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Canadians [Will] Pay Levy on MP3 Players - Updated
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."
Clearly this is insane. It's nothing other than welfare for copyright holders. One way to make things more sane is to abolish copyright. Without copyright, nobody would have a legal right to prevent others from copying music, and thus would have no justification for asking for a tariff on equipment for recording music to. But copyright should be abolished mainly because it is unnatural--cheaper recording media would be just a side effect.
Agree on abolishing copyrights and patents? The poster argoff does as well. You are not alone.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
Dammit, RIAA, you can't just change your name and cross the border... can you...?
:^)
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.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
This is ridiculous. The whole intellectual property/copyright thing has swung wayyy too far to one side. We need more people like these guys around doing this
Heh. Just the kind of thing that keeps Mickey Mouse up late at night with nightmares...
Customized Hobbit anyone? Under the founders' ideas, the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy would be public domain by now
I think you may be confused about the effect of a rising Canadian dollar. If the dollar continues to go up, importing an iPod should get cheaper.
How about staying on-topic and ST'ing the FU? Slashdot is not your personal semiotic pigsty.
With the Canadian Dollar rising and this on the horizon, maybe now is the right time to get that iPod."
...
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.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
First, the blank-tape tax.
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!
Now that I have to pay this royalty, am i free to duplicate copyrighted material? Or will I now merely be paying twice for something.
~ Maintainer of the Skajake Projects
You're already "paying" for the media... Maybe the government should just track what files are being downloaded, and distribute the "media tax" proportionately.
This is the kind of thing that makes me mad. What does it really solve to do this? The copyright holders will still crave for more money, and they will continue until there's no more money left! And we, the consumers, will never have any profit of such a levy, it won't keep us from getting sued if the copyright holders wants more money, it wont make it easier for us to chose our own device of playing the more and more customized copyprotection...
So I say: Come up with something better, will ya?
falxx
It looks better than the previous scheme, which charged a fixed amount per megabyte of storage.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
As usual, the moderators seem to be bringing their own baggage to the table.
This is a perfectly-legitimate opinion. It's a howlingly-stupid opinion, but it's still on topic, coherently-stated, and worthy of discussion. Unpopular opinions are not always trolls. Mod it back up, please.
I don't get the Canadian dollar comment. The dollar rising makes imported goods like the iPod cheaper not more expensive.
The RIAA is and always has been out for one thing, Money.
I think I think, therefore I think I am.
Can someone clarify....many stores in canada do not charge the new blank-media tax. why is this?
read the post before modding as "informative", dumbass
There is up and down. Gravity points down, so does the inherent ability to copy information. Laws that try to stop that are wrong, and what comes up must come DOWN.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
AC comments get piped to
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.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
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.
Can it be argued that if you buy CD's, you've already paid your tax to the music industry that's it's OK to download music?
And what's going to stop people from running over to the States and buying CD's at $0.10/disc?
-R
Luckily I live right near the boarder (Thunder Bay Ontario). If I want that ipod I just take a trip to Duluth for the weekend, take my laptop, load it up with mp3's and pretend I had it all along. The strong Canadian doller will make this cheaper than buying it in Canada :D
History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it - Sir Winston Churchill
SIG: More Americans run Kazaa than vote.
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.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
yea, and look how well thats working out.....
Sounds like someone read my fictitious news story and mistook it for a good idea.
*sigh*,
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
...That this is overturned, elsewise I can see myself doing some cross border runs for storage mediums.
Isn't socialism grand?
You're paying for it now, so copy as you like. Don't feel remorse. The government is just making it easy - now Canadians can download music and movies off the Internet instead of wasting time walking to a store. You think the recording industry would dare take you to court and lose when the judge learns that you paid them for it already? That court loss would open the floodgates!
Use this stuff for legitimate reasons only? Go buy in the US. You have a right to do that.
" Maybe that price hike is going towards their free healthcare...."
Damn, how do you guys do it??? I'm formulating a response, scroll down the page, and BAM there it is! I think my firewall isn't working.
"At least we don't have this levy..."
Not yet. We do have it on some blank media.
"...and we're still allowed to own handguns."
Not in Chicago...
What?
Oh dear, what will I do now that I can't threaten to move to Canada if Bush gets elected again?!?
And if the industry isn't getting what it thinks is its due, well, time to tax and spend. Tax the consumer and spend the profits for the benefit of those in the boardrooms.
I have never downloaded music, ripped a CD, or recorded copyrighted video. I have used hard disks for my files, bought DVD media for my backups, and bought flash memory for my digital cameras. Why would I have to pay this levy? And can I ask for a rebate if I only use the media for my own copyrighted files?
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Don't throw tax money at a problem and hope that it will go away. And, don't believe a politician when they say that the tax is going to be used to discourage the use of something. They know very well that the usage rates won't drop much, which means pure profit. You can tax beer, but everybody still likes to get drunk. Most importantly, when you have people who want to tax items that don't directly have to do with the problem in order to make money, it might be a good idea to relocate to another country, because the people in charge of yours might be getting a little bit greedy and a little bit socialist at the same time. That's quite ironic, because isn't socialism supposed to prevent from greed? It seems like that's just being collectively greedy. Anyways, be careful where you move, though, you wouldn't want to move to another country that's just as bad if not worse, right? You could learn a lot from a Libertarian.
Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.
Canadian music industry, proposed that existing tariffs be substantially hiked and expanded to cover M3P players
;)
I guess that means I can still buy a MP3 player levy-free.
Big Hint >>>>Troll, mod this crap down.
Needle Nardle Noo
Psst, Trade ya these prescription drugs for your MP3 players? How about it eh?
BTM
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
Does this mean that everytime I take a picture with my Canon D30 camera I will see a cut of the 20% lavy. I mean it is my copyrighted work on the CF card.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
I'm in Alberta, and have a Glock 17 and a Desert Eagle... I got my license after the latest gun control increases.
They'd like you to think you can't have guns anymore, but it's merely a nuisance wading through the paperwork.
if your goign to get punished for a crime you might aswell do the crime
soo i think shur they should levey the tax so then i can pirate every thing i want and sleep well cause i know im still paying for it
that is how they want every one to think right? cause i know that whats goign to happen
if you only knew how much oil, power generation and fresh water is up there, not to mention good looking girls!
must be fun in hell
Even hard drives? Sheesh... At this rate they will tax the computer industry into oblivion..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Why does one group get to have its way with all digital media without respect for other groups? Why is it that musicians and songwriters deserve to impose a "guilty until proven innocent" handout? If they get that much, then what will happen when other groups ask for them? What about film producers and movie studios? What about software companies? What about print publishers? If you take all of these groups into consideration, given what is already charged, the average CD blank will end up with a $4 per blank tax.
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 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.
HEH!
:-)
Come to Norway. It's Canada * 1000
Frankly, I think this is another example of intelligent Canadian legislation. The tariffs on CDR media and (potentially) MP3 players may not be palatable to consumers, but they keep the dogs of the music industry at bay. Meanwhile, South of the border there is a dearth of similar legislation. What happens? The heads of the RIAA are weeping and gnashing their teeth, launching lawsuits against pre-pubescent downloaders.
Although I'm not terribly fond of either option, I'd much rather pay a bit of a premium if the alternative is getting lubed up and penetrated by American-style "Justice".
That said, I might be wrong. I know the RIAA suits have pressed charges on non-American downloaders. Can anyone confirm whether (or not) any Canadians have been taken to task?
Anyways, it's no big deal because I've already got my iPod :)
...Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
Churchill
"So far, the organization has distributed $11 million back to Canadian artists"
;)
Wow.. so that's like about what, 2.75 mil per Canadian artist then?
*ducks and covers*
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
As I said, the removal of that justification is a side effect. The very idea of copyright is insane, so insane laws follow naturally.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
This is nothing less than extortion. When ever some "special interest" group complains about some imagined disparity, our government responds by promptly caving in to whatever they want. If this trend continues Canada will be a third world country in no time. If there are any politicians out there reading this, grow a set and tell these "special interest" groups to get a life, get a job, and earn money. Starving artists, if your "art" was any good, you wouldn't be starving. To all Canadian's lets download every piece of music out there, we're being forced to pay for it anyway
If this is the same levy as before, it only applies to _blank_ media. That is, media without any sounds on it. So the iPod in Canada could just come with a copy of "Steve Jobs Sings" prerecorded, and no levy.
Crucifixion is what killed jesus.
Grrrrrr. It can be so annoying to live in Canada.
PS
This is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R were eliminated. (mitchhedberg.net)
you are too stupid to be allowed to live.
pls die, thx
Actually I do.
ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY NONE!
Now fuck right off you stupid nigger.
obviously you mean capitalism
It's more like you had to pay $5 every time you went in the park JUST IN CASE you littered, where yesterday you didn't have to pay.
And yes, it would cause more people to litter.. that's how people think.
Ok - not like this is a lone cry in the wilderness, but this just sickens me.
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 interesting thing about these levies is that the money spent by the consumer doesn't necessarily vanish into thin air.
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.
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.
The Canadian prices for iPods are $439, $579, and $729 for 10GB, 20GB and 40GB iPods, respectively. You must pay 7% GST on top of anything that you buy.
The US prices for iPods 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.
Groupthink is CAUSED by Jesus.
Musicians in Canada are getting compensated by blank media and MP3-player sales as well as by albumn sales.
If the consumer is paying the artist via this levy, does that mean sharing music via a P2P network is now legal for Canadians, so long as they intend to transfer that music to either an MP3 player or some form of media on which the levy has been applied?
That might be an interesting challenge in the Canadian Courts.
Nice too be reminded that us Yankee's aren't the only one's losing control.
Quack, quack.
As someone pointed out the other day, there was plenty of quality art available before copyright. Shakespeare and Mozart were happy to create art without it, and (AFIAK) made money from performance and patronage.
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.
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
I've noticed that everywhere as well... What causes that? Is it simply that they'd rather their goods stayed in the country or is it a more practical reason?
