get screwed over with massive tax increases that will likely not reach the artists that really need the cash yesterday? Want to guess how many hard drives and burners people, including prospective artists, will purchase? Want to guess how many demo and promo CDs Joe the Band will be able to pump out for distribution now? And when CD sales continue to fall as the homogenization of pop music continues, guess what the industry will come crying for again. I don't intend retail to be a career, but it pays the rent until I can move on to something better. I can already see how this action will harm me and the people I work with.
Thanks for nothing.
This reminds me of the Microsoft tax. (Score:3, Insightful)
I like to record my own music also, and the though of paying the RIAA for the privilege of doing so is galling. I am glad it hasn't come to that in the US yet. It is bad enough that I have to pay the RIAA everytime my wife uses a tape recorder to record notes to herself. I'll have to get her one of those gadgets that record to digital memory. (But tape recorders are dirt cheap.)
Why do you Canadians put up with taxes levied by corporations? Oh wait . . .
Wait !! This works perfectly ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, the last hurdle of the conscience driven user is gone. You don't have to feel the least bit guilty about downloading because you are paying for it.
So be a good consumer. Get out there and get the best bang for your buck that you possibly can!!
I have no problem with this. (Score:5, Insightful)
Otherwise, we're paying for the media twice.
They just don't get it (Score:4, Interesting)
Better start buying old computer hardware people, before the CPCC,RIAA and MPAA force the hardware manufactures into putting "approved" DRM controls in the hardware.
Sorry for the ranting, but this shit just gets under my skin...
Blackmarket / stolen stuff (Score:4, Insightful)
When the tax starts, which by the way also includes a massive increase to the music industry tax on blank CD's that will nearly double their already taxed price, far fewer people will want to buy the products.
However, they will still neeeeed the products.
SO
There's a couple stalls in particular that sell unopened, new stacks of CD's that are already a lot cheaper than retail and 'strangely' have no Music tax on them.
In the end, the music industry looses their tax grab (...that they were never getting anyways as the canadian government has not paid out ONE CENT of the money theyve collected in the past few years...), because fewer people can afford to buy the CD's, the crime rate goes up with more B&E's on businesses that sell blank CD's, or even through smuggling of cheaper CD's up from the US, The technology companies will offer fewer players as they become even further priced above what people will play, many will continue to gripe about a tax they are supposed to pay when they are just backing up their own data
Can't happen? look what happened in Ontario when taxes went too high on cigarettes (with the help of some slimy smugglers on a native reserve, and the bastard cigarette companies that covertly supplied the smugglers).
One Stop Shopping (Score:5, Funny)
With the black market on media bound to spring up, I for one look forward to getting my hard drives and soft drugs from the same convenient supplier.
CBC Newsworld Discussion (Score:5, Interesting)
I tried in vain to call in since the issue of the blank media levy was not addressed, and I hate the idea that uneducated people out there were watching that and possibly becoming sympathetic to the music industry.
Re:CBC Newsworld Discussion (Score:3, Interesting)
Copying music for your personal use is not illegal in Canada. The Copyright Act [cb-cda.gc.ca] allows it, and puts the levy in place to compensate the copyright holders.
There's a long list of groups [cpcc.ca] who use blank media who are exempt from the levy, but it's probably hard for an individual to get on that list.
Re:CBC Newsworld Discussion (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not true at all. The Copyright Act applies to material produced internationally in all countries that participate in the Berne Convention, the UCC or the WTO.
People like me, who don't listen to Canadian artists or English-language contents, we're getting screwed. For other Canadians who listen to Canadian artists and contents, they're getting screwed if they want to back up their legally bought CDs.
You're not bei
When are they going to learn (Score:4, Insightful)
A friend of mine made the paper about this issue story reproduced here [thescream.org].
He produces music CD's for sale on behalf of the copyright owner on CDR's, he shouldn't be paying the RIAA/ARIA etc (and hence other artists, BU*cough*IT) for music they have the rights for.
This is the same as taxing people for going to the bank so they can reclaim money from bank robberies.
I don't care how many people who use a particular device or service for illegal purposes, no-one should be suggesting to charge everyone who uses a device or service legitimately to pay for the shady behaviour of others.
Canadians: how to stop this shit (Score:4, Informative)
What if university and college students in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal etc. shut their cities down when things like this happened?
The New Democrats and the Greens are the only parties in the country that don't have the "yes sir, no sir, may I please suck your balls sir?" attitude towards industry.
Send SOCAN your receipts and tell them what you've done with your discs - burned Linux ISOs, saved photos, etc. Also, tell them that you wouldn't pirate their music, since it's all slop anyway.... OR
Really rub the private copying [cb-cda.gc.ca] decision in SOCAN's face by having a "music exchange". Get a bunch of computers with fast CD-burners, then invite a whole bunch of people and tell them to each bring 10 of their favourite CDs. Then give everyone free blank discs. As long as the person who's keeping the copy actually MAKES the copy (i.e. puts the discs in the provided computer, clicks "copy", collects discs), it's all nice and legal.
Preemptive punishment anyone? (Score:3, Interesting)
So, what we'e got here is a system that presumes everyone is guilty, and punishes everyone, knowing that if they punish everyone, they'll also be punishing the guilty ones by default.
This method has been used throughout history...such as when Hitler shot Jews en masse because if you kill them all, they'll be none to fight you.
In the U.S. we still pay a levy on every blank cassette sold. I wonder how many blank cassettes have music recorded on them these days?
