Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Canada's CD Tax Out of Hand?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the eventually-part-of-my-paycheck-will-just-go-to-them dept.

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."

3 of 599 comments (clear)

  1. I still don't understand this by rlthomps-1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Even if I set aside the flawed logic, why does the music biz get it all? What about other businesses that are hurt by "copying". Surely some of this money should go to software companies, as well as private media/content producers that distribute their work via CDs.

  2. Re:Clarify by stlhawkeye · · Score: 4, Insightful
    And if this tax applies to ALL CDRs, rather than just the music CDRs that nobody buys in America...how does a Canadian citizen dispute the tax on something they've never used (assuming of course they don't burn music to CDs?

    You don't. I don't get food stamps, a welfare check, my kids don't go to public schools (I don't have any), but I pay taxes that go into these programs. My real estate tax goes straight to the school district. I don't use that service.

    The majority of my taxes go towards causes, programs, or institutions whose services I neither need nor want, and a handful to which I have serious ethical and/or moral objections. But there's no recourse. If I say all of this and want my taxes lowered or changed so I can keep more of my own money, I'm called greedy. When somebody else wants my money for some purpose, they're just needy.

    And politicians arrange the transfer. Welcome aboard, Canada!

    --
    "I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
  3. Re:Dumb Canadians... by garcia · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If that law was passed in the U.S.A., people would be protesting in front of Congress by burning blank CDs on their laptops and tossing them at their representatives.

    Yeah, in the same country where we went to war on questionable intelligence and are still there fighting for who the fuck knows what reason. Or in the same country where e-voting fraud could occur and no one could give a shit. Or in the same country where the President authorized wiretaps on American citizens and no one batted an eye. Or perhaps in the same "free" country where protesters are told where they can and cannot protest and are removed for exercising their right to freedom of expression.

    Right. Like anyone in America gives a fuck about their rights and how they are losing them.