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Canadians May Face 25% Download Tariff

Posted by timothy on from the show-me-the-clause-in-the-social-contract dept.

C-Yo writes "While Canadians have battled against an iPod tariff for more than a year, now comes news that Canada's copyright collectives are seeking a tariff on iTunes as well. Professor Michael Geist (who last week dismantled music industry claims about peer-to-peer) reports that one collective is demanding an incredible 25% of the gross revenue of music download services as well as 15% of webcasters' gross revenue and 10% of gamers gross revenue (free version of report or Toronto Star reg. version). When combined with other tariff proposals, it would appear that Canada's collectives want to the kill the download industry, demanding at least 40% of everything iTunes, Napster, and other new services earn."

6 of 615 comments (clear)

  1. And your little dog too! by FunWithHeadlines · · Score: 5, Funny
    "one collective is demanding an incredible 25% of the gross revenue of music download services as well as 15% of webcasters' gross revenue and 10% of gamers gross revenue"

    And 7% of gross revenue from hamburger sales since it's been shown that copyright violaters eat them, and 11% of posters of 70s rockers in cheesy poses since their images retain valuable copyrightable money-making potential, and 3% of the sale of every wheelbarrel since they can be used to haul off copyrighted material, and 1% of every breath you take since that's part of a copyrighted song lyric...

  2. Re:It isn't just downloads.... by eviloverlordx · · Score: 5, Funny

    Canada will impose a 15 percent surtax on U.S. live swine...starting May 1, 2005

    I knew it was pretty easy and cheap to buy politicians, but now Canada is taxing them? How do I get into this racket?

    --
    'Loose' is when your pants are three sizes too big. 'Lose' is when you misuse 'loose'.
  3. Anonymous Coward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    But thats 25% Canadian so its less than 25% American.

  4. Dammit, they're taxing the wrong ones... by nxtr · · Score: 4, Funny

    They should tax the illegal downloaders. Then again 25% of 0 is... um... uh... get back to me.

  5. Re:What the hell is wrong with Canada? by zoeith · · Score: 4, Funny

    Are they gonna start driving across the border for cds then? Maybe we can get an exchange going!

    --
    Zoeith
  6. Re:Will Canadian musicians be affected.? by Clay+Pigeon+-TPF-VS- · · Score: 5, Funny

    Will this produce a negative impact on any Canadian artists such as k.d. lang, barenaked ladies, Celine Dion, Avril Lavigne, etc., etc.? We can only hope...

    --
    Viral software licensing is not freedom, it is in fact GNU/Socialism.