Canada's CD Tax Out of Hand?

CRIA Watcher writes "The Canadian Copyright Board has just announced that it is bringing back the tax on blank CDs, called the private copying levy, in 2007. Michael Geist demonstrates how the tax has created a huge distortion in the retail price of blank media on his blog with as much as 70 percent of the purchase price now heading directly to the music industry."

Comments

Re:Clarify

[Foobar_]

I went to school in Canada to be an audio engineer. I know about the workings of the Canadian recording industry.

SOCAN (the Canadian equivalent of ASCAP/BMI) handles royalty collection and distribution for Canadian music authors. If you're a Canadian composer, songwriter, or lyricist, you must do this to get royalties:
1. Apply for membership with SOCAN
2. Register your copyrighted works
3. Sit back and wait
You don't have to be owned by a record label to get your royalties. Also, SOCAN has arrangements with other performing rights organizations around the world, so if your music is played in the USA, or Germany, or Japan or whatnot, you'll still get royalty payments from SOCAN but on the accounting it states that the money is coming from that territory.

Royalties are only paid to the "writers" and the "publishing company". The "writers" are composed of the songwriter (who does the music) and the lyricist (who writes the words). A songwriter and lyricist can be the same person. Usually it gets split 25% songwriter/25% lyricist/50% publisher respectively, which means that if a composer wants to get more money, they start their own publishing company.

There are simple yet comprehensive materials available on SOCAN's site. Quick links:
*SOCAN Overview for Music Creators and Publishers
*How your music makes money
*Private Copying Royalties update

Up until recently, the money collected from the media levy has sat in SOCAN's accounts while writers and publishing companies fought viciously to get it all for themselves. Seems the writers have won; the "private copying royalties" now go 100% to writers by default. This of course doesn't stop publishing contracts from specifying that lots of money goes to the publisher...

By the way, I finished the audio engineer training, said "I don't want to do this as a job" and have just opened a computer repair shop. I'll be selling those taxed CD blanks soon enough...

Re:Unfair

[DeeKayWon]

Section 80 of the Copyright Act says thus:

--

80. (1) Subject to subsection (2), the act of reproducing all or any substantial part of

(a) a musical work embodied in a sound recording,

(b) a performer's performance of a musical work embodied in a sound recording, or

(c) a sound recording in which a musical work, or a performer's performance of a musical work, is embodied

onto an audio recording medium for the private use of the person who makes the copy does not constitute an infringement of the copyright in the musical work, the performer's performance or the sound recording.

(2) Subsection (1) does not apply if the act described in that subsection is done for the purpose of doing any of the following in relation to any of the things referred to in paragraphs (1)(a) to (c):

(a) selling or renting out, or by way of trade exposing or offering for sale or rental;

(b) distributing, whether or not for the purpose of trade;

(c) communicating to the public by telecommunication; or

(d) performing, or causing to be performed, in public.

--

(emphasis mine)