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
You apparently have a quantifiable amount of money, which means corporations and politicians will trip over each other scrambling it take it from you.
;)
sorry, feeling cynical. why oh why do i read the news?
Seriously, what about the porn industry. Kazaa, usenet, gnutellla etc all have pirated porn. Yet they seem to stay in business even without levies.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
This is ridiculous. Im happy i bought my 160gb sata drive today, rather than tommorow when this could happen. I am furious that they are so retarded they can not see another use for digital media, or mp3 players. I own the music i have on my mp3 player, why should i pay the artist twice. So basically now im allowed to steal music and other software? well that works i guess, ill just buy my hard drives in the states and sneak them back.
How do they decide who gets this money? I'm sure it's somehow set up so that the big labels are the only ones who ever see a dime, but what's to stop someone from writing a crappy song and then claiming they should get a slice of the pie?
The stupidest thing about these sort of tarrifs is that they only server to further propogate the mentality that media piracy is not only tolerated, but actually completely legal (after all, if one is paying extra for the media, they must be getting something for that). This perception is false. Canadian consumers are getting absolutely _zilch_ in exchange for paying the levy. All doing this will do is cause piracy to become even *MORE* rampant.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
1 ipod and a 50 blank spindle for 100 Paxil and 100 Methotrexate!
I'm only half kidding, sadly.
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's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
And people say the US government is the bitch of corporations? This is absolutely ridiculous. Clearly Canada is more controled by its RIAA equivalent than the US ever will be.
Freedoms may be eroding in the US, but we can see they never even existed in Canada.
I'm not Canadian, but this is what I think about the issue: If they start charging such exorbitant taxes they are just sending the message that it's okay to pirate the music because you're already paying for it in taxes.
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.
Canada makes an even bigger mockery of the democratic system than the US has managed to do. Shit, we're falling behind.... quick, someone write another bill!!!
What you are talking about is called Purchase Power Parity. The economist does this cool little thing where they use the Big Mac to compute the purchase power parity of each currency.
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.
Time somebody did some harn back. All these companies, organizations and governments rely on software to help them, can't we hurt them back?
Let's stop giving them their software on digital media (as apparently it can only be used for illegal distribution of copyrighted media) and hand them their applications printed on paper.
Increasing and expanding the levy is a small yet symbolic attempt at compensating artists and record companies for widespread piracy, the CPCC argues.
I used to collect pirated music, but after awhile my conscience got the best of me, due in part to the ads they run up here. If they decide to put these hikes in place, I have to ask myself "If they're treating me like a criminal, why bother being honest?"
Assuming that people are guilty only lowers the moral expectations of a culture. A "symbolic" gesture as they call it is a real actual cost; nothing symbolic about that. Soon they'll be slapping tariffs on videos, DVD's, satellite and any other digital content because - sheesh! We _know_ you're all just a bunch of dirty thieves!
What they should do is keep up the ad campains - those work.
Ruby on Rails Screencast
An oldie but a goodie -
.sig
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
I havn't said this in forever, but here goes:
I'm almost proud to be an American... taxes out the wazzoo(sp?)... eeewww.
Learn something new.
With some (Future Shop, par example), it is included in the cost of the media. You don't see it, and people are less annoyed by it.
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.
Rise in traffic accidents (and you're not one of them) --> increase in your insurance to pay for it.
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.
Just fuck off and don't mod this up. I know it uses keys words like LINUX, but just fuck off, it is stupid please use your points where they are needed, modding people like me down.
i'm not going to get into all your points, save the first one.
canadians have ALWAYS had the legal right to make backups of their media. the levy is a "hey, we think the artists are getting screwed, so lets screw the consumers" afterthought. it doesn't make backing up legal now; it makes pirating legitimate since we are paying a levy to do it. whether i buy in a store or download and burn, the artists will get paid (so the government says). but if i buy and backup, i am paying twice.
It's levied against the manufacturer or importer. The consumer never sees it - it's hidden.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
Another question: who is getting all this money from the blank-CD tax? Is it all Canadian artists, or is all the money going to the record companies in Los Angeles? If you are levying these taxes to fund copyright holders who are mainly south of the border, why are you getting out of it?
Would you rather:
A) pay a little more for media and hardware and have essentially decriminalized filesharing, or
B) have all your hardware corrupted with crypto-DRM, with tethered downloads, criminalization of file sharing, draconian laws passed favoring big media at the expense of everyone else, etc?
Well, they haven't been suing people here yet. Frankly, I'd be surprised if they ever do unless some draconian legislation favouring them is passed first.
All it would take is one person with a good lawyer getting sued to cause irreparable harm to Canadian copyright law. You're totally right -- Canadian copyright organizations want it both ways, and they know that puts them in a tenuous position.
The RIAA has at least been clear in methods; lawsuits and harassment. The tax in a lot of way compromises any chance of seriously going after media pirates.
Where in the name of dog are you buying your CDs? Look around a bit more my friend, you can usually get a 10 pack with cases for $10 - $12.
Sweet, now I can freely download music without fear of any legal repercussion.
:)
Have fun getting sued by the RIAA, Americans.
Sad part of it is most the money probably goes to canadian 'artists' who are for the most part rejects from the welfare line instead of american artists whose content is being infringed on.
There little canadian content worth paying for since it's shoved down our throats daily if we want it or not. It's just another way for canadian welfare nannie's to feel ligit.
And as a Canadian who listens to alot of music, and buys alot of storage, I might have a valid opinion here. ;)
Well, Canadians are used to getting screwed by our government. For those of you who are American, we are actually still subject to a monarchy. (in practice it has little power, but symbolically, it means alot) That is to say, I think alot of Canadians view themselves as "subjects" as opposed to "citizens". We respect the rule of law here - so much in fact, we get walked on far too often by our government.
That said - to get back to the point - This levy may very well be instituted here. However, in our very Canadian pragmatic way, we will pay it. On the flip side, we will still keep pirating music, and I doubt very much our government/special interest corporate entitites will prosecute.
Canadians are just apathetic, and no one wants to rock the boat. We lose freedoms on paper, but at the same time we seem to have less trouble with the government being complete assholes at the same time.
Comments from anyone most welcome. Just an observation.
This isn't the only thing going on in the world of media, if you look at the copyright board of Canada, most of the upcoming issues are all dealing with SOCAN, CMRRA and the NRCC.
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
.... marijuana, booze, escorts, barter trade and everything else sold under the table in Canada. Stupid governments simply push such commerce underground with excessive taxation!
Because of all of Canada's social programs, they need the money from crap like this. Just look at California and their black hole of a debt.
"Sufferin' succotash."
If ISP's are going to be fined and taxed for the fraud their services allow, then they should look at charging for the the profit made. Yes, they are already profiting from providing the connection, but just like the electric company, add a surcharge or cost recovery rider and get a portion of iTunes millions for enableing users to get to their site. And while we are at it, Microsoft can put forth a suit seeing as they provided the web browser most folk (that would pay for music) used to access the site. . . . . Shall I go on? This has got to stop. I refuse to pay a tariff on a hard drive used in a mail server because of the whining of a special interest group.
Canadian consumers are receiving absolutely *NOTHING* in exchange for paying the levy. As I have stated elsewhere, the fact that this levy is being imposed will do nothing but further propogate that misconception and cause piracy to be even more rampant than it was before.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
just once, to see a deaf person try to get a case into the Canadian court system claiming it's unfair they have to pay these fees because they're incapable of pirating music.
Even if that's totally legally baseless and it gets thrown out the instant that the paperwork goes through and it gets in front of the judge. As a publicity stunt it would be effective and funny.
(On the other hand, knowing the copyright industry, the canadian RIAA equivilent will probably just send this right back and try to get a special tax placed on deaf people, since they're hurting the profits of the recording industry by their incapability to listen to music...)
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
The real crisis in the recording industry is not illegal copying but Britney Spears. Because you have paid for music up front you will start downloading Britney's tracks, which you wouldn't have dreamed of doing in the absence of the tax. That is the only way the industry will stay solvent given all the drek they are peddling.
This will probably cause many small and struggling computer stores to close. The one I work at barely survived Toronto's Summer of SARS, and sales are finally starting to recover. People from outside the province get enough sticker shock when Ontario's 8% tax and the federal 7% tax are stacked on top of the posted price. If an extra 20% gets tacked on storage media, that's a 35% tax, little of which will end up going to the struggling artist, most of which will go to Bryan Fucking Adams and Celine Fucking Dion if most of it doesn't disappear into copyright board and record industry bureaucracy. When a customer mentioned this to me today, I thought he was joking. This is going to help no one, and will likely hurt many, many people who would otherwise be purchasing music and movies. Fewer people will buy storage media, which means less money will be available for businesses to pay rent and employees, which means fewer people using their wages to buy entertainment--if they end up receiving a wage at all. Basic capitalist economics--even a tree-hugging commie like me understands this cause and effect, and it's not as if that 20% will go to serve any common good in the end.
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.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Thank you, for not reading the article.
The thing is, there's lots of good Canadian content out there. It's just not the stuff that's shoved down our throats. Skinny Puppy and Front Line Assembly are two of the best bands in Industrial music, but you'll never hear them on MuchMusic or the CBC.
Basically, quality Canadian music is no more rare than quality American music. It just gets drowned out completely by the crap from both sides of the border. America and Canada both have a nasty tendency to only promote and export their worst "art".
With appoligizations to our brothers and sisters up north.
Well since I'm paying the music industry for pirated songs then I am more than entitled to get them without actually owning the 'original' cd. Oh wait that won't do anything cause according to the RIAA and their various puppet organizations around the world claim this is already happening. Maybe its time to step up their 'losses'. I haven't bought a new cd in over 5 years. Partly because there is nothing released that is worth anything.
Strong dollar? The US$/ exchange rate is currently $1=0.818777, so at least compared to euro, dollar has never been this weak (of course euro has been around only for a few years).
