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The point is that no matter what the levy, in today's wired world the only losers would be the Canadian retail sellers of such items - because any levy would be enough to more than pay for the shipping of a unit from outside the country - so neither the musicians nor the retailers would profit.

kind of makes me wonder if it is the US resellers who are behind this ;)

Here's what I have on my desktop as I write this:

4 monitors on 2 systems:

1 on a Windoze box with a TV card in it running Win2000 on a V95 Optiquest 19" at 1280x1024

2 NEC Accusync LCD71VM at 1280x1024 on a nVidia dual-head and another V95 Optiquest at 1600x1200 on a 3D Rage (for editing graphics sometimes but see below for normal use)

Ignoring the Windows box as a necessary evil for times when I have to debug a customer who hasn't switched yet, we move on to the Linux box (still running RH9 but in the process of moving to FC4)

I run 3 separate desktops instead of a unified one - mostly because I have not found a way to have enough virtual desktops to satisfy me any other way. I run 2x15 (30) in each screen for a total of 90 virtual desktops - and have seen times when I have something in all of them - but not always.

I'm generally in one of 3 mental modes - and use the screens differently for each:

1 - general system monitoring and maintenance - read e-mail, watch logs, read documentation, etc.

2 - major system updates/maintenance - configuring and copying software, etc.

3 - working with graphics and web site creation and updates

In 1 I have system monitoring visuals on the right (1600x1200) monitor of various flavors - xload, xosview, eximon - started from a single script (showall - see below), working screens (xterms, web browsers, etc.) with things like slashdot and groklaw plus other documentation and web sites I'm working with in the middle (and sometimes on the left) and e-mail on the left. I'll preempt the e-mail for more screens if necessary but tend to have it back most times.

In 2 I'll have screens on the left on a new system, on the right on the old and documentation in the middle

In 3 I'll do editing on the V95 because it has reasonable color fidelity compared to the LCDs, while I select and categorize (gThumb) on the central screen and do command line stuff on the left LCD (ImageMagick etc.)

I start programs in the various desktops in a consistent manner all the time. Each of the 3 monitors has a slightly different mix with most consitency at each end and the central ones more "ad hoc"

In general, the right screens on all desktops are used for access to the major servers I monitor. Most active on the right, second most active to its left, and so on toward the left (currently 8 machines are showing)

On the left screen's desktops I start at the left with e-mail and local root and personal items, then web screens and on the right, xterms to systems

On the center screen's desktops I start on the left with local (to my workstation) xterms, then web screens and on the right xterms to systems

On the right screen's desktops I start with music (xmms and volume control) upper left with the "showall" screen next right. Bottom left is vmWare with another Win2k instance in it, used for "dangerous" stuff because I can restore it with a copy command from the command line. Other vmWare sessions to it's right as necessary. In the center desktops I'll have more web screens and on the right are xterms

In the center portion of each screen I start a browser as necessary. I'll typically have one each of Mozilla, Firefox and something else up on the 3 screens, with Firefox in the center one with as many as 8-10 sessions (press ^N 7 times and use the mouse to distribute the screens to desktops) on each of the center 8-10 virtual desktops.

Left-most top web screen (5th from left actual desktop) has Slashdot and below that is Groklaw. Next right to each of them are Nagios and MRTG on my main monitoring machines and to the Nagios' right is a session into the main e-mail configuration machine. The rest home on Google or my main web menu (which times out to refresh to google after 2 minutes) and may have anything that strikes my fancy on

...so, you don't think a human can aim a machine to hit an airplane?

The fact is that over 25 countries have instituted such a levy in some form or other. We here in Canada have the "Blank Media Levy" on CDs, tapes, and "digital storage in portable digital music recorders" which includes hard drives built in at the time of manufacture as well as Flash and/or RAM. The people who administer this levy (Canadian Private Copying Consortium or CPCC) have intimated that they will go after other hard drives in the future (the next round starts some time this month for implementation beginning of 2005)

The point is that the US people who lobby for this have not been as aggressive so today you don't have the levy on anything but the cassettes AFAIK; but you certainly could.

To those who think they should get some sort of compensation for their copied software, the Canadian Copyright Act actually leaves it open to potential groups to apply for and get status to do exactly that but it seems that nobody but the music publishers seem to be able to get together and actually do it (thank our lucky stars!)

As one of the people who directly opposed the CPCC in their recent initial request to apply a levy of $21 per Gigabyte for the storage in things like the iPOD, I can tell you that you can make a difference if you try. The actual levy approved by the Copyright Board was from $2 to a maximum of $25 per unit depending on how much storage it has in it when manufactured - and no levy on additional storage modules purchased after the fact. This and a hold at previous levels for CDs and tapes was actually quite a victory. I expect the fight over levies on regular PC hard drives will be every bit as hard when it comes.

