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Apple to Refund iPod Levy for Canadian Customers
The Hobo writes "According to this CBC report, Apple Computer will be starting a refund program for those who purchased their iPod product during the year that a levy of $25 per iPod over 10 GB was collected. The levy was in effect from December 2003 until a year later, when a Federal Court overturned it. Previous CBC coverage here."
But shouldn't the Canadian Government be doing the refunding? They mandated it, they probably took the money from Apple as it was collected, seems like Apple gets screwed twice, along with Canadian citizens.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Shouldn't Apple instead be giving them 25 iTMS downloads? After all, court decisions always result in vouchers -- not cash!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Especially if the refund can be redeemed for a higher amount at iTunes. Than they actually refund nothing at all. Slick. But still quite nifty.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
That way, since I've already paid for crimes I might commit, I can freely go ahead and commit them to my heart's content. Sort of like buying an indulgence.
Hardly, the only time you'll think a corporation as large as Apple is cool is when you succumbed to their marketing spin. It seems that if they hadn't started this, things would have gotten worse for them in the future, especially as the amount collected grows.
Levy = Fee administered by a private organization
Tax = Fee administered by a government
There is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men. -- Boondock Saints
Um, last you checked you were wrong. In Canada it is perfectly legal to copy music under most personal use circumstances -- including burning a copy of a CD you borrow, and including downloading an MP3 via P2P.
www.kitchengeek.com -- Nosh for
A court didn't impose the tax. The Copyright Board, a non-judicial tribunal, imposed a levy (not a tax), with the authority granted to them to do so via Order-in-Council.
www.kitchengeek.com -- Nosh for
The Canadian Government, specifically the Copyright Board, authorized this levy (not tax) through ammendments to the Canadian Copyright Act.
The Canadian Private Copying Collective, a non-profit organization representing the music industry, collects the the levy from manufacturers (moderately important to note here is that it's not the government collecting it, nor is it actually being imposed on consumers; the recording industry collects it from manufacturers of recordable media).
Apple, not wanting to let the levy cut into their profits, pads the price of iPods in Canada to offset the levy paid to the CPCC.
The CPCC has been holding the money pending the final ruling from the courts on whether this levy should stand. Now that the court has ruled that it should not stand, they will be paying the money back to Apple.
Apple, in turn, refunds consumers as well (at least those who apply for the refund, which will likely not be everyone, so ultimately Apple can expect to make a small profit off of this, as will the recording industry, which collected interest off the money while holding it).
By the way, you have a similar levy in the United States as well, although it isn't quite as pervasive (ie. it doesn't apply to quite as many types of recordable media as it does in Canada). Many other countries have this levy, too.
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
Um, last you checked you were wrong. In Canada it is perfectly legal to copy music under most personal use circumstances -- including burning a copy of a CD you borrow, and including downloading an MP3 via P2P.
Actually, it's not that clear cut anymore. As Michael Geist points out, the levy is what made personal copying *clearly* legal. As it stands right now, there's nothing in the new Canadian Copyright acts which actually allows Canadians to make personal copies/backups of their music.
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"Never Attribute to malice what is adequately explained by stupidity..."
Here is something that really annoys me. These levies go to the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) because they lobbied the government -- and are still actively influencing the Heritage Minister -- to try and convince them that implied theft of Canadian content should go back to the association that represents them.
This is an abomination of facts on multiple levels. First, the CRIA does NOT represent the majority of Canadian artists. They might represent the largest percent of mass music sales, because they have the largest commercial artists but the CRIA does not represent the majority of Canadian musicians. Many artists are independent of course.
Second, the CRIA is basically a Canadian flagged arm of the RIAA. If you use the wayback machine's history to look at www.cria.ca before they removed the logos, you'll see that the majority of the artists are under large American labels - Sony, BMG, Warner etc.
So here is basically what has happened. The American recording industry has opened a wing in Canada, slapped on a Canadian flag, claimed to represent Canadian musicians, pressured government into forcing levvies for implied theft and then stolen that money.
Dear Sir or Madam,
You are not a customer. You are a criminal sir (or madam)! I'll take your money AND I'll call you a criminal. Who are you to disagree? We have a United Nations backed copyright treaty behind us, support of world governments, and millions of dollars to lobby your government (our government) and pay for lawyers.
There is no way to argue, we wrote copyright law and we shall amend it as required. Copyright allows us to strictly protect intellectual property for many years after an artist's death, even though even patents for the greatest inventions in the world can only last a couple decades. Copyright is King!
If you don't like it then I suppose your only recourse would be to refrain from purchasing anything supported by our industry such as audio CDs, but please don't do that because our profit margins are already very weak and we can not survive. Plus we will just claim that you have been stealing the CD content and collect even more cash from you to compensate us for your evil theft!
We're real assholes that way. What can you do? Pay up, bee-atches. Just remember to keep buying our stuff. Do not ever buy or sell used CDs, the secondary market is theft too!
Sincerely eh,
CPCC
CRIA
RIAA