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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
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.
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.
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