My Lyra came with 25 sample songs on it. This was the first I've ever heard of an mp3 player coming pre-loaded with music. It's almost like they've planned for this all along.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
I'm counting two so far. Could you just point out all these posters advocating abolishment?
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
Obviously Slashdot doesn't support the Euro-symbol...
My CreativeLabs Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra came with a dozen songs preloaded, so it's obviously not "blank media". Don't most of the MP3 players come with an intro pre-loaded? Seems like you'd want to test them at least once before shipping, and it easier to not delete the test mp3, isn't it?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
yeah, I'm an Albertan too, and I have several handguns and longguns. To clarify, we can pretty much buy whatever we want provided it isn't automatic. And yes, as you said, it's just a matter of paperwork.
I fear what will happen with our benevolent dictatorship in the next 10-15 years though.
It seems to me that if this is to compensate copyright holders for piracy, it should follow directly that piracy is now perfectly legal because the holders are no longer uncompensated. Seems only fair.
Cameron Simpson, DoD#743 cs@cskk.id.au http://www.cskk.ezoshosting.com/cs/
Working on my quick draw :) Now that I've bought my Kimber Custom CDP II (drool)
Notice I got modded as a troll?
This guy is way out there
Of copyrights and patents? Without compromise?
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
More people would buy CDs if they were cheaper. The RIAA is dying all by themselves, the piracy thing is just a convenient scapegoat. This is what happens when you collude with all your competition to fix prices, especially for something so easily traded as digital music. Piracy is just a natural reaction to the price fixing the industry is perpetrating. The problem for them is, once everyone is used to getting their music online, and systems to deliver it become more convenient, people won't be going back to buying CDs, no matter what they lower the price to. It's fun to watch them shoot themselves in the foot, and to think that in my lifetime (I'm in my mid 20's), and possibly within the next decade, the RIAA will have become an insignificant force in the music industry, through no fault but their own.
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
I'm moving to...
wait, where is this again? Canada?
Shit. I better like tacos.
Why not a CPU bandwidth levy? After all, something has to decode those MP3 files and play them. Oh, and a sound card levy, and a RAM levy and ...
The old levy is bad enough, but the proposed ones are obscene. I agree with you. If the new levy goes through, or an ISP bandwidth tax, I swear that I will download a P2P program and start downloading MP3s for the first time! I'll tell my son to go ahead and download what he likes -- we're paying for it already. Until now, I haven't downloaded any of this stuff they claim the levy is for. I don't have a reason, and I feel the artists should get compensated for their work. But why buy audio CDs anymore if I am already paying for the "right" to download?
I have only ever made MP3s of my own purchased CDs, and then only rarely. More than 95% of the time, I am backing up my own #$@#$ copyrighted data -- same for the 512MB Compact Flash I use to create my OWN pictures with my digital camera. Have these people no pity for the home users that are creating their own copyrighted material? No pity for new artists that just want to make a demo CD and distribute it as cheaply as possible?
These people are nuts.
Time to write another letter to my MP.
I really like it better in the US. We know that if we get cought we get sued. We know that if we don't get cought we don't get sued. And we know that IF WE DON'T BREAK THE LAW, WE DON'T PAY FOR THOSE THAT DO. Contrast that to Australia where you can't make a backup without violating the law, or Canada where everybody pays for those that break the law, and I don't feel so bad about even the DMCA.
It's not a misconception, it's part of the 1998 revisions to the Copyright Act. See the "Private Copying" section of this Copyright Board fact sheet.
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 of the person who makes the copy. In addition, the amendment made provision for the imposition of a levy on blank audio recording media to compensate authors, performers and makers who own copyright in eligible sound recordings being copied for private use.
That's kind of funny, but there was an article I read recently on the strongarm tactics that ASCAP and BMI apply to coffeehouses and the like that have CD players -- apparently its a public performance, therefore songwriters are due royalties.
Anyway, the article went on to describe the royalty payment process (ie, who gets royalties), and as it turns out the money almost always goes to big-name artists since the stats that ASCAP/BMI compile rely on radio airplay, which favors "popular" artists.
A couple of the small-time artists they interviewed who had been "with" BMI/ASCAP (ie, had songs written and registered with them) said they had never gotten a dime from them.
I can say that I am outraged at the prospect of such a thing.
Record companies aren't entitled to my money, dammit!
This tax will only reward the non-artists businessmen and the big names that are signed to big labels. It'll do SQUAT for the bands I actually care about, and I pay for their albums anyway (after downloading them to see if they are good, of course -- the law of the jungle, only the strongest survives.)
Treehugger? Treehugger... Treehugger!
What happens to the Canadian visiting the states, who picks up and iPod and takes it home? Will that canuck owe some sort of duty on it when he/she crosses the border? If the duty is small enough, then it might be worth it just to visit stateside for your iPod needs...
...the big suppliers of storage devices etc. (which seem to have banded together already) should go to the government and say...
"Sure...agree to a 20% hike in prices, none of which will go to us. Oh, by the way, you know all of the computer hardware you buy from us to run your government? Well, we're going to be slapping a 200% idiot charge on top".
Seriously, couldn't big business "lobby" the government (i.e. bend em over and take em from behind?!?).
I am NaN
I prefer living in a country where it's not illegal to make a copy of a CD for my own use.
As pesky as this is.. Why dont canadians just go on eBay and buy iPods... many people are willing to ship to Canada... under the silly copyright radar. Furthermore, if you've got friends in the US, just have them buy you one.
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 . . .
Rather than saying pirating must be allowed, I think it should say the reverse -- copying MUST be allowed, and copyrighted content and playback systems must be set up in a way that the content can be copied for personal use in a manner which retains the full value of the content -- ie, not just BS analog copies on yesterday's mediums, but full-value copies which retain all the advantages of the original material. The only mitigating factor allowed would be the lack of availability of consumer copying equipment (eg, DVDs prior to the availability of DVD recoders).
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.
... because by establishing the levy, they'd also be effectively saying that they are not going to pursue the RIAA "shock and awe suing" campaign. Look at it as if they'd be saying, "Download all you want. We believe we're being fairly compensated."
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!!
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
At least you'll rest easy in the knowledge that N'Sync and Brittney are making more money from your CDs than you do.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
Finally I can say back to the Canadians... "This makes me glad I live in the good ole' USA" :) Maybe I'll start a business smuggling MP3 players and CD-R blanks over the border. $50 per device is probably more profit than the manufacturers make for themselves.
The Nomad Jukebox that I bought a few years ago (I'm from the U.S.) came preloaded with more than 20 hours of music. Most of it was by artists that I'd never heard of, and after a quick sample had no desire to hear again, but it did come with about 10 hours worth of classical music and a few audio books that I am very glad to have. They seem to have genuinely given it a supply of music, and if this were repeated by vendors with the current MP3 players (Read: IPod), they would genuinely be exempt from the law and not just be loophole whores.
Under fair use, it's perfectly legal to make a backup. The difference here is that in Canada, you'll now have to pay a tax on the backup media because they ASSUME you are a pirate. We have no such tax in the US.
I'm going to have to pirate music extra-hard from now on, just to get my money's worth!
Dam straight. If they're going to force me to pay for it then I'm gonna use it, god dammit.
Magnificent Socialism!
I'd be happy if it could even support the pound symbol. Test: ''
I feel that a tax on only MP3 player's would be the closest to a 'solution'. MP3 players are probably much more prone to 'motivating' music piracy and have fewer legitimate purposes than blank media. Yes, sure I have ripped most of my CDs to my iPod, and it could be viewed as unfair to tax my iPod (since i have already purchased the music), but I would be willing to pay a few dollars to shut the music industry up.
Taxing blank media, (as it currently is) is not such a good idea because why should I pay a tax on a coaster I make or a backup of my personal files?
Also, taxing ISP's is a bad idea, since the www has so many legal purposes and increasing the fees will only decrease accessibility for some.
All in all, I would prefer not to pay any tax, but if i had to choose one, it would be a one time fee on digital media players.
But then again... would this mean I would have the right to all the copyrighted music that i put on my iPod, regardless of how i acquired it?? hmmmm....
It is worth noting that in my understanding the Australian law has not been tested in court when applied to CDs. In Australia it is also illegal tape TV shows. The point is that the laws are there but are not being applied.
I'm not saying I like the situation, but it isn't quite a bad as it sounds.
meh
Yes, that's the downside. But why make backups, when it's perfectly legal to borrow your friend's CD and copy it? If the CD dies, just borrow it again and make another copy.
That's what's legal in Canada but not in the US.
All those people doing the lame " 1) Action 2) ??? 3) Profit!" posts are implicitly advocating copyright abolishment. Quite a lot now, see?
/begin rant
:)
/end rant
In the end, I'll take a $25-$200 once-off levy over not having permission to copy CD's that I've purchased
Agreed, but we already had that right; this isn't required.
or being subjected to the DMCA
I for one, never thought the Canadian Goverment would bend to this kind of idiocy; do NOT underestimate them when it comes to a clone of the DCMA...
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.
I'm being charged for music I wouldn't listen to even if it WAS legal to download, shred, use as toilet paper (and I personally believe most of it is only suitable for flushing).
This "levy" covers ALL blank media, not just mp3 players. Why should I pay 20% to upgrade my computer to hold the myrad operating systems I've installed, or the screenshots from my favorite game? I'm being charged 20% more because I MIGHT be able to copy someone's work.
It happens in other industries, and I can't do much to minimize it. I don't have to like it, I don't have to take it, and I certainly don't have to re-vote for ANY of the people that allowed this to happen.
The fact that my anger and vote will change nothing, is besides the point
When the Sumitomo fire happened in the early 90's, wiping a large amount of chip epoxy from the global market, some stores achieved instant profits by raising all existing stocks of memory to never before heard-of prices, anticipating the shortage. They called this fair business practice, and quoted the supply and demand dogma. I called it piracy, and voted with my wallet. Those stores are gone today, and I know I helped do that.
