Slashdot Mirror
Canada Quashes Copyright Tax on MP3 Players
Rippy the Gator writes "The Globe and Mail says that consumers may soon be paying less for MP3 players because the Federal Court of Appeal ruled that special copyright levies applied to digital music players are not legal. You might want to keep those receipts if you're giving them as a Christmas Gift."
According to the article, the law doesn't include any text about MP3 players, so collecting levies on them isn't allowed. As in many decisions, it has been left to Parliament to make the final choice.
The short of it is that if lobbyists get their way, the levy will be back on MP3 players; all that's needed is for an amendment to the Copyright Act to be drafted and passed.
Information about that can be found here.
In short: yes, they redistribute the money.
I always thought that this money will never be seen by the artists, and was essentially just a scam
The money is supposed to go to the Canadian artists' collective (whatever it's called). Personally I prefer having the levies. They are what allow us to download music legally here. Now that it seems that the levies are starting to be discarded we'll probably end up with a bunch of lawsuits ala-RIAA up here.
Trolling is a art,
Those extra levies on casettes/minidiscs/CD-R and apparently also MP3 players, do they really reach the artists? How do they redistrubute, and on what criteria?
It's interesting that I was just looking into this yesterday. They have a website that they've collected $80 million over that past 5 years and distributed $30 million of it. The distributions are based on radio airplay and CD sales. The funds are paid out by groups like SOCAN (an artist organization that handles royalties, etc.).
So, yes, the money is getting out slowly - unfortunately, it's being distributed to Celine Dion and Bryan Adams for the most part.
Actually, while downloading or copying (for private use) is legal, sharing isn't. At least here in Finland (we pay for the compensation "tax" for analog media, CD/DVD media and MP3 players).
Whenever I investigate buying a new electronic device from the U.S., I cannot complete the transaction because the vendor will not ship to Canada. I've seen this on thinkgeek and amazon. I wonder if this is (one) bottleneck and the removal of the levy will allow cross-border shopping?
Egonis (155154) wrote:
> On one hand, yes.. copying music is breaking the law, but on the other hand...
> the levy tax pays the record industry as a whole for their "losses" --
> so there is a half-right and half-wrong to the concept of levies.
Except that in Canada it is legal to copy music for personal use
Not breaking any laws here.
Yes, and that ruling suggests it is perfectly legal to "upload" files, which the Copyright Board of Canada previously believed was illegal(see p. 20), but downloading files via P2P has been legal since at least the 1998 update to the Copyright Act. Even the Copyright Board of Canada agreed that to be true.
What's the point of levying money "to help artists" when the group collecting the levies is actually not giving any money away because it has no idea of how to redistribute the cash fairly?
Last time I heard about digital player/media levy money in Canada, they were saying none of it will be redistributed until they come up with such a 'fair' policy with no mention of how soon/late this might happen - AFAIK, this is why nearly all levy hikes have been denied over the last few years.
At some point, they wanted levies on all digital storage including HDDs.
I think this cash pile will mysteriously disappear at some point in the future. I'm pretty sure some of the people managing this would be embarassed if they got audited... I smell something like a "Sponsorship Scandal: Take II" - nothing good usually happens when people managing too much money get little to no public attention.
$76,685,000 in collected tariffs. $28,157,000 paid to copyright holders so far.
Want to know where the other $48,528,000 has gone? Lobbying the government for bigger tariffs. Seriously. They don't even count that as an expense, which is insane. CPCC wants a tariff of $1/GB for everything you ever buy that could possibly, some day, store music digitally. 500GB external hard drive? Pony up an additional $500. Running a network storage array at work? Budget for an additional $1000 per terabyte.
Of course, if they get higher tariffs approved, that will leave them more money to lobby for even bigger tariffs.
Luckily, the Copyright Board tends to keep these guys in check, and approves MUCH lower tariffs. The Copyright Board has also been pretty good in making sure that Canadians get something in return for the tariffs (you know, just like how copyright holders were given legal protection for their work with the trade-off that the work becomes public domain after a set number of years...) That's why the Copyright Act states that CPCC can collect tarrifs, but the trade-off is that Canadians are allowed to legally make personal copies of copyrighted audio recordings.
This is a common misconception. The Canadian Senate does a heck of a lot, including a LOT of valuable committee work. Sure they are Senators who abuse the system, but there are a lot of hard-working ones too. Here's a good summary I found on the web:
----
Examining and revising legislation, investigating national issues and representing regional, provincial and minority interests - these are important functions in a modern democracy. They are also the duties of Canada's Senate. Senators represent; investigate; deliberate; and legislate.
At the Quebec Conference of 1864, the Canadian founders of Confederation worked out a blueprint for the Constitution of the new country. The founders were convinced that Canada's Parliament would need two houses to make sure that legislation received careful consideration. They gave the Senate legislative powers similar to those of the House of Commons, but anticipated a very different role for it. The Senate was to be, in the words of Canada's first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, a place of "sober second thought".
The founders spelled out the constitution and responsibilities of Parliament, and of the Senate within Parliament, in the law they called the British North America Act. We now call that law the Constitution Act, 1867.
Today, Canada's Senate consists of 105 senators from a wide variety of backgrounds and from every province and territory. Its membership is about one-third the size of that of the House of Commons, and it operates at about one-fifth of the cost.
Senators consult in their home provinces and throughout Canada and then gather in Ottawa in order to make their contribution to Canada's governance.
Canada's Senate is made up of men and women with a wide range of career experience. Scan the ranks of the Senate and you will find business people, lawyers, teachers, surgeons, aboriginal leaders and journalists. Other senators have experience in fields such as agriculture, the environment, manufacturing, the oil and gas and fishing industries, unions, economics, police and military work, and, of course, federal, provincial and municipal politics. With this expertise, senators can get to the heart of complex bills and committee investigations. They understand the issues, focus on the key points and can respond to the needs of the people and organizations affected.
Former cabinet ministers, senior civil servants, provincial premiers and party leaders bring an understanding of law-making and the business of government to the Senate.
For example: in 1983 a special committee of the Senate examined a bill to create a Canadian Security Intelligence Service. The Chair's previous experience as Clerk of the Privy Council had given him expertise in security matters. The committee recommended so many changes that the House of Commons withdrew the bill and rewrote it. The House of Commons and the Senate then passed the new bill which incorporated the improvements initiated by Senators.
Increasingly, the Senate reflects our multicultural society. Senators come from many different ethnic backgrounds and religions. Canada's aboriginal First Nations and Black communities are represented in the Senate, as are Canadians of Arab, Greek, Italian, Jewish, Ukrainian and other origins.
The founders of Confederation wanted senators to have extensive experience before reaching the Senate and so restricted membership to persons 30 years of age or more. In order to let them gain parliamentary experience, senators were given lifetime appointments. In 1965, Parliament introduced retirement at age 75, based upon the model for judges. In 1997, the average age in the Senate was 64, compared to about 52 in the Commons. A complete changeover in Senate membership takes place about every 17 years. This continuity creates a kind of long-term institutional memory. Senators can track issues over time, form lasting working relationships and develop a thorough understanding of Parliament.