This is Government at its worst...bought and paid for by big companies..Hmmm...maybe we should assume that all Govt. officials are corrupt, and then put them all in jail! That way we'd definitely be getting the bad guys!
What do Canadian's get out of it? (Score:3, Interesting)
Some details.... (Score:3, Interesting)
http://cpcc.ca/english/infoCopyHolders.htm
The Copyright Board designates the proportion of total royalties that forms the basis of CPCC's distribution amongst each of the three eligible groups: songwriters and music publishers, recording artists, and record companies. These proportions are recorded in the private copying tariffs. It is then CPCC's job to allocate and pay the royalties to individual copyright holders. CPCC and its constituent member collectives have developed a distribution process that is enabling royalties to be distributed fairly amongst tens of thousands of copyright holders.
Since no inventory of privately copied tracks exists, distribution is based on representative samples of radio airplay and album sales, which are given equal weight in the distribution. Together they provide a proxy for determining the titles that Canadians typically copy for private use. Internet usage is not referenced in the distribution as no adequate documentation of this activity currently exists. Samples are regularly used by copyright collectives because the cost of capturing and analyzing all available information would be excessive.
Recognizing the relatively modest level of collections for 2000, CPCC opted to pay out royalties for 2000 and 2001 in a single, combined distribution.
While songwriters and music publishers are eligible regardless of nationality, only Canadian recording artists and record companies may receive payments under current law. In accordance with the Copyright Board's decisions, royalties collected for 2001 and 2002 are allocated as follows:
66 % to eligible authors and publishers
18.9% to eligible performers
15.1% to eligible record companies.
The allocation for 2000 is:
75% to eligible authors and publishers
13.7% to eligible performers
11.3% to eligible record companies.
The ruling is due out at 10AM Ottawa time (Score:4, Informative)
Background
The levy started in 1999, based on a change to the Canadian copyright act in 1995, and is up for changes every 2 years. This round is for the years 2003-2004, and yes, it is actually a year late.
The previous round had a whole 3 objectors - all consortiums - retailers, importers, hardware creators - no private individuals.
This round started out with 100 objectors - winnowed down to about 30 by the time the actual submissions and legalities got going. The hearings were to take place around October of 2002 with the ruling by the end of 2002.
In reality, the hearings didn't start until the end of January, 2003 and ran to the middle of February - and the ruling is only now coming out.
Having lived through this period, written much and run a (closed) mail list for the objectors, you might expect me to have some idea of what the outcome will be - but truthfully I don't. All bets are off since this round there was a lot more information presented as well as some interesting twists - new ideas as opposed to just countering the CPCC's presentation and ideas.
The article that started this thread is quoting information that was available over a year ago - some of which was changed during the hearings. CPCC started out asking for CDN$21/Gig for "non-removeable hard drive" in each MP3 player but ended up proposing a sliding scale starting at (all figures in Canadian $) $11.10/Gig for first down to $1.99/Gig for anything over 20 Gigs. Note that this would apply to any media - FLASH, RAM, or "micro-hard disk" but doesn't apply to "full-size" hard disks used in non-portable devices such as PCs (they intimate that these are reserved for a future round)
Rather than detail all of the things that went on during the 18+ months since I started (due to my blood boiling while hearing a couple of coleagues discuss this at a Comdex show) I'll point you at the pages on my web site at my Media Levy pages [pacdat.net]
I'll post a summary of the actual levy as soon as I can in the morning.
In response to some of the postings here:
The current Canadian Copyright Act allows "private individuals" to make copies of music from wherever they can for their own private use. This means that my friend can loan me their retail-purchased music CD and I can make my own copy of it and give them back their original - or I can make a copy of my own retail-purchased CD for my self and give my friend the original - or I can make a copy of music I receive from whatever other medium (radio, TV, Internet) for my own use.
What I can't do is make a copy of my retail-purchased CD and give the copy to my friend
It also does not allow me to publish music I "own" to the Internet or make bulk copies and sell them - that is still "piracy".
The levy is only on products imported or manufactured for resale. This means that a private individual may import (for example) a tube of 100 CD-Rs for their own use from the US and not have to pay the levy. The Canadian Customs people at the border don't care and are not empowered to collect the levy (although they'll collect the GST and provincial sales tax). Currently it is just about a wash to order a tube of 100 CD-Rs from the US, pay the shipping and tax - but if the levy is doubled this will make the difference up to about $25 for 100 CD-Rs - well worth it for the average Canadian to learn how to use the Internet for e-commerce. This is what the retailers are upset about. With things like the Apple iPOD, the potential gain from ordering from outside of Canada is even greater!
CPCC (Canadian Private Copying Consortium) has graciously allowed for "zero-rating" for those who wish to register ($50 annual fee) as an importer/manufacturer of blank audio media that is not used to record music (i.e. is used to record data
Americans to Canadians: Deal? (Score:4, Funny)
*grin*
This isn't a levy. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's good to see that this "innocent until proven guilty" nonsense has not infected the Canadian justice system.
Re:This isn't a levy. (Score:3, Interesting)
This levy was specifically designed to compensate copyright holders for this private copying right.
If you want a clear, correct discussion of the issue, see this post [slashdot.org].
I find it amazing how incorrect information gets modded as "Insightful" on Slashdot.
I wrote to my MP, here's the initial response (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:But I never copied a file.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, actually. Although you will have to prove it (which isn't that hard if you are using them for backups at work or otherwise can objectively demonstrate that you have substantial non-infringing use that can be recognized as applicable directly to your own situation).
Re:Operative word ? BLANK (Score:3, Informative)