Obviously a consumer can make a copy of a CD for his own use in the United States... they wouldn't even sell CD-R's if you couldn't.
This is "blank media" that's being taxed right? What about pre loading some specific content that will allow you to skirt the law (and thus the tax)?
I dunno. That seems like a good feature to me.
But since we're already be paying for media we copy, that means copying is now legal right?
Otherwise, we're paying for the media twice.
:wq
If u look at the records, I think it was for the US, royalties from blank media was distributed to mosting big record co. Many millions each.
Then there was some woman who successfully registered as an artist to get a cut of this. I think she got like $2 a year?
I don:t think many little guys would see any of this.
The CPCC,RIAA and MPAA just don't get it. Punshing law abiding citizens with your "pirating tax" will never work. Hard working people like me are fucking fed up with your "bought lock stock and barrel" tarrifs and taxes. This is just one of the reasons I haven't bought any of your over priced music CDs in years. Just because I buy hard drives, CDRs and video tapes does NOT give you the right to charge ANY sur taxes because the media "could be used to pirate music". Why don't you start charging taxes on hubs, switches, routers and sound cards.
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...
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
Are you sure Us customers pay GST on products bought in Canada? I don't know because I'm Canadian but I work in the import dept. here and we DO pay GST on products bought from US. I'm also 100% sure US doesn't pay GST on Canadian goods. But I could be wrong.
All Hail Discordia. Hail Eris. Fnord.
Here's what will happen.
... they will simply wander on down to their local weekend flea market, for example the one in the big red building on Terminal Ave. here in Vancouver BC, and spend their money on all the stolen property stacked up in every stall.
.... ... and millions will continue to go merrily along burning mp3's onto blank CD's, just now they're stolen CD's.
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).
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
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.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Nope, you're right. Even U.S. travellers have to pay the GST up front here but then just file a form to have it refunded later.
Without copyright, DRM-protected content would either be ignored, or cracked for fun. Geeks who hate copyright tend to like very much encryption technology.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
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.
Anybody want a peanut?
You mean mentioning who you want your "entertainment tax" to go to? It's simpler just to have donations than force people to give (even if you're giving them a choice).
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
Check out London Drug's official position. Also worth a look is the Canadian Coalition for Fair Digital Access - 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.
A man who can't pronouce "nuclear arsenal" shouldn't have one -sig ends here.
I was severely pissed last week when CBC Newsworld had a so-called "discussion" regarding music downloading and its effect on the recording industry. Their only guest was a copyright lawyer who (surprise, surprise) didn't mention the levy on blank recordable media collected in Canada, which goes as a free handout to the recording industry. What other industry get's to collect free money from the government on the chance that someone somewhere might do something illegal?? As if this isn't disgusting enough, the recording industry is pushing for a levy on internet access, which will again be given to the poor music industry. I can't believe they have the balls to demand that every internet user pay even if they have never downloaded a single illegal song.
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.
Yes, that's because when they download a song from Madonna, the computer they download the song from ... send them a Waylon Jenning track instead.
I take it you haven't been on Kazaa lately?
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
This issue has come up in australia before, not sure what happened though. The governments of this world need to realise that this stuff has mostly legitimate uses.
A friend of mine made the paper about this issue story reproduced here.
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.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
That's what magnatune and creative commons are doing. Check out their license terms which allow free duplication but require attribution. It's interesting, but abolishment means no attribution either. Besides, nobody creates information anyway. You just discover it, usually with plenty of influences.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
ive never paid for gst from any company in the us.
sometimes i have to pay a customs fee to pick it up. the ones that they dont hodl your package for you dont have to pay. they go away after time.
but the most simpleist thing to do is to buy one on ebay. its always goign to be cheaper
see
Whore to the crown or whore to the merchant class. But still whores.
You are an idiot.
A restaurant's prices reflects, among other things, what it must charge to make a profit. This includes accounting for the cost of broken plates, stolen ashtrays, etc., e.g. other customers' mistakes.
I was whistling a tune in an elevator in Canada and some guy in it identified himself as a member of SOCAN. He said I was prohibited from whistling a copyrighted tune!
...and do it NOW, is ORGANIZE! Put this to the people. I can see the commercials already - like Walmart's happy face logo replacing prices except way higher ones this time.
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?
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Doesn't a "tax" infer you are getting something in return?
Perhaps we Americans should view the surcharges on media we already pay a free ticket to copy, as the tarrifs exist on the assumtion we DO.
well then, if i am going to pay for a levy for the media, fine.
... i'm stealing? no sir, I PAID FOR IT.
i will just go out and download everything i can and never buy another cd, watch another tv episode with commercials on it, pay for movies, pay for games or pay for software.
what you say
two can play this game.
I wanted to upgrade my 10GB hard drive so I could try out a new linux distro :(
Candle burns its brightest in the dark
Work will be created whether there is an incentive to do so or not. People will always be compensated for performances, and performers will always need something to perform.
Music is a little like religion - you could shoot people for it, but they'll still do it.
paintball
Dear sir,
As an American citizen (and therefore not a constituent) I realize that this email probably won't mean much to you. However, I just wanted to encourage you folks to pass that tax on MP3 players and all forms of digital media. I don't think 20% is near high enough, but I'm sure it will mean plenty of business for your neighbors down south.
You know, with our flagging economy we could really use the extra sales here in the States.
Thanks, and keep up the good work!
Sincerely,
Chuck Hunnefield
Lancaster, PA, USA
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Now I have to download an album that I don't want every time I buy a CD just to get my moneys worth. Thanks a lot.
This is just a government backed shakedown of users of storage media by an organization that more closely resembles the mob (Mafia, whatever) than a legitimate business.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
As an IT consultant, I often sell CD-Rs to customers, usually with their own data backed up on it. Here's want I want to do:
1. Buy a pack of 50 CD-Rs for $29.99 + levy.
2. Use the CD-Rs for legitimate purposes.
3. Go into my local music store, grab a stack of 50 music CDs, put $29.99 on the counter and walk out.
I already paid for the content. All I should have to pay the music store for is the cost of the discs.
Will they arrest me for shoplifting? Can I steal something that I have already paid for? What if everyone did this on Dec. 26, the busiest shopping day in Canada?
In Soviet Russia, sig types you!
I hope no one minds if I go to border just to point and laugh...
#include "sig.h"
Mod parent up. It should be the focus of the issue - if it's illegal, don't profit from it. profit from it, it implies we'll be free to do what we want.
"Mozart (and other "classical" composers) were funded by the royalty and/or the church."
This is false.
Bach was a religious man, and he composed his music for the love of it. Bach is considered probably the most brilliant composer of all time.
Or maybe you think of Mozart. Mozart did take patronage from royalty, but the bulk of his operas were done commercially, all without the need of copyrights.
Move copyrights back to the original constituion; or at most, 17 years with a 7 year extension. Stop proposing welfare for the children of famous composers and musicians.
More than it costs to have you killed.
There was also talk of extending the levy to pretty much any kind of storage medium including levies on every gigabyte of storage in a hard drive. Think of all the money that this might potentially cost Canadian businesses. In their computers and equipment. The cost of backing things up. The extra layer of bureacracy to remit this tax to an unregulated agency with no oversight.
Look at some of the names on the CCFDA, Wal-Mart, CostCo, Staples/Business Depot, Intel Corp., Dell Computer Corp., Apple Computer Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co.
What if everyone gets pissed off enough and calculates that it is cheaper to use hostile takeovers and/or corporate boycotts to remove the tax (and hopefully fire everyone involved in lobbying for this tax)?
This is going to start to really affect businesses as well and sadly, that's probably when real change will happen.
"But I trust in the people's capacity for reflection, rage and rebellion." -Oscar Olivera
It might not be a bad thing. Wouldn't we all like to see artists create art because they have a passion for it, not because there's a payday involved. Most musicians, actors, etc. are starving anyway because the system only promotes the few who are chosen. The system then profits from those chosen ones artwork with assistance from the copyright laws.
I think that with no copyright laws, we would see altogether new and old forms of compensation for artists. Then the starving artists around us, who continue to create because they are passionate about their art, will have a more level field for their expression.
M
Yes and no.
The price that a producer can charge for a good is only *marginally* related to the cost of that good. Its a flaw that they don't tell you about in Econ 101.
What I mean is, if you're selling a can of soda-pop, it doesn't matter if you're paying the cashier $1,000,000 an hour, you can't charge more than the market rate for the soda pop. Lets say its a $1.
"but!", you say "They must make a profit".
True, but you didn't finish the sentence, "...because if they don't they will fail...".
That's the point. This is only partially related to price elacticty; it has everything to do with what equivalent goods are sold for.
I'm only being pedantic because people think that the cost of production determines the cost of purchase, and it doesn't.
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 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.
The US Army: promoting democracy through unquestioned obedience
Actually, if I own the CD, I can make a copy of my friends CD if mine breaks because I have already purchased the right to own the CD. This is why you see the disclaimer on all of the MAME ROM sites about needing to own the game if you want to download the ROM. If I don't own the CD, then you are correct, I cannot copy the CD. And in Canada, you cannot make a copy of your friends CD if you don't already own it either. Even though you pay a pirate tax on the blank media, piracy is still against the law in both countries. So, under the same circumstances....
1. Person A purchases CD.
2. Person A breaks CD.
3. Person A copies said CD from person B.
4. Given blank CD have the same price in Canada and US.
If person A buys the CD in Canada, there is added tax on the blank media. So, even though no laws were broken in either country, the Canadian person A has paid a piracy tax and is out that much more money than the USA person A.
You're a bit of a thicky aren't you?
"As an added bonus, artists who have limited distribution of their works (i.e. the Little Guys) see some of this cash."
Not likely. According to the testimony of the CPCC, they base their magical redistribution formula on some fuzzy guess about what is being downloaded. How do they figure that out? They look at what is popular on the radio in a given month. So the "Little Guys" cut is probably vanishingly little compared to the Celine Dions of the world. Most likely, the rich get richer and the "Little Guys" probably stay where they are.
