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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$25/unit depending on internal storage capacity."
I think you may be confused about the effect of a rising Canadian dollar. If the dollar continues to go up, importing an iPod should get cheaper.
First, the blank-tape tax.
Then, the blank-CD tax (20$ 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!
You're already "paying" for the media... Maybe the government should just track what files are being downloaded, and distribute the "media tax" proportionately.
It looks better than the previous scheme, which charged a fixed amount per megabyte of storage.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
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.
"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
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.
That's utterly ridiculous. You've jumped to the other end of the argument entirely, ignoring a more rational level in the middle. Abolishing copyright will very likely reduce the amount of quality art available quite drastically; the publishers should be looking to alternate sale methods rather than draconian tariffs and lawsuits. Abolishing copyrights will solve the problem only as much as this will.
Bít, zabít, jen proto, ze su liska!
As a musician and songwriter, I see this sort of thing as a barrier to entry, not a benefit.
If the cost of recording media goes up, it makes it more expensive to record, and makes it much more costly to distribute one's music for free. If it costs me $4 to make a demo to give away, then it's costing almost as much to make music to give away for free, as it would cost to buy some music produced by a corporation!
This isn't about piracy, it's about controlling whose art gets distributed. Stalin had different methods, but it's the same goal.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
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?
While there are parts of the current copyright laws that need modification there is no reason to abolish it all together and much reason to keep the parts of it that encourage the making of creative works.
For example, attribution is a VERY important part of the copyright laws, that should in no way be abolished. Removing the laws that guarantee an author, musician, artist, etc. recognition for their works is the surest way to halt the creation of new works.
Destroying the laws that allow the creator of copyrighted works to make money off of his works is also very likely to reduce or even eliminate the incentive to create new works and the ability to make a living doing so.
What needs altering in the copyright laws are the sections dealing with work for hire and the length of time that copyrights last; these sections need to be altered to deter abuse of the copyright laws by, in today's world, large corporations, and to make it harder for artists to be exploited.
The destruction of copyright may seem to provide relief for the current issues concerning it, but that is no more a viable solution than disallowing the creation of works, so that there would be no artists to exploit.
The parent post is so unconventional as to seem irrational at first-but think about what this implies for a minute. Copyright is taken for granted in modern society; everyone assumes information must be restricted to retain value. This is a very recent change. Shakespeare had no copyright, and throughout human history art was produced without the "protection" of copyright.
Now consider the original purpose of copyright. It was not developed to bring profit to those who distrubute conent. The founding fathers, and others around the world who introduced copyright, intended it to be a legal mechanism to shut down people who pass off the work of others as their own for commercial gain. Copyright periods were very short-only a few years-and typical cases involved large operations that mass produced works without permission.
A modern example of true copyright violation can be found in the movie bootleggers of Hong Kong. Take a walk down the street, and you'll see a variety of dirt cheap dvd's with good enough quality that only the most sophisticated consumers can spot the fakes. The pirates reap massive profit and gain control over how the work is presented while the creators are marginalized. This is what copyright was created to stop.
However, corporations bent on extracting maximum profit have perverted copyright into something it was never meant to be. In fact, through the contractual transference of copyright, companies now use copyright laws to screw the original artists! This is why we see non sequitors such as the tax on media: Corporations have no regard for the rights of customers or artists. They will abuse both in the name of profit-that is the purpose they were created for, and they would be deficient if they were not to do so. Lobbying for bad laws is only one mechanism for maximizing profit.
Clearly copyright has lost its original purpose and is now used to restrict the arts rather than encouraging them. Commercial interests, not artistic integrity, drive popular modern artistry. The artists themselves have no power and loathe the corporations that keep them on a leash. Small steps will not fix this. Shortening copyright terms or removing levies will not discourage those who make a living by abusing the system.
To encourage the arts and give artists true freedom we must go back to the models of the past. Artists can make a living through live performance, patronage, and teaching. Corporate middlemen should be removed, and profit should take a back seat to improvement of the human experience. This can only be accomplished by abolishing copyright as we know it.
Of course, you ask, "What will happen to the professional pirates that caused the creation of copyright in the first place? Won't they run rampant after copyright is abolished?" This problem can be solved through existing mechanisms. We already have trademarks. Trademarks are a mechanism for guaranteeing that the stated brand or credits are accurate. We can simply link content to brand. Suppose an aspiring artist writes a song that turns into a hit. The artist names the song, and trademarks that song name in association with the artist's own name. Much like how patent implementations are provided along with statements, the song itself is given as an implementation of the trademark. Now, it is illegal to make use of that specific implementation without naming the original artist as its creator, and it is illegal to use the artist's name and trademark without permission. Professional pirates are outlawed, and bringing a case against them is trivially easy. Artists gain total control of their works, and noone owes anyone anything except the truth.
That's what copyright was meant to be after all-a method of forcing people to tell the truth, and not lie about where content came from. By abolishing copyright and using more limited mechanisms to enforce honesty we can bring back artistic integrity and remove the subversive corporate influence from the humanities.
With appoligizations to our brothers and sisters up north.
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.
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
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.