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Canadian Copyright Group Wants iPod Tax
soulxtc writes "Unable to define memory as a 'recording medium,' Canada's Private Copyright Collective goes directly after portable music player devices, memory cards, and anything else that can be used to make private copies. The PCC submitted a proposal to the country's Copyright Board that suggests levies of $5 (Canadian) on devices with up to 1GB of memory, $25 for 1-10 GB, $50 for 10-30 GB, and $75 for over 30 GB. If approved, this propoal would increase the price of a 30-GB iPod by 26%. These collections are intended to compensate artists and labels for the losses they suffer when people 'illegally' copy or transfer music. The PCC is also seeking a new $2 to $10 tax on memory cards. The backbone of digital photography has become tangled up in the fight for making sure music companies get every nickel and dime they feel that they deserve."
Is have a true sliding scale. Under that pricing scheme, the 1gb ipod has a $5 tax, while the 2gb model has a $25 tax rather than $10. Sheesh.
So, this means that I get to download anything I want while in Canada free of guilt and cost... right?
Do they want me to stop buying music? If I am going to be charged for buying a new iPod, I should be able to download at least as much music as it costs for the fee right? If they are going to accuse people of being thieves, then I suppose they have no choice but to stop buying music completely and just pirate it. Way to go CRIAA. Have fun with bankruptcy.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
These collections are intended to compensate artists and labels for the losses they suffer when people 'illegally' copy or transfer music
No, they're not. They're intended to set up yet another cash cow for large recording companies, irrespective of whether individuals put legal or illegal copies of music on their recording devices.
And no, they're not intended to supplement the compensation of artists, regardless.
Geez, that was easy to translate. The recording companies don't even try to hide their intentions behind competent PR any more.
Kythe
habeas corpus?
According to this article" music sharing does not kill CD sales due to the fact that those that download music would not likely buy it in the first place. MP3 Players and P2P software have become the scapegoat of the music industry. They are trying to compensate for something they caused (by releasing music overpriced and more) by taking away from the consumer. It's completely ridiculous.
...considering that you could fit maybe 250 128 bps mp3's on a 1 GB iPod (that comes to about $.02 per song), I guess we know now how much people should be penalized for illegal music sharing.
Kythe
First of all, this is more "you have an iPod, you must be a criminal" nonsense. Well, here's what I have to say about RIAA and it's Canadian counterpart: If you treat everyone like they're a thief, it's probably because you're a thief too. (Credit to my father who said this referring to Wal-Mart) Furthermore, from their standpoint, why give people MORE ammo with which to justify pirating music and video. This will have the OPPOSITE effect than they want. (i.e. I paid $75 extra for this 30Gig iPod, and I'm gonna get my money's worth.. etc...)
They've also been sounding out the idea of a levy on hard drives.
My brother is a full-time professional musician in Alberta, and has been now for about 20 years. It's not an easy job, but it's his love and his passion.
He's now been an artist on about six albums over the years, one of which was nominated for a Juno. Why, pray tell, has he not gotten a single bloody cent from this tariff?
If I didn't know better, I'd almost believe that the point of it isn't actually to reward the musicians! But of course, that's just crazy talk.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
The members of the RIAA and the Canadian equivalent will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.
Ah, fuck it. Why wait for a revolution? Everybody get your guns and we'll meet down at the bar to plan our attack on these useless leeches.
-- Will program for bandwidth
The Private Copying Levy is what lets me download with impunity in Canada. The dollars may or may not actually get to the artists (google away on this one), but it certainly does facilitate my p2p activities.
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I don't know who the 'Private Copyright Collective' is, but this position is at odds with what we've been hearing about the Canadian Recording Industry Association's position - last heard as wanting to do away with the levy:
http://michaelgeist.ca/component/option,com_conte
I think this is an interesting tactic: collect levy at the front end, squeeze the availability of material via p2p networks through increased DRM on released materials.
Quite honestly, I don't really notice the levy at my pocketbook, and it does make for an entirely different legal landscape for p2p downloading. Michael Geist is the Guy in the Know about this landscape in Canada - check out his blog at the address above, there's reams of material there.
[17] Leary, T., White, C., Wood, P. R., Bhabha, W. D., and Wirth, N. Lambda calculus considered harmful. In Proceedings
How do I contact the organizations making these proposals? I want to give them a piece of my mind, namely to tell them they can't have it both ways:
1) Make unauthorized copying illegal.
2) Charge me for it.
Do they want a compulsory licensing scheme, as has been proposed by The Register, or do they want people to pay for each copy of music they purchase.
They should make up their damn minds, because they can't have their cake and eat it too.