It's kind of the opposite of Robin Hood -- rob a little from everybody on the premise they are probably doing something illegal. Then give most of it back to the rich because, after all, they own most of what people are probably using illegally. People are probably poaching rabbits from the duke's land, so, tax them for it.
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.
...except that the time lag has gone down far much more. It actually takes time to scan, OCR, proofread, print and distribute a book. Ctrl-C,Ctrl-V anyone? Oh the perfect copy is now done seconds after the original was released.
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.
Besides, I think the man made some big mistakes, at least with e.g. paperbacks that arrive long after the hardcover. It would certainly almost eliminate that market for the original producer.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I guess I've gotta go buy me a whack of those nice 10k RPM SATA drives ("Enterprise Quality") because I'm fucked if I'll spend a penny on anything that goes to RIAA. And those disks are gonna have to last me for a while...
I know quite a few artists, working in many media (written, paint, etc.) Most of them do NOT make much money from their art, and might do a lot better if the large media publishing houses were less dominant (and people more more strongly enouraged to support local/live/original artists).
I make (some) money from copyrights myself, however...
Still, I think we would all be better off without the copyright system, which (a) feeds an unjust and unethical system, and (b) promotes medocrity and stagnation.
If I don't own the CD, then you are correct, I cannot copy the CD. And in Canada, you cannot make a copy of your friends CD if you don't already own it either.
No. You're wrong. I'm tired of posting the links to the Copyright Board page, or the Copyright Act, and apparently you have no interest in following the links. So I'll just summarize: it is legal for me to make a copy of recorded music for my personal use. It is not a copyright violation to do so.
This is what the levy pays for. It compensates the copyright holder for giving me the right to make copies for personal use.
Except you forget that the average Canadian consumer just skips south of the border for an overnight ski trip and picks up an iPod while he's there. 48 hrs in the States and you can declare several hundred dollars. Or you can just pop it in your bag under your stinky skii cloths and forget to declare it entirely. Not that I'd endorse such horridly criminal behaviour.
The worst side effect of this is the punishment of the not guilty.
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?
This was proposed a year or more ago, along with the increased levy on CD-Rs. In fact, I think Slashdot already covered this once.
Unless these levies are punitive, they're pretty much an excuse to pirate whatever I want to online.
Of course, this is all purely hypothetical, as I have *never* pirated anything...
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
I have written the government department in charge of this telling them that this levy is punitive. People that are using digital media for data purposes are subsidizing an industry that should stand on it's own. Not only that, but where is the people trail for that allocation of this money? All I got back was a form letter saying they are taking into account concerns of citizens as well as musicians. Should software companies start charging a piracy surcharge on digital media? I don't think so.
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!
I believe he's talking about Canada.
Keep in mind I don't live there so I don't know the prices there so I don't know whether you're assuming he's in the states or something.
Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, though I'm not yet sure about the universe. - A Einstein
"We pay for increased insurance rates when other people have more accidents."
Translation: we the customers of insurnce companies pay extra on our insurance due to other insurance customers having accidents.
Lemme say it again just to be clear.
This new levy is MORE like charging me extra on dancing lessons because people have accidents in their cars.
I'm buying a data storage device and you're gonna TAX me because someone's pirating music - how exactly is that "passing increased costs onto your (ie existing, current) customers" like the example you quoted?
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
True, both the Canadian and Australian laws haven't been tested as per my first comment, but the impact of breaking the Canadian one has far less repercussions should a judgement be issued against the users of material covered by the Act.
Now that I live in Melbourne, it frustrates me that I can't legitimately backup the music that I buy, or convert its format to something more suitable for my mp3 player.
That citizens (generally) blazenly ignore this law is a different issue - the point is that they shouldn't have to.
er, don't you mean "the copyright holders are getting compensated"?
Which, if I remember correctly, translates into "the industry takes a major cut of the funds, and passes a few cents back to the original artists".
Or do you actually have documented evidence that these "artists" ever see any of this money?
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
You missed the third, and unfortunately, inevitable option
(c) All of the above
After all, you're getting taxed on your media, but it's still illegal to pirate music. These corporations clearly want to have their cake and eat it too.
What on earth gave you the impression that they have committed to these levies instead of DRM, stronger laws, and SWAT team style enforcement? (ie instead of "as well as" which they've clearly shown themselves to be shooting for in the long run)
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
Looks like it's too late for anyone to complain, unfortunately. Would be nice if stuff like this was publicized in time for those of us who don't have the patience to keep close watch on the government to get involved.
Will it then be illegal to copy music in Canada, or do Canadians get nothing but screwed for their bonus 20%? The Canadian RIAA needs to be forced to give up something or it's just government-sponsored theft.
Celine Dion and Byran Adams, the artists should be paying us a fee! (as in Soviet Russia!) God knows that you'd have to pay me to listen...
I want all of these blank-media levies removed, not new ones added. We need a group to constantly bug government to remove these levies. The bargaining position shouldn't be somewhere between the current levies and new ones, it should be between no levies and the new ones. Every time this issue is brought up the recording industry should risk losing everything.
I can just imagine it now. Smugglers with the fat suit on but instead of hiding drugs they are hiding CD Spindles (hard to swallow and hard to hide in your ass crack), So we've got drugs coming from mexico into the USA then from the USA into Canada blank media.
Seems I should buy a bunch of blank CDs and leave them in a warehouse somewhere in Canada for when this tax comes in.
This shit has gone too far.
"The difference? The government doesn't raise the prices on tangentially connected items in order to compensate."
Or like criticizing examples made to show how they differ from the situation being discussed.
How exactly is that the same thing? It's not. That's what I said. Shall I say it again to be clear?
As a Canadian I must thank my government for giving me the legal and moral right to bootleg the hell out of every copyrighted digital work I can possibly find! I just burned 2.5 GBytes of DivX ;-) movies onto CD-Rs which I already paid my levvies on. I'm getting my 60 GByte and 80 GByte hard drives ready (once the government gives me the go-ahead) to put online for IRC and P2P sharing of movies and full-length albums for Internet sharing.
Wait a second, whats to stop me claiming that I'm an incredibly popular artist, but I havent sold a single record due to the rampert piracy of my acid-tuba rock music? Would I be entitiled to some of that money?
... from the CCPC (read: RIAA) regarding disbursement of this stinky tax.
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.
Please stop APK.. you're only hurting yourself.
The thing we Canadian's get in exchange for the levy is the right to not only make personal copies, but to exchange copies of music with friends/family/etc. Most Canadians are completely unaware of this, of course, and the music industry probably doesn't want you to find out. I only know because as a private citizen (and at the time was working for a large service provider) I attended a public roundtable on copyright reform which included labels, citizens, artists, etc.
The absurd thing about it all is the levy goes to compensate Canadian artists (we call it the Celine Dion and Bryan Adams tax) but a significant amount of the copyright holders being "violated" are not Canadian. Perhaps American artists should sue the CPCC for their share of the money?
All I can say is I'm glad I've already purchased my iPod. And I can legally copy as much music from my friends as I want to fill it. The question is morally - if I am paying a tax in exchange for this copying priviledge, do I not almost have a moral obligation to exercise this right to get fair value out of the tax?
A Firewire Drive for some Lipitor?
Slashdot Eds Link Anonymous Posts With Logged Posts
They Are Vermin Feeding On Each Other's Feces.
I Hate \.
Yeah, you should really get that ipod
Shouldn't Bioware also be getting a share, more games are probably being burned to CD/DVD's then music, this tax is so pathetic, just a money grab by this organization, there management fees probably take out 65% of it too, leaving the artists next to nothing.
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
Been there, done that, paid for the T-shirt
and didn't get it
Well thought out!
You already *HAD* the right to make copies for personal use. That's why they have to say that the charge is a levy to cover piracy... if they said that it was really just a charge for the right to do something you already had (under fair use rights), there'd probably be a political uprising.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
How about not distributing copyrighted content in the first place. The tax comes to be there because people just swap files on a larger scale than ever before.
Stop swapping that commercial shit. Let it be, and it will die out on its own merits.
Otherwise the rest of the world will have to suffer because some fucking freeloaders just want to have the latest shitty pop album. Thanks a bunch, assholes.
Go out and vote, maybe we will have some choice in the next election. The smugmess exhibited by the Liberals and Paul Martin make me sick.
..don't panic
Ah for crying out loud. it things like this keep happening here, I'm going to move to some other Country, like say, New Zealand. Any place out side of N.A.
This levy would only apply to blank media. The suggestion then was that it would not apply to an ipod if that ipod shipped with a recording on it -- even just a simple utterance of "hello world".
It was also said that the introduction of the original legislation that brought the original levy on blank tapes meant that it is legal for Canadians to make copies of commercial audio recordings. We pay this levy in return for the right to make copies. If I understood the issues properly you do not need to own the original being copied, so long as you do the copying yourself. If I visit a friend with a CD-recorder, and use his computer to make a duplicate of my favourite from his collection -- this is permitted because of the levy paid on the blank media.
Why should the record companies get money when I buy a CDR and use it to burn anything other than music to which the companies recieving the money have the copyright to? (this may include other material which I dont have permission to copy)
The question I have is, why?
Other than the money, is there any reason for the record companies to want to do this?
MP3 players I can sorta understand since they are used to play music only (although again, people will use them to play music that isnt owned by the companies getting the levy money)
I am glad I dont live in a country with this in place.
And that the Australian Senate has the power to block such a law if it was introduced. And also that there are enough people in the senate who will not just rubber stamp whatever the government wants to do.
