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Australian Gov't Lobbied To Implement Media Levies
TheScream writes "Screenrights has been activly promoting its proposal for a CD-R DVD-R levy (similar to that implemented in Canada, as previous reported on /.) with a 5 minute interview on popular Australian breakfast television show Today. News.com.au reports that Screenrights and APRA "...want a recording levy of between 3 per cent and 10 per cent..." and includes highly debateable mis-truths such as "Every kid does it, so let's facilitate some standards in the marketplace.""
...highly debateable mis-truths such as "Every kid does it, so let's facilitate some standards in the marketplace."
Nobody buys CDs anymore dude... why do you think new releases are $10.99 again? I don't think the music industry should entitled to having the government place a levy on CDRs, but don't try to argue that music piracy isn't rampant.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Not to mention the FACT that this is a slap in the face of people that have programs THAT THAY MADE to back up not to mention small bisnesses that require acouting records backed up on to CD.
:)
Hell I wouldent be to surprosed if Micro$soft isnt suporting this as one of the main ways Linux gets spread is from mates with CDs and net conections (I know meany people that wouldn't have even SEEN Linux becuse thay dont have net conections - or god forbid 56k ones)
Hell even backing up CDs and Games is alowable by law(I FUCKING wish I backed up operation flashpoint CD got snaped by doggy DVD case (happend to a mate of mine too but he still was in warenty))
And like it will get to the same people whos information you coping - I dont want to give the RIAA (cuse thats who these people are acting on behalf of) if im backing up say CIV 3! Such a fucking arrogant statment there!
A halirios consicence will happen if these laws are enacted though - every atomican in the country will buy as meany 100cd silos as thay can
(unfoutunetly this will be interpreted as "lost earnings" by the RIAA assholes)
if they charge you for cd's can you legally copy copyrighted stuff to them?
anyone know if a charge like this exists in the uk?
I'm on the official list of objectors about this particular levy law. Don't worry, we've got some pretty convincing evidence to show at the hearing that illustrates that the proposed levies are much too high and should be struck down like a red-headed stepchild.
It will be interesting to see the outcome. If it passes, the market for blank media and mp3 players will be hit hard.
Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
Sure, that sounds like a great idea. Swamp the law-abiding users with paperwork, so everyone will bend over and take it.
Of course, the cry that, "We offer a refund!" will be the sound byte, not the 12 page invasive rebate form.
I think I'll hire the people that sign up for Yahoo accounts all day to fill out thousands upon thousands of applications. I might even break even....
They should give a percentage to go to free software development. I don't particularly like most open source software, but a lot of people use a lot of CD-Rs to burn Linux distros. It only seems fair that they get a chunk.
Slashdotter are stupid and biased.
Just because there are some people that do it, does not mean that everyone else does. Punishing the whole for what only a portion of the people are (as you admit!) does not seem morally correct to me.
At work, we use blank CDs to fulfill orders from customers and mail their data to them. Why should our customers end up paying levies on media (like we're going to absorb the cost? HA!) to have their data delivered to them?
Granted, most of the CDs burned that I see my friends make are for copying software, not music, but you don't hear about the SPA asking for levies on blank CDs.
As for blank DVD's, the only thing that I do with those is convert my home movies to DVD for me to send to my family.
Australia will almost definitely roll over to this type of law given their policies in the past, so anyone living there might want to push their representatives to at least give you something in return.
"The truth be told, most users are rather ignorant of the politics involved in these areas; Slashdotters are on the oppostite end of the spectrum."
:)
Despite the fact that Slashdotters are usually indeed aware of the politics relating to today's technology, I think it's safe to say that only under 1% of us* does anything about it. What good is knowledge if you are not putting it to use?
