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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
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.
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
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.
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
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.
Oh dear, what will I do now that I can't threaten to move to Canada if Bush gets elected again?!?
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.
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*
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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 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."
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.
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.
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
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.
Yes, actually. Although you will have to prove it (which isn't that hard if you are using them for backups at work or otherwise can objectively demonstrate that you have substantial non-infringing use that can be recognized as applicable directly to your own situation).
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
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
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.
With appoligizations to our brothers and sisters up north.
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).
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.
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.
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)?
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
This is government stupidity at it's best. As it is a levy, and not a tax, it CANNOT be collected by Customs. It is a level which is collected when sold to a RETAILER. (Note: that is any company which will sell the end product to the consumer. That includes 'wholesalers' when selling to the public.).
But it means they cannot collect the levy if I order DVD-Rs from the U.S., or take a trip south and bring back an iPod.
(Note: it can be difficult to get consumer electronics mailed across the boarder, but picking them up yourself isn't hard.)
(thats how I got my Tivo; and it was fully declaired to customs when I came back).
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
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.
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?
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.
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
...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..."
That Canadian is supposed to declare that they purchased it in the United States when they re-enter Canada via Customs, and pay import duties on it, like a good little Canuckian. :)
However, many people don't, especially if it's an item (like an iPod) that they could easily say that they owned it before hand. Especially at busy ports of entry, Customs officials (at least a couple of years ago anyway) are general hesitant to stop the flow of traffic (whether it be cars or people at airports) unless they figure something major is going on (or see something so glaringly obvious that they can't ignore it).
If you move into Canada, and have acquired posessions abroad, they will also charge you duty on them as well. I recall that the company I was working for at the time, in California, was considering relocating the QA team (which was almost exclusively Canadians) back to Canada, and rent office space there. In order to get our test lab equipment into the country though, we were looking at paying somewhere around $100,000 to get it through Customs.
I deal with this stuff every Christmas when I go back to Canada to see my family. The bitch of it is that I'm treated better by Canadian customs than U.S. Customs (probably because I'm Canadian and have a Canadian passport).
-- Joe
What 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
As someone who writes quite a bit (though doesn't really make money for it) I can say I would be pretty pissed it if was perfectly legal and "OK" for anyone to take my work, stick their name on it, delete my credits, and publish it themselves.
I imagine anyone who does much creative work (writing, coding, composing, whatever) feels the same way, even if they choose to share it for free, they expect to be able to get credit for the work they have done. Taking this away WOULD drastically undermine people's incentive to share creative works with their community.
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.
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?
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!
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.
... 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.
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
Hard drives for prescription drugs!
sulli
RTFJ.
Will send over blank media for prescription drugs.
*grin*
Actually, I believe crucification eventually kills due to the victim not being able to breathe any more, due to the strain on chest. Or if you're really fit and last long enough, you just might die from dehydration first...
It's good to see that this "innocent until proven guilty" nonsense has not infected the Canadian justice system.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
The Copyright Board of Canada has just announced the details... Less onerous than anticipated.
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
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.
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