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You can copy music from a friend if you put it on a medium which has the levy, because then you have paid royalties. It may be the case that you can download, given the same condition. See A Guide to Copyrights: Copyright Protection.
I'm guessing you aren't talking about this kind of Canadian Tea Party
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I have a better question: If this becomes Canadian law, does that mean that Apple's iTMS and other MP3 stores start providing their content free to Canadian individuals, but start charging the labels/artists per song?
Eat the Path.
that the recording industries believe that all they have to to do make money is to make more laws?
Why don't they try something novel like oh.... selling a product to us?
I say we pass a law that everyone that buys a crowbar has to pay me a nickel, to make up for the losses I incur every time someone breaks into my house. ya.
Idiots. No, I take that back. By saying that I'm just insulting the idots and that's not fair for even them.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
For each 700mb cd-rw, the levy is 30 cents.
A 30gb ipod has 30000mb-
30000mb/700mb = 42.9 cdrs
42.9 cdrs x 30 cents = 1286 cents = 12.86 dollars
The association better have a very good reason why they want to charge for than 3x for the ipod compared to cd-rws.
Also, why stop with ipod? I can record information on harddrives too! Let's see, a typically hard drive in a computer has 250 gb. Obviously, if a 30gb ipod costs $40, a 250gb computer should cost (250/40) x $40 = $240! We all know computers are the main source of illegally downloaded mp3!
A few years ago some countries in Europe adopted a similar taxing on media-carriers and media. The problem is that not a single musician or even a record label sees any of the money. The state forwards it to this 'non-profit' organization and recently a 'scandal' quickly buried by the media came out that actually in over 3 years, millions of euros have been collected and none have been paid out. It also came out that the employees of this 'non-profit' organization (similar to RIAA) had salary's exceeding 250k/year.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
I think the suppliers of blank media make a greater contribution to the economy and the tax base - and really shouldn't be victimised because some loud tax dodgers with good lobbyists want a special tax to feed themselves and drain from another portion of the economy.
Goverments are not supposed to be fee collectors for private companies - they are supposed to work in the interest of their nations.
I've seen it before, but I've never quite understood how any government can be convinced to collect taxes for a non-government enterprise. Unless the government is now going to start producing, regulating or in some other way getting involved in the music industry, and intends to use the taxes to pursue that enterprise, why exactly would they collect taxes for it? -- I know it's slashdot but this is a serious question if anyone knows [seriously though - I know it's slashdot, but please refrain from the corruption/collusion arguments for at least 3 posts... ] [[no, seriously... ]]
Never quite understood how these levies/tariffs are distributed back to the artists.
... and then burn it all on a CD for my car driving pleasure ... how does the RIAA know how to distribute the funds to the starving artists in this case ?
... money from my pocket ends up in hers anyway ?
.. for a fee of course.
So say if I download a few songs from groups such as Blood-Axe, mix it up with a bit of psy-trance from Finland, and then round it out with some Pendulum
What, they dont ?
So you mean despite the efforts of the original muso's involved, plus my time to mix and burn the CD - they just end up writing out yet another cheque to Celine Dion for all of our collective efforts ?
Fuck No !
Ive never wanted to even to listen to Celine Dion. Not ever !
But when I step into an elevator, or pass through a shoe shop - there she is, singing in the background and generally ruining my day.
I dont want to listen to her, but yet she still gets royalties out of me when I make my own CD, or backup my harddisk ?
That is so totally around the wrong fucking way. Man - I should be PAID by Celine Dion instead as compensation for HAVING to listen to any of her music, which is clearly against my wishes. She infringes upon my personal aural liberty, and yet
That is just WRONG on so many levels.
Seriously - does ANYONE go the effort of actually downloading Celine Dion music and burning it on CD's Why ? So they can hold hands with their so-called 'friends' and dance around and be silly between glasses of cheap wine ?
What they should do is just stick to selling normal CD's and iPods and things without the tarriffs, but give people the right, if they so choose, to pay $100 and get a licence key that will put their CD Burner or iPod into some sort of crappy 'Celine Dion Mode'. In the same way that you can take a perfectly good PC, and pay $400 or whatever it is to stick Vista on there - enabling 'Celine Dion' mode on the iPod will virtually trash the machine, in exchange for getting the 'Wow' of having it play Celine Dion songs
The iPod should just operate normally, unless you 'opt-in', and pay the fee, after which the iPod degrades itself to the point where it will play Celine Dion music. 'Look Herbert, my iPod it now plays Celine Dion !!'. 'Yayy !'. 'Hey Clarence, your iPod - its turning a pale shade of Green !!'. 'Its all about the Yayy !!'.
Its just WRONG