*Nope, I'm not part of that 1%. Hrmph. I suppose this makes my message rather hypocritical
"The power of accurate observation is frequently called cynicism by those who don't have it." - G.B. Shaw
I watched some of the report on the today show this morning, they were spewing so much rubbish I had to turn it off. It was a one sided reported that basically said two things: 1. All kids are pirates 2. Everyone who buys CD-R, does so to pirate CDs An interesting note, is that they had already tried to get the levys on CD-R through the court system but it was thrown out because it was a tax.
Yeah i watched this on Today this morning before work, and the guy from Screenrights was trying to say that CD sales have fallen because of p2p + the internet, but then he was saying that CDRs should have a levy placed on sales, because people copy legitimately bought cds for others. he almost seemed to be concerned that they were too cheap - he gave an example of being able to walk into the post office and buy 20 cds for $20 - THE HORROR!!!
:)
when the hard-questioning interviewer asked him how many people were copying cds, the guy had no-idea. when questioned about anything that required specific numbers or figues, he had no idea.
You could almost tell that he knew he was spouting bullshit. but thats generally what you get on the Today Show
I only watch it to see what the weather will be - honestly.
I actually watched the broadcast, and it was disgusting.
The shmuck claimed that "every family" does it, as does "every kid". When asked how much it would be, he said they have no idea yet, but wants it to be worked out in consultation. Obviously thats a lie, as other posts point out they want anywhere from 3-10%.
He pointed out that this levy would make it OK, but not for those who do wholesale copying.
What was worse is the show didn't have anyone else on there representing the other view.
My question is: If a levy is set, does this mean I am free to download any mp3 I wish? Could I borrow all of my friends CDs and have hundreds of thousands of mp3s legally? Cause if it does, bring it on! I will never buy a CD again!
At the moment I don't mp3 illegally (IE I buy my own CDs and mp3 them, but not others), but if it was made legal through the levy, I would certainly burn hundreds of CDs from friends.
Cut the marketing bullshit. They're lies. Not all the kids on the entire Australian continent burn ill-gotten music to CD or DVD. If I can find one kid who burns perfectly legal CDs all the time (hey, there goes one now), I've proven this statement false.
Call a spade a spade and call bullshit when you see it from now on. This site doesn't need to put a spin on such blatantly false crap.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Over the years, I have purchased and used 7 CD burners. I have burned at least 2000 CDs. Of those, about 10 were an original music project I was working on (nothing the music industry had any rights to), about 5 were audio compilation cds made from mp3s I legitatmately bought the original CD (content the music industry does have the right to) and the rest of the batch (at least 1985 CDs) were various data backups, file transfers, etc.
If, the record industry got 3 cents for each CD (that is their minimum here, they'd rather have the 10c) I would (and actually have, thanks to stupid US law) payed the music industry $60. I have not copied any music I have not paid for, bet yet I am taxed the cost of 150-200 more blank media. If it was a 10cent tax, then I would have spent $200.....that is about how much I have spent on my entire music collection (the vast majority of my collection is gifts). $200 is a pretty hefty chuck of money to have paid for the priveledge of transfering my own content to my own media for my own purposes, especially when that $200 is being given to a massive corporation that had absolutely nothing to do with how that media was used, and had lost absolutely nothing in sales to my actions.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
It the goverment is to tax the recording media and pass the fee onto the recoding companies then this implies that the artists/riaa/apra are getting paid for their works, thereby legitimising the practice of music sharing.
This has been before the supreme court before, and it was knocked back becasue the court said that it is in affect adding a TAX on media for a party other than the government.
As such this will NEVER get passed into law now, as it would take a serious cahnge in what is now precedent.
lounge around on the blue couch
Read with interest today on News.com.au that you are seeking a levy on blank data media. I can only assume you're serious, and am hence interested to know - a) are you still planning to pursue small scale copyright violators in the wake of such a scheme. b) If so, do you find anything unethical about such 'double dipping', pursuing these people for something they already 'paid' for.
I'm interested, because talking with friends, we'd be interested in a possibly much, much higher levy on specially designated CD blanks, provided we were legally allowed to fill the CD as with tracks of our choice acquired from whatever source. Perhaps APRA could provide some sort of music on demand service where tracks are selected from an online database, paid for by credit card, and burnt and mailed out to the recipient?