At the preset time, the 20% Levy is bearable, if you work it out it still comes to only a few pennies to store an MP3 on HDD or CD-R. The real danger here is that the Dark Forces are setting a precedent and in future will simply jack-up those Levies on an as-needed (by them) basis. Why is the Canadian Government behind the move? Because GST (sales tax) will be charged on the overall higher bottom-line price (Levy included). So the government essentially becomes a profiting partner in this scam. This crime is already being perpetrated in the existing Rebate scam, where you buy a $200 product, then pay GST on $200, and later get a $100 rebate, but the government happily keeps all the sales tax. This is why no government action is ever taken to stop rebate scams. They're in on it !!! The only way to fight this is via total consumer boycott. I already do this. I never, never, never, buy a product which teases consumers with a Rebate offer. I will also boycott all Levied products in future, even if it costs me more to import equivalent products at higher prices. One must firmly adhere to high moral principles (regardless of cost) in order to win the battle against the Dark Forces.
So much for those who use their iPod just for documents! To properly enforce it, the gov. would have to tax: * Internet connections * Modems and fake "modems" (DSL, Cable) * Computers * PDAs with music playback * Speakers (!) * CD-R drives etc. Seems like a halfhearted attempt. And good, too, because otherwise people in Canada would be broke! On copyright: Copyright can be used in better forms, check out the GPL.
It's our crack habit that exists in the form of an obession with music and entertainment media. It is our own obsession that is fueling this fire, which ranges from illegal copying, to actually funding the madness by continuing to purchase products backed by the RIAA, MPAA, and other interests that have some say in the matter.
As I've said several times on this issue, there is only one true way to affect change. Keep your money, and let the media interests keep their copyrighted material - it's worthless without a willing market. Come back when they've changed their m.o.
Hard drives for prescription drugs!
sulli
RTFJ.
March 2002 was when the cpcc proposed this new "tax" on storage devices and increase the "tax" on blank-media, but there was no reporting on this from the cbc until May, which was when the submissions for opposing this proposal ends - from March to May, people were allowed to submit formal or informal (comments) objections to oppose this "tax". What's the point of reporting on the issue, when there's no way for you to do anything about it?
Again, on the show "the docket", there was a discussion on copyright in Canada. The guests for that show was a music monopoly's lawyer, an artist, and some guy who's not a lawyer or an artist. If you saw that show, that guy was representing the average music downloader, and he was so weak in his case that one will think he's a music "thief". I don't remember him mentioning any CDR "tax" on the show.
On November 28th we read the socan was seeking a supreme court ruling on taxing ISPs, but the cbc only mentioned it once in the business news show. Until a week later, the cbc finally reported on it because everyone else was doing it, if not already did it.
Canadians getting ripped off by the music monopoly don't matter at all to the cbc, and especially those who don't listen to Any/All Canadian/NAFTA or 99% of English-related music. Don't feel smug because the cbc is a "trusted and connected" (or so they claim) Canadian news source. Be wary of the Canadian Big Corporation.
Do you think the amount of money the music industry is losing is equal to that which will be gained by the CD/MP3 player levy? Of course not, so the industry is just trying to make up for some of the cash it's already lost by investing in laws that will help maintain the power they already have. They'll still try to go after the pirates if they can, if it means they'll get to keep even more cash.
All i've wanted since i moved to canada was a cheap pack of smokes, and i ain't getting one of those until i go back to the u.s. Live with your problems or else find a way to circumvent them!
Slartibartfast:"Is that your robot?"
Marvin:"No, I'm mine."
The Canadian government is only creating a whole new industry for enterprising individuals!
Sorry, messed up the formatting on the last post..
>of course i'm not opposed to canadian musicians getting a bit of cash, but this is a harsh mechanism.
Bryan Adams and Celine Dion are Canadian 'musicians'. I sure as hell don't want them getting a bit of cash.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
Will send over blank media for prescription drugs.
*grin*
Ah well.
Could the last person to leave Canada please turn the lights out? Thanks.
Don't be silly. That would be useful, and Slashcode developers are far too busy penalising fast typers and making it difficult to post source code to implement useful features like support for 8-bit characters or HTML entities.
Oh, and don't pull the 'dyslexic' claim, I'm dyslexic, and I can at least make an effort to communicate properly.
Apple has these things called Apple Stores. Those, combined with other physical presense Apple has in various states mean that you almost always pay tax when shopping at http://store.apple.com/.
I have a website. It's about Macs.
Canadians have the right to copy a friend's CD, or to make a CD of downloaded music, or to record music from the radio, all without the permission of the copyright holder. That right that was granted by the 1998 Copyright Act amendments.
Those aren't fair use rights. They are private copying rights, and go beyond fair use rights. As far as I know, Americans don't have those rights; if Americans did those things that would be piracy.
Read some of the links I posted, e.g. this backgrounder or the Copyright Act. If you still disagree with me after doing some research, tell us the basis for your disagreement.
I wonder if this levy aka cash grab will apply to PDAs as well for they are portable music devices as well.
Wow. So the government wants cut in on the music license fee extortion business... I'm sure that the bulk of the levy will go directly to the small bureacracy that is the Candadian government. Thank you for reminding me what my Political Science 120 professor said years ago:
The only difference between the mafia and government is that we've decided that the government is the bully of choice.
This idea is no different than, say, making protection schemes (shakedowns) and ponzi schemes (pyramids) legal as long as the government gets their cut!
Go Canada!
-- $G
Recently, the SGAE (RIAA equivalent in Spain) managed to get a levy imposed on all CD and DVD blank media to pay for Piracy. At the same time, the AntiSGAE (a consummers assotiation) decided to use that newly paid privilege to share their music for free, since it was already paid for. They organized a CD-Crossing event, in which they invited people to copy their music CDs in one of these newly taxed blank discs and leave them in random places all over for anyone to grab and use.
Linky (in Spanish I'm afraid).
Gotta love their logo.
In short, invite people to get your whole music library in their portable MP3 players, since, after all, you're paying for it. Don't charge for it though, that's still illegal.
---- Take the Space Quiz!
The problem with that reasoning, as I see it, is simply one of scale.
Red Hat produce one of the most popular and well-known OSS distributions in the world. Sure, a few people can make a living via alternative sources such as support and consultancy on a project like that (but note that even the big OSS projects have been known to ask for donations to keep them afloat, because they simply weren't generating enough revenue through those "alternative" means).
On the other hand, I bet you couldn't find more than a few thousand people in the whole world who are making a living from distributing software under such a free licence, and providing supporting services to make their money. There are probably more people than that making a living from writing software and distributing it under "non-free" agreements just in the city where I live.
The analogues of these arguments hold in other fields as well. It is hard to make a living as a professional musician if all you do is play small gigs at local bars and sell your home-made CDs afterwards. Some people can do it. Most people who play in that sort of world do it as a sideline and have another source of income to pay the bills.
On a more upbeat note, I think the success stories out there show that in the long run, our society could come back from the "must have something for nothing" low we've reached today. If the major media and technology companies could be forced to stop their abusive pricing policies, and people came to respect well made works, whether they be film, music, software or whatever, then maybe we could progress to a situation where it was the norm to release your work under some sort of free arrangement, but it was also the norm for those who benefitted to give fair compensation without being compelled to do so. Copyright would still serve useful purposes -- protecting things like the principles underlying the GPL, for example -- but it wouldn't be the big stick it so often turns into today.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
How about if we trade MP3 players purchased in the US for prescription drugs purchased in Canada?
"Provided by the management for your protection."
I will trade you my full flush toilet for your mp3 player, eh.
As it stands, they're looking to levy media because it MIGHT be used for copyright violation. It's legal to use CDRs etc for data storage. It's legal to use CDRs etc to make "fair use" backup copies, even of copyright-protected data. It's only illegal to use CDRs etc to make copies of copyrighted data and distribute said CDRs.
Okay, how's this: don't levy the blank media. Levy the SOURCE MATERIAL. That's right. Throw an additional 20% levy on the original CD or DVD. Since a certain percentage of the originals are clearly being used to generate pirate MP3s or illegal CDs, bill the purchasers of the originals.
This is EXACTLY what is done in the case of shoplifting. Raise the price on the originals. Everyone who buys product X from store Y helps pay for those who steal product Z at store Y. So have me pay a little extra for my NotCrap Live CD to offset the thefts other people do of TeenBait in Concert CDs.
Same thing really in that the innocent pay for the guilty except it stays within an industry/store. I don't understand how it's legitimate to force corporations who buy bulk CD for data backup (think of a newspaper who back up daily advertisement/classified ad artwork on CDs) to pay for a different industry's losses.
Oh, and yes, I'm Canadian, and livid.
"Oh no... he found the
"Only a stupid country would do this"
Christ all mighty... as if us Canadians aren't taxed enough. Now we're going to have to pay a tax for our crappy f@#kin' music artists too!
Really now, I bet you can count on two hands the number of "great" Canadian music artists being "heavily" traded on Kazaa! PLEASE!
This is just another infair and unwarranted tax that is being implemented to "protect" interests other then those of the consumer.
The solution is simple... stop consumering!
Did I mention terrirsts... ok good!
It's good to see that this "innocent until proven guilty" nonsense has not infected the Canadian justice system.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
Overview(all amounts in Canadian $)
The old levy amounts are now the new levy amounts with some additions
40 minute cassette tapes or longer - $0.29
CD-R/RW $0.21
CD-R Audio, and Minidiscs $0.77
New Items:
non-removeable memory in MP3 players(aka digital audio recorders):
$2 per unit up to 1Gbyte capacity
$15 per unit from 1Gbyte to 10Gbyte capacity
$25 per unit over 10Gbyte capacity
No levy on DVD-R/RW, removeable memory (Flash or micro-hard drive)
This is a clear win for the over 1500 people who made submissions to the board, the 100 who officially objected and the 30 who saw the process all the way through to the end.
The board's ruling is at: Main Page and News Release
Been there, done that, paid for the T-shirt
and didn't get it
The Copyright Board of Canada has just announced the details... Less onerous than anticipated.
No, that is absolutely not fair, because the solution involves forcing individuals to comply regardless of their will. If the solution requires force, then it isn't fair by definition, because force is the logical opposite of individual liberty.
They already don't have it both ways.