Let this be a lesson to you - and let's see if you can apply it regarding the DMCA and other repressive legislation that your wonderful government (and the business lobby that pays it) are foisting on the world (see what is happening in Austrailia for example)

On Unix/Linux under the X-windows system the facility is best typified by the pager facility of the fvwm Window manager. It has equivallents on all graphical user desktops since the mid 80's

On Windows, a pager called sDesk (Semik's desktop), based on the above mentioned fvwm has been on my desktop since 1999 (it was copyright 1998 by Jan Tomasek)

More information and a picture of my desktop may be seen at: http://richard.pacdat.net/home-office.htm

I trust this will put a stop to the possibility that anyone may patent this facility - it has ample prior art.

richard

Sometimes there are external (to Canada) influences that clog up the works and slow things down. Other times they do something that demonstrates the "law of unintended consequences" quite nicely ;)

We have pretty much recognized gay marriage

We are working on de-criminalizing (note: not legalizing) pot (much to the consternation of the US DEA - one of those external influences we get)

We recognized that "private copying" was a fact and was not likely to go away - so came up with the Blank Media Levy which might actually be a reasonable solution if the Copyright Board continues to show restraint

I make no guess as to what our dear government will do about "uploading" if anything; but they might.

In the mean time it should be noted that most of the large retailers selling music have lowered the prices significantly (the small retailers are being frozen out by the distributors and not getting the discounts "because they don't buy enough copies..." - a rant for another time). It remains to be seen if the number of units goes up. I expect it will - even though the total dollars may go down or stay even - and that is the point!

The dollars spent on music will likely stay even or maybe decline a bit - but this is not due to downloading, private copying, or whatever - it is due to external forces in action.

For example - the chocolate bar industry noted a decline in sales during the late 90s and early 2000s - and found that the reason was that their prime targets/customers (the teenagers) were using their disposable income to purchase cell-phone cards for text messaging and phone calls - leaving less to spend on chocolate.

Another influence - the music industry has released less music in recent years than they did previously - there is less to choose from and people are resisting (by downloading - "I've paid for 14 songs but only like 2 on this CD so I'll download another 12 to make up for it" maybe not done consiously - but it makes them feel better). The music publishers have also "perfected" the art of slicing and dicing the repetoir to force (or at least try to force) their target audience to pay for multiple CDs in order to get all the music they want, one or two songs per CD at a time - along with lots of crap put out as filler. I've suggested (to the Copyright Board) that this is in fact "tied selling" and should be viewed as a negative in adjusting the rate for the music levy - derating the "average" earnings per song in the calculation - they didn't bite this time but...

We've also had a bit of an economic turn-down recently too - but of course during such times people will always choose music over food won't they? ;)

The music distribution system is headed for a collapse - with the publishing companies and the industry associations losing out. Problem is that they don't want to lose their profit and influence so are fighting hard to lobby the governments to keep them around. This is what we have to fight. The continuation of an inefficient distribution system in the face of a complete paradigm change and disruptive technologies. It is the job of government to do what the population as a whole needs done in order to survive economically (and other ways but...) and if this means allowing one particular segment of an old industry to founder (the publishers) to the benefit of another segment (the artists) while keeping the general population from being all put in jail or saddled with onerous civil penalties for doing what "everyone is doing" then so be it - that's what we pay them the big bucks for.

There is no guarantee to any business that they will survive doing the sam

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

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

But if you added a better enumeration system for what actually got played, noting that the computer systems and network today make this almost trivial compared to the current sampling system and estimation based solely upon air-play (which is itself pushed and pulled by what amounts to payolla but isn't called that anymore), then it may in fact be fair.

The other thing to note is that there doesn't seem to be any movement to make this (levy) payment the only way an artist can get paid. I expect that many (more) will resort to self-publishing and doing e-commerce in the same fashion that Janis Ian is doing, adding value in the form of physical articles that go along with the purchase of the (digital) art in question.

Collectors, fans, wanabees and all sorts will pay for exclusivity - either first access, unique extras, etc.

The other thing that will continue to make the artists money is appearances - live music gigs for example.

What the whole change is doing is cutting out the middle men - the publishers - and I for one am glad they're going. Today, they add nothing and take much. They are the ones that want to implement DRM - so they can get paid to do what they no longer need to do - distribute.

In the case of the Bennetton tags, there wasn't even any additional convenience for the customer; just a straightforward loss of privacy ("wow, she's back for the 3rd day, still wearing the same jeans!"). So I think that died because they couldn't come up with any "convenient" excuse for tagging your clothes.

My claim is that even in other cases, like FastLane style auto toll collection, there's no technical or engineering reason you have to give up privacy for the convenience. Instead, the designers and/or operators of the systems want the information, so they provide a benefit in order to justify collecting the information. In the case of auto toll collection, as pointed out in here, your toll debit card could be purchased anonymously. This has all the convenience and none of the privacy intrusion of existing systems.

But what's the big deal about privacy anyway? My claim is that when times are good, privacy doesn't matter. But when times are bad, it's too late! Innocent databases can be misused in terrible ways. When the Nazis conquered cities, they would use library borrowing records to find Jewish people. How long until the next J. Edgar Hoover or Joe McCarthy comes along and abuses his position of power? (Yeah, I know, some would say Ashcroft is already worse; I don't want to start that argument). My point is that it has happened here, and likely will again. The potential unforseen future misuse of databases is what makes me a privacy advocate.

So, good riddance to Bennetton's RFID tags, and let's get rid of the false dichotomy that's used to insinuate similar privacy invasions!