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Canadians May Face 25% Download Tariff
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."
The whole point of the tariffs were to collect funding based upon implied piracy. (IE tariff's on blank video tapes because blank tapes were used to "illegally" copy movies and broadcast NFL games and such)
But, at least in the case of iTunes, you're already PAYING for the product. So there's no need to tariff it because the product is being legitimately purchased.
(Of course, that won't stop your friendly government from figuring out how to tax you...)
It doesn't stop with the cited sources either, this proposal has an extremely wide scope. From TFA:
SOCAN's proposal does not stop with music download services. The new Tariff 22 also calls for a tariff of 15 percent of gross revenues from both audio webcast sites that feature content similar to conventional radio stations as well as from established radio stations that webcast their signal. Moreover, gaming sites that communicate musical works as part of their games face a potential tariff of ten percent of gross revenues. In fact, to ensure that no one escapes Tariff 22, SOCAN envisions a tariff of ten percent of gross revenues for all other sites that communicate music.
Ultimately, this is all a bunch of legal poppycock. It's a proposal, and I'd argue that it's a damn stupid, untenable proposal. We need to let the Canadian government know that its a stupid proposal, but I have a feeling that they'll see it for what it is. After all, they've ruled positively in downloading cases before - what with our tariff on blank media.
"There's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all."
- Bob Dylan
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."
I can't see it killing these globally, just in Canada.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
So if I am paying for them with a tarriff does that mean I can download anything I want now and not pay a cent. Since technically I just already paid for it?
Um... if you're going to post that there's a trade surplus, maybe you shouldn't link to an article that talks about a record trade deficit.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
If it was just the farmers' fine. Problem is, it may make economic sense for farmers to "mine" their land -- to maximise production for several years, take their profit, and leave a desert. Same as the timber industry -- given the choice between moderate profits indefinitely and high profits for 10 years and cashing out, economics pushes you to go for the shorter term, clearfelling, rather than selective harvesting. Or fisheries -- take all you can this year and don't care about wiping out the next generation. And if any competitors go for the long term, they go broke as they can't compete on price with someone who doesn't care about is destroying their land.
The quarter-by-quarter business model is fine for some industries, but not agriculture.
" Dont be prey to false logic. People protect their stuff."
Yea right.. We aren't talking about generation to generation farmers here. Start looking at the greater economic picture, where every industry turns into a small number of large coporations who leech off the resources. It will always be more profitable to leech off the land for 5 years and dump it, only to buy new land and do the same, over and over again. I'm not talking about Farmer Brown who sits around driving his tractor and taking care of his crops. He has a vested interest in his land and his family farm. But the same absolutely CANNOT be said about a coporation, no matter how you slice it.
Even if coporations outsoruced all their farming to the locals, they would just cut big bonus checks to them to crank out the max in the short term and then drop them. The local wouldn't have a problem because he would probably be set for life after that point. What does he care if his soil is useless... He is rich now and has a retirement account.
Your points only make sence if every farmer in the country ran like a small family business and passed it down through the generations selling to local grocery stores and farmer's markets. This lala land you dream of doesn't exist. There are greater economic factors at work here. Walmart sells produce now if you haven't noticed. Small businesses don't sell to walmart. Small businesses don't sell to Walmart's competitors. The economics are so significantly more complicated than you can imagine, and you boil it all down to "People protect their stuff." Give me a break.
Your ignorance is infinitely greater than you realize.
One word: Weyerhauser.
Weyerhauser owns a lot of land in Oregon. Because they own the land they're obsessed with making sure it yields maximum production. They work with the Forestry department and with large universities to determine how best to protect their land, since that's their livelihood at stake. Because of this they're moving away from monoculture crops and recommending selective harvesting, rather than clear-cutting. This is a timber company, mind you. In opposition to extremist greenie thinking they're at the forefront of sustainable land management; not because it's the 'right' thing to do (whatever that means) but because it'll keep the land productive for centuries to come.
Other timber companies rent public land and clear-cut the hell out of out, then often renege on their minimal replanting duties until they can tuck away their profits and dissolve the company (Southern Georgia, anyone?). Why should they give a shit about the land? The public will bail out their mess, after all.
For people with half a brain owning the land means taking care of it. Anything else spells disaster in the long run. This must be why Weyerhauser plans *100 years* into the future in terms of land management.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Repeat after me: Indymedia is not a source of respectable economic research.
Your arguments are big on grand sweeping statements but short on details and evidence. I'm afraid you're playing your hand as someone who has not looked deeply into competing explanations for what is going on. Seriously, can you point to any large-scale flight to safety from US treasuries to other currencies or assets? It just isn't realistically happening. Do you really think that some scheme cooked up by Chirac and Hussein to sell Iraqs meager oil output in Euros would have been likely? Do you honestly think that this fairly insignificant move would cause the trillions of dollars in treasuries held as a reserve currency to be liquidated in favor of Euros? Do you have any idea how momentous that move would be, and how massive events that have triggered a change in global reserve currency have been in the past? Are you actually suggesting that Saddam Hussein had a great beneficient financial program for the world?
Occam's Razor my friend, look into it.
Some sort of Baran-Wallerstein type theory of global immiserization is not "an accepted fact" as you claim, but actually widely discredited. Because post-war Germany and Japan, South Korea, Canada, all the greatest trading partners of the US are not 'exploited'. I'm sorry, you lose, move away from the table.
Look, I can tell that you're not going to be convinced by anything anyone says about this that doesn't fit your world-view, but I'm going to give a simple analogy for anyone who might stumble across this discussion. If you buy stuff from me, I prosper more than if you don't. If I am Germany, and I have stuff for sale then I am better off if people buy my stuff. If no one offers to buy it, then I have less money to spend on things I need. It would hurt me, as Germany a great deal if suddenly the US started trading with me less. OK, that's not too hard to understand.
Yes it would be good if Japan was also buying more Japanese goods and services and Germany more German goods and services. It would also be nice if Japan's banks weren't supporting billions upon billions of bad debt, and if German firms weren't regulated out of hiring new employees in defference to those who already have jobs. Having high exports, built on the back of American sovereign and consumer debt hasn't made these problems worse, but it may have forestalled their domestic resolution. It certainly isn't good for the long-term in America to have such high debt and low savings, but that's the price you've got to pay when you're basically supporting the world's economy. The alternative of allwoing Japan and Germany to sink into depression is too harsh for everyone.
BTW, I don't live in the US, not that I see what difference that makes, I thought we were discussing ideas here.
Metamuscle.com - News in the Iro
The music industry already gets paid for the download. The compnay (like Apple) have an agreement with the record lables, and a cut of the download goes to them.
Further, how is buying a blank CD like a download? Itsn't the download more like buying a pre-recorded CD? The download is a purchase, so why would they need compensation for a "non-purchase".
This is like wanting 40% gross on non-blank CDs, when they already get money from them.