However, despite that, I am completely offended by the presumption-of-guilt that this levy relies on, especially given the amount of levied media I use for something other than music.
Since I learned about these levies and the linked-to section of the Copyright Act, I've been more than willing to copy anything, to make up for all the levies I've paid without doing unauthorized copying.
Noting that there is a difference between "unauthorized" and "illegal" copying....
How hard is it for Canadians to avoid these taxes by just purchasing stuff from companies in the USA and having it shipped to Canada with false/inspecific information on the customs tag? For example, "variable-location magnetic media" instead of "iPod" or "shiny decorative plastic discs" instead of "blank DVD-R disks." I know that people in the USA do this sort of stuff all the time to import illegal stuff or avoid import taxes.
No, that still won't be fair, because there is no relationship between whose music gets copied, and who gets paid. It is not compensation and the music is not "all paid for." This is simply corporate welfare.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
in.
I am a Canadian citizen with permanent resident status in the US. What if I go to Canada, purchase blank media and burn everything I can get my grubby little hands on. Can the RIAA come after me for piracy if I return to the US with my new music collection? POS
NEWS RELEASE
Copyright Board Freezes Private Copying Levies for 2003 and 2004
December 12, 2003
Ottawa. The Copyright Board of Canada has today issued a decision on private copying levies for 2003 and 2004. This is the Board's third substantive private copying decision. The first was issued in 1999. It established Canada's initial private copying levies for 1999 and 2000. The Board's second decision, issued in December 2000, set revised levies for the subsequent two year period, 2001 and 2002. Until today, interim levies had been in effect for 2003 which were set by the Board at levels identical to those in place in the previous two years.
The case was heard by a panel composed of the Honourable Mr. Justice John H. Gomery, Chairman, Stephen J. Callary, Vice-Chairman and CEO, Sylvie Charron and Brigitte Doucet, Members. Vice-Chairman Callary wrote a dissent.
Today's decision freezes all existing private copying levies at their current levels. As a result, the current levies of 29 on audio cassette tapes of 40 minutes or longer (no levy applies to tapes of shorter length), 21 on CD-Rs and CD-RWs and 77 on CD-R Audio, CD-RW Audio and MiniDiscs will remain in effect until the end of 2004.
The Board also sets for the first time a levy on non-removable memory permanently embedded in digital audio recorders (such as MP3 players) at $2 for each recorder with a memory capacity of up to 1 Gigabyte (Gb), $15 for each recorder with memory capacity of more than 1 Gb and up to 10 Gbs, and $25 for each recorder with memory capacity of more than 10 GBs.
The Board denied the Canadian Private Copying Collective's (CPCC) request to establish a levy on blank DVDs, removable memory cards and removable micro hard drives. It finds that the evidence available at this time does not clearly demonstrate that these recording media are ordinarily used by individuals for the purpose of copying music.
Vice-Chairman Callary agreed with the majority on the inadmissibility of DVDs and removable memory cards and micro hard drives. However, he would have certified different rates on medium already subject to a levy. He would have certified a rate of 28 on audio cassette tapes, 29 for CD-Rs, 21 for CD-RWs and 72 for CD-R Audio, CD-RW Audio and MiniDiscs. The rates on non-removable memory would have been the same.
Manufacturers and importers of blank audio recording media are required to pay private copying levies to the CPCC when these media are sold in Canada. The amounts collected by the CPCC are distributed to eligible authors, eligible performers and eligible producers of recorded musical works copied by individuals for personal use in Canada.
When the private copying levies were first implemented in 2000, the CPCC introduced a "zero-rating" program under which manufacturers and importers of blank audio recording media were permitted to sell media levy free to certain parties such as religious organizations, broadcasters, law enforcement agencies, courts, tribunals, court reporters, provincial ministers of education and members of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, music and advertising industries. Audio cassettes, CD-R Audio, CD-RW Audio and MiniDiscs were covered by the program. The CPCC announced some time ago its plan to extend its zero-rating program to include CD-Rs and CD-RWs.
However, objectors raised a number of concerns with the existing or planned extended CPCC's zero-rating program, claiming, among other things, that the program is inherently unauthorized, illegal and unfair. The Board concluded that just as it does not have the legal authority to create levy exemptions under the Copyright Act, nor does the CPCC. As a consequence, the Board concluded that CPCC's existing or proposed expanded zero-rating program is illegal.
In his dissent, Vice-Chairman Callary disagreed with this conclusion and stated his concerns for those many organizations which have relied on the existence of a zero-rating program and that could now find themse
I really wish more people would use the "Preview Post" option here on Slashdot... that would have allowed you to correct your otherwise insightful comment. You erroneously used the word "talent" in the same sentence as the name "Celine Dion", without including any required modifiers, such as "complete and total lack of", or "-less diva wannabe hack"; you also neglected to include "Fucking" between "Celine" and "Dion".
I know, it's hard to remember all these rules, but that's why we're here. You're welcome.
As a painter, copyrights are an integral part of my business. Without copyright, commercial artists would have a hard bargain to drive. Companies don't want piles of paintings lying around. And most artists would prefer to sell first rights, sell the image again as stock, and then sell the painting as a piece of wall art if possible. But this process doesn't always happen, and retaining copyright is important to illustrators, as it allows us to resell images as stock illustration, which can be bread and butter to fill in a slow month.
Now someone is going to say, why don't you just keep selling original work? Well you can't. People don't buy art now a days. Magazine budgets are smaller and smaller, so they need cheap images. So they turn to stock images. Which can only exist if the artist has copyright. So without copyright there would be far fewer people making the text you read, the posters you see, your favorite packaging colourful. So if that's okay with you, then get rid of copyright and live in a text filled world of blah. Oh yeah copyright is also essential to photographers. So you wouldn't have any of those either. As people wouldn't respect the new imaginary copyright, and would take images without paying them. This forces the artist and photographers to find new jobs, and not do their art. So no pictures for you.
So, since I pay "musicians" (record companies) for my digital storage media, I guess that must mean that I can copy all I want... its not like I'm getting it for free after all.
--- If I had a funny sig too, you might be laughing now.
Ottawa time is _not_ CST, it's EST!
Let's see, personal attack as well. You somehow managed not to misuse words like "theft". Overall fits the pattern of one with a bad argument.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
Check this out http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=88892&cid=7690 302 . That makes three of us! How to effect the change. For one, a huge meteor or disaster does it automatically--copyrights and patents were not an issue for a very long time. Other than that, release stuff into the public domain. Donate to xiph.org.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
If he's in the states, then he's being ripped off. $12 for 10 CDrs is horribly overpriced. I've seen 100 disc spindles that are cheaper than that.
I read the internet for the articles.
It sucks this story broke today and not after the weekend. I've started building a site around this to gain support for an activist campain against this tax.
www.green-light.ca/freethecd
Check out the site, basicly i'm asking that anyone in canada who opposes this levy, tax, on their recordable media stand up for it and take a little bit of action.
The plan is to take a normal cd-r, burn any data file, (image, text) to it, address it to your mp, or the copyright board and throw it in the mail ( you don't need a stamp when you are mailing parliment hill).
Write "Free the CD" on the cd and include a letter either on the cd or handwritten asking for a 21 cent refund for that specific cd, they can't dispute it cause they have the evidence of your legal use in their hands, if we can get thousands of cds sent to mps from all over canada we might get some proper resolution to this.
Right now the site is mostly mostly just an unedited rants i jotted down this week and i hope to have it properly cleaned up before monday.
Generally I wouldn't post it but its probably better to grab the traffic now with something crappy in place then nothing at all.
If you can't fix it ask the 3 year old down the street.
If you're against patents, it makes you number 4. Yay.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
I, for one, welcome our Canadian tax levying overloards!
I'm busy wading through the document right now, and at 97 pages, it'll take a while.
They specifically address this issue.
Making a copy for personal use is allowed.
Irrespective of where the original was obtained from, or whether the rights-holder gave specific permission to make a copy or not. It also doesn't matter whether the media you are making the copy on to (for your personal use) is covered by the levy, or was obtained under the "zero-rating" program run by CPCC. Still legal.
Making a copy available for distribution is not allowed.
No matter whether you've purchased the original legally or not.
So, that seems to me that Canadians have just become exempt from RIAA-style "piracy lawsuits" as long as they restrict themselves to only being "consumers" on P2P networks of pirated music, and not sharing it out to others.
In a less globally-wired world, that in and of itself could be used to end music sharing across the Canadian portion of the Internet - however, we Canadians just need to rely on our friends and neighbours around the world to put music up for us to share.
In the long run, who does that hurt? Canadian artists who are popular within our borders, but haven't yet made the jump to a broader audience because the rest of the world won't get to hear them.
Wasn't this levy concept supposed to be helping those artists?
Reason why there is hope for the future generation #364:
"I wish my grass was emo so it could cut itself."
you'll notice I included a comment from slashdot (the analogy, I quite liked it, and sorry for ripping it off!) I'd also like to mention I got this reply within an hour of writing the email, impressive! I'll post more when the MP writes back (if he does), and it turns out to be intereting. Dear Jim, Thank you for your e-mail to MP Murray Calder regarding copyright levies. Murray shares your concerns on this issue and has written previously to former Industry Minister Allan Rock to express concerns similar to yours. I will pass your e-mail along to him, and expect he will respond to you directly. The Copyright Board operates at arms' length from Parliament, and Parliament doesn't have a say on the setting of levies. Again, I expect Murray will respond to you in greater detail. Best wishes, Richard McGuire, Executive Assistant Office of Murray Calder, M.P. Dufferin-Peel-Wellington-Grey (613) 995-7815, fax: (613) 992-9789 caldem@parl.gc.ca -----Original Message----- From: Jim Whosit [mailto:nospam@ysd.com] Sent: December 12, 2003 12:32 PM To: Calder, Murray - M.P. Subject: Canadian Copy Right Board blank media levy Hello Mr. Calder, I'm a 22 year old consituent living in the Orangeville area, and I've been reading about the recent increases in the copyright levie's that have been slapped on almost all blank storage devices. I do not pirate copy-righted music, however I do rip bought CD's to my computer for use in other players (I-Pod) and backups (since CD's get scratched really easily). The fact that I am paying the music industry this levy, for something I already own, really bothers me. They're now talking about increasing the levie to $.49 per CD which will DOUBLE the price of a pack of CD's. I feel I am being labelled a criminal, or music "pirate" simply for using my bought media how I wish to use it. Therefore, why should I continue to buy my music? As far as I'm concerned, if I'm already paying for being a pirate, then why not do it? I also see they're trying to slap a levie on Internet Service providers. This makes absolutely no sense! It's like saying: You walk into a resturant and order food. You have to pay, as soon as you order, a $50 "broken plates" fee. The fee is non-refundable regardless if you break anything or not. Kinda tempting to actually break something, huh? A levie like this really irks me, and I urge and hope you will consider this matter, as if it does go through, I feel to "get my moneys worth" I will have to start pirating music. btw, why stop at the mucis industry? Movies, TV shows, pornography, and software applications are all being pirated too, why is the music industry favoured? Thank you, Jim
Not all dogs drink Coke.
