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Canadians Overpay Millions on Copyright Tax
An anonymous reader writes "Michael Geist has up a post on his site about the Copyright Board of Canada's decision last week on the controversial private copying levy, which functions like a tax on blank media. The good news? The Board reduced the levy on certain media such as CD-R Audio, CD-RW Audio, and MiniDiscs. The bad news? The millions of dollars in overpayment from these media will go into the pockets of manufacturers, importers, and retailers, not back to the consumers who paid in the first place. 'In addition to the overpayment issue, the decision contains several interesting revelations ... the decision sheds some light on the CPCC's enforcement program. The collective has aggressively targeted those parties that do not pay the levy, with 21 claims over the past three years. In fact, the enforcement program has been so effective that the Board found that concerns about the emergence of a gray or black market for blank CDs has not materialized.'"
Sales of vinyl have been increasing year-over-year for the last 10 years according to several music mags. It is a small percentage, but it is increasing.
n/t
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
So we pay a little more for CD's, and that money goes to the copyright holders (we hope).
Umm, maybe this isn't such a bad idea? After all, there is a TV Tax in the UK for the same reason. Everyone complains about it, but not *that* much.
Maury
Oh even better, it's a great idea. Pure capitalism economics forces in place.
So you buy blank CD-s and copy hard metal all day long, and the fee you paid goes to... Britney Spears' come-back album. Since according to "statistics" she has much larger market share than anyone.
Of course it's even worse than this, since right now the actual singers don't see a single cent from the blank media fee. It goes back to RIAA (and equivalent in other countries) and the labels.
First, it's a levy, not a tax, and no, there aren't any levies on DVD-+*/^R's. I think the reasoning behind this is that you can't copy a DVD because of all that CSS stuff (nevermind how easy it is to remove). You can often find a spindle of DVDs for cheaper than a spindle of CDs, because there is no levy.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
The Grey Market in Canada, at least here in Montreal is pretty weak for any sort of goods. People don't seem to grasp the concept of depreciation and try to sell used goods at new prices and aren't open to negotiation. Considering the inflated retail prices relative to the US (which is only a half hour away)and insanely high sales tax (15%) one would think that the grey market would thrive.
"it is not for us to determine who, in the supply chain leading to the final consumer, will be the ultimate beneficiary of these refunds."
- CPCC
All "levy" means as a verb (in this case) is "to collect". "Levy" as a noun is whatever is being collected. As the Canadian government is issuing the "levy" on behalf of their versions of the **IA, I wouldn't argue with it being called a tax. Also, from my link to the Copyright Board of Canada website:
The Board concluded in the decision issued today that recordable and rewritable DVDs, removable memory cards (such as SmartMedia, CompactFlash and Secure Digital Memory cards) and removable micro hard drives are not ordinarily used by individuals for the purpose of copying music at this time. Therefore, these media are not subject to a levy.
This levy saved the future of a friend of mine. He did use it as a defence in court that since he payed the levy on the cd's he buys and the HD's he used that since its done the time he thought it was alright to do the crime. The judge bought it because well its true, we have paid for piracy we might as well enjoy it. To be honest if we over pay a little into the system so much the better, it just give more fuel to the "But I've alriady paid for it" defence.
-Ours is the wisdom of Solomon, the magic of Merlyn, the fall of Icaris.
*He* doesn't have the funny notion, our stupid government does. Because yes, he is correct, they don't charge the levy on the larger, more useful dvd blanks, so they obviously think they're "different" some how.