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

Unfair

[spikestabber]

This is a load of crap, I'm sick and tired of paying a fortune for blank CDR's while the Canadian Recording industry is out to call everyone a criminal and lobbying to cripple our rights by introducing ludicris laws to ruin what us Canadians take for granted. Either fuckoff trying to take our rights away, or do away with this stupid tax!

Re:Unfair

[Winterblink]

That's a great reaction, one I think most folks will share. Does posting it here on Slashdot matter? How will it make a difference at all?

Does anyone know who to contact in order to get our views voiced PROPERLY?

Re:Unfair

[Stripe7]

What happens to business uses of blank media? Do you get a tax refund? Ie if your media is used for backup of your HD with no music or if you are using it in a corporation do you get a refund? Also can you take that tax as a deduction from your normal taxes?

Re:Unfair

[dougmc]

I know there used to be "special" CD-Rs for copying music (special only when looking at the price tag, mind you)

No, they weren't special `only when looking at the price tag'. They were special all the time -- just not very special. And at least here in the US, they're still available.

The audio CD-Rs have a bit set somewhere that audio equipment looks at before deciding if they'll record on this media. So if you have cd writer in your stereo, it probably will only work with audio CD-Rs. Of course, the audio CD-Rs cost more, and some equipment can be hacked to not require this bit to be set, or you can swap it with a data CD-R at the right time and things will work, etc.

The cd writer in your computer, on the other hand, has no such restriction, since it's meant to store data. Of course, you can also burn audio onto your data CD-R on your computer, and people do do this.

As for the law changing in Canada, I have no idea. In the US, I know that audio CD-Rs include a tax that goes to the RIAA or the artists or somebody, and data CD-Rs do not. More on the DAT tax here. (It's called the DAT tax because it was originally written for DAT (4mm tapes) and is probably the #1 reason why we don't have consumer DAT audio drives in our stereos now.)

In any event, when I'm at Frys and I see somebody pick up a batch of Audio CD-Rs, I'll often ask them if they're going to burn them on a stereo component or a computer, and 95% of the time, the answer is `computer'. And then I tell them that they don't need the expensive audio CD-Rs -- the data ones will work just as well.

The DAT tax does have one good benefit though. From the article above --

It explicitly makes it legal (or more precisely, non-actionable) for you to copy audio works for your own use ( section 1008). That's right, it is now perfectly legitimate for you to borrow the latest Madonna album from a friend and make yourself a copy, despite the copyright. Pretty neat, huh?

Of course, this page was written pre-DMCA. I've no idea if the law has changed since.

If I'm paying anyway...

[xtal]

be stupid not to copy as much as I can get my paws on, eh?

I got mad enough before to start dreaming up "piracy booths", where you could burn cds from a "collection" - for free, of course, with your own hands. My understanding is this would be completely legal..

Re:Who uses blank CDs?

[NamShubCMX]

I do.

I play in a small punkrock bands. We produce everything "D.I.Y." which means we burn all our CDs on blank CDs and sell them for 3$.

We don't care about the CRIA. We don't care about their crap and we don't want to be on their labels. It seems they'll still have a cut off of every CDs we produce... awesome.