Yours,
Music Lover.
Why not sell CD-RWs with a song pre-recorded on them (this should work in Canada too.)
.sig
I can see three advantages;
1. You beat the tax (I'm assuming they include an exemption for pre-recorded media like Canada and virtually everybody else.)
2. You become a music producer, so you can collect the tax that your competitors pay.
3. You probably have the number one song on the charts, since people will buy far more than
one copy of a CD-RW- basically free advertising.
You could probably sell the title track for money too -
Coke would pay to have the number one song in Australia be a commercial for their product,
especially if they got to pick the name of that song.
-- this is not a
Simple solution - if it is to be a tax, you can claim a rebate at tax time. Something along the lines of:
Tax Return 2003-2004
Rebates - Other
CD-Rs purchased: 5000
Tax paid per CD-R: $ 0.04
Total tax paid: $200.00
CD-Rs used to publish stolen music: 0
CD-Rs used to backup licensed music: 3
CD-Rs used to publish personal art: 4997
Tax rebate claimed: $200.00
(Something I've found necessary with some of my CDs, is that my CD-ROM drive can read them, although my sound system cannot - probably due to scratches, etc. I have made copies of these few discs so that I can actually listen to the music. Don't know why I should be taxed for that?!)
Go bite yourselves, music industry moguls!
With each breath in, a flower somewhere opens; with each breath out, a flower withers away. In between lies beauty.
The price paid for music CDs in Aust is already higher than in any other county mentioned in the list of places that charge levies on black CD-Rs, $30 Aust dollars and even more for imported disks, the justification for this is because some people may make illegal copies, just how many times do they want to tax us? I'll happily pay the levy, but it's the last time I'll buy a music CD, I'll just use P2P instead.
If this goes before the government for real, there's a few points I'll be talking to my MP about:
1) The money better go to the artists, not the record companies. After all, what expenses do the record companies have for stolen music? (Well, maybe advertising)
2) The money had better go to the artists in a proportional matter. So some mechanism for working out which artists get copied the most better be decided on. Don't look at what's selling well; arguably, that's what's being copied the least.
3) I should be able to take a CD that hasn't been used for copying music, and get a refund on the levy. Not sure how this would work for CDRWs, but that's not my problem.
4) Fair use rights should be encoded explicitly in law. They are there in Australia's copyright legisilation implicitly (and have been upheld in court), but let's end the legal challenges, okay?
5) Copy-protected CDs should be illegal; after all, by paying the levy on the media, I've explicitly paid for the right to copy music on to it, haven't I?
6) I should have the right to return a CD that I don't like to the distributor (ideally, to the store), and get a full refund on the price.
7) People who use that lame excuse that CD sales were down last year should be shot unless they immediately point out that so were new titles and that sales/title were actually up in 2002, same as every year in the last 10.
"Software is too expensive to build cheaply"
Imposing the levy on the CDRs and any other form of media storage device to cause sales to drop significantly. This of course should lead to losses in sales and profits for these companies. Now, it would definately be poetic if these companies sue the Record industries back for losses in sales caused by the levies and the damage to their business, in exactly the same manner in which the Record companies sued the P2P software companies to shut them down.
My 2 cents.
Paladiamors
If levies are implemented (or the proposed ISP fees are universally implemented), how many CD's do I need to rip until I have got my moneys worth?
I don't copy/download music, but if I am paying for it anyway..........
... NOT.
In Denmark we have had an empty media tax for a few years now.
On December 22nd the Danish Parliament ratified a law to make it illegal to make backup copies of digital media (such as CDs) if the media has any copy protection. This means that putting a green marker to a copy protected CD is illegal. - And this has happened even though a different law states that everybody is entitled to make backup copies of CDs.
Government thinking, an oxymoron if I ever heard one.