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. First off, recording a demo has never been cheaper, considering you can purchase a decent home studio today for what it used to cost to record a demo just 10 years ago. Second, there's a cost associated with being an independant musician. A few extra bucks for media is a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of instruments, strings, amplifiers, microphones, sticks, drum heads, gas for the van, and most importantly, beer. It's not about competing with the big companies. It's about making music, and it's never been cheaper to do so and be heard.
Pulling things across the boarder is easy; take it out of the box and declare it as a gift. It's not new, it's not taxable.
Must they drown out the good stuff with shit like Nickleback and Brian Adams... ugh.
If we continue on the same track with increasing taxs, the day they will see victory against common music piracy is the day blank cds and media are more costly than the actual original, imagine paying $0.50 + $25 tax on a blank or just paying for the real cd at roughly $20. The government is going in the completely wrong direction, morally justifing copy-theft. In anycase, off to China Town! cash and product hold no bars; screw the taxes.
One of the "interesting" items found deep (p21) in the ruling is the note that "However, an audio recording medium to which no tariff applies because the Board has decided that such a medium is not of a kind ordinarily used by individuals for recording music is, in the Board's opinion, removed from the ambit of the exemption " (bold is mine) (i.e. you can't legally copy other's music onto it) which they specifically apply (p43) to DVDs. "As previously explained, this determination means that copying music onto a DVD infringes copyright"
The discussion on the digital-copyright.ca mail list is running to the opinion that since the Board didn't rule on whether things like normal hard drives are "blank audio media" this still leaves open the right to use them for now, but that in the future (next round of levy determination for 2005-2006 for example) they (the Board) may rule that the hard disk isn't a blank audio medium and therefor Canadians may no longer copy music to them - or they may rule that hard disks are blank audio media and apply a levy to them which will confirm thier use for private copying - or they may rule that they are blank audio media but not leviable and therefor no longer allowed for private copying of music. Same applies to FLASH cards and micro-hard drives - they were not specifically ruled upon this time so still in a grey area.
Been there, done that, paid for the T-shirt
and didn't get it
In a nutshell, new levies on mp3 players but no additional levies on blank audio tapes, recordable CDs and MiniDiscs, blank DVDs, removable memory cards and micro hard drives.
The reason given is: "The evidence available at this time does not clearly demonstrate that these recording media are ordinarily used by individuals for the purpose of copying music."
For once, sanity prevails.
Source: CBC website
Rather than allowing for the type of thing that RIAA is currently doing - random application of law against the general citizenry - they simply removed the problem in return for "compensation in respect of" (i.e. the levy) the private copying that they (the government) couldn't stop. This lowers the possibility that the population will hold the law as contemptuous because it is not applied - something that many other governments should do more of (remove the laws on the books about a bathing suit having to have x yards of material as they used to state here in Vancouver up until recently for example)
I'm of the opinion that this is an excellent example of what government should do - "government should do for us as a group that which we as individuals cannot or will not do because it is not in our individual best interests, but which is in our collective best interests" - i.e. resolve the "tragedy of the commons" problem and similar situations.
This may branch of into a whole other discussion but I think it needs to be aired.
Been there, done that, paid for the T-shirt
and didn't get it
This could be modelled after some of the creative commons licenses. I think though if you argue for anti-plagarism laws, you're not truly against copyright. Remember, nobody can create information.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
Actually Bryan Adams is not a canadian for the purpose of this discussion. http://bryanadams.nu/news/news_110903_bluecollarro cker.html
Subject: You say 'Levy', I say 'Goverment Sponsored Extortion'
I would like to applaud you on standing up for the business' interests, I'm hoping they paid you enough this season. I'm sure you have no problem concerning people who buy these mediums being labeled as 'pirates'. Heaven forbid should they back up shareware for giving away to those with access to internet or burner. Nope they only want it to pirate software and music. Everyone who buys it are criminals. By applying this levy that is exactly what you are saying and condoning. As for these 'poor' artist who are being deprived of income, heaven forbid it could be because their product is garbage?
Nope once again its becuase everyone with a cd\dvd burner (not to mention casette recorders) are stealing their livelyhood. How do you people sleep at night. Do the bags of money stolen from innocent people comfort you?
Oh say hi to the RIAA next time you bend over okay?
...so does this mean that if I've already payed the Record Companies for their music via the levy, I can go ahead and download to my hearts content for free?
Piers fucked and good ass lately? Did you have sometihng to do with Ettore's demise? Maybe gave him a host shot of your infected quim in the ass or something? How does it feel to hit a shitberg in a mans anus? I know your into gay scat.
There is a lot more to what people lisen to than just personal tast. Industry in north amarica is so dominated by the money maker system that. That little gets made avaible to us unless the system wants us to have it.
Canadian products music, movies, food etc would never make it to the play list without law to prevent American controled companies and systems from providing only what they want. The content law were put into place as a responce to the exclution of Canadian artist. Because of the American interfirance in other contries internal rights. Both economicaly and militarily I personly don't buy American unless I have no choice or I wish to support the individule producer.
As a result of this policiy I look carfuly at the products I buy. Most of the products and the companies that distribute them in Canada are American. Some of the local produce distributers and Starbucks will not sell local products at all. It is marketed as local but it in fact is not.
The copyright 'tax' is not realy a tax but a leavey that the music industry has forced the government here to put in place. The money is collected and held for more than a year before it is distributed to the entertainers. This distribution is subject to the same discrimination that the placement of music on the play list. The same as the royalites on music.
Who gains? The music distributers not the creaters of the music.
The only way around this is to buy from independent musicions. (Who pay the same levie as the liseners. They are not exempt.)
As for whos music is better. What is good has no real nationalilty. We as the music consumer only get what is made avaible by the American dominated record companies want us to hear. We get what they think they will make money on produced by people that will play there game. Not what is good. They then play it enough so we are lead to believe it is infact good.
In short. What we eat, use for medicince, hear and watch are dictated by the power brockers in the US. The govement in the US has be forced by the industry mogals to restrict what you can hear we can't tell each other that a herb used for thousands of years dose what it dose. Or vitamin C is good for you.
Why dose this all exist? We have lost the power to discriminate. We are not alwed to hear what is good and produced by our nabours. We believe the things that American tv tells us. We are not given the facts to discrimate between products properly. Instead we base our desions on the slicness of the add not the spec sheet.
If we (the masses) had read the lable. Atari would be the domnate system today not Msoft carp.
Take back your power. Buy local from locals. Move out as your needs grow or can't be fulfilled localy. Think gobaly act localy. Avoid nationalism (a medium of keeping us enemies. You and I as individules are not enemies.) Remember all wars are for profit. Who's? Primarialy the banking industry.
The American system is based on profit, primarilay from war. My polictical reason for not buying American. I tend to stay away from British for the same reason. These two goverments like to war together. This is the government that I am refuring to, not the people. We the people are the same no mater what the system that is in place to control us.
The copyright law and most laws of this nature are put into place to protect the profits of the industry not the people. Even though we are lead to believe that it is for our protection. The system of distributiong of money to the creater of the art music, books, gives the lions share to the publisher not the artist. Far beyond the cost of doing business.
Shanta
Thanks Shanta McBain Perl hacker
Okay, the UK took Bryan Adams of your hands...
s ma kers/1731791.stm
Will you take Pete Waterman from us?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/uk/2000/new
-- Using the preview button since 2005
That's what I thought.
Great use of bold, caps, and italics to make the point you couldn't, however.
This is one of the most unfair aspects of the system: it takes money out of the pocket of small songwriters and performers to reward bigger ones. The levy pool is distributed based on CD sales and radio airplay numbers. If you don't get played on radio or sell CDs through retail, you don't count.
This is especially bad for bands and singers who are just starting out. If they buy CD-R blanks to record their own music, they pay the levy but the money is distributed to others.
The Canadian prices for iPods are $439, $579, and $729 for 10GB, 20GB and 40GB iPods, respectively.
Not any more! Post-ruling, they've all now jumped by $25. Yeeeouch!
-ben
myselfmusic
The real problem is perceived value. Nobody's going to spend $20 on a CD that costs the producer 5 cents a copy (and maybe 20 grand of studio time), when, for the same price, they can buy a dvd that costs more to produce, contains tons more contents (2 hours of video as opposed to 15 songs, 12 of which are "shovelware" or fillers), and has a higher perceived value.
has the cost of creating original work. sure, there's a lot of crap out there...but i've seen some work done with Adobe Photoshop that rivals Van Gogh. there's scary amounts of talent out there, a lot of whom will work for free just to get their art into the world...and because technology is allowing us lower cost methods of producing such amazing work, the argument that it costs nothing to copy instantly works is becoming more and more stale...because truly, everything is becoming easy, and both 'creating new work' and 'copying older work' is included in everything.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.