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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.'"
So I wonder if there's no tax on DVD-Rs. And if not, why not?
Last year I got 100 DVD-Rs for $25. At 25 for 4.7GB there's not much incentive to even buy CD-Rs if the tax alone is 21 for 700MB.
Free the Quark 3 from asymptotic confinement! Bring your charm! Don't get down! All colours and flavours welcome!
the economics of why gray/black markets form, or were they just being deliberately disingenuous?
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
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.
Right, always finding something bad even in a good news, aren't you Mike.
How on Earth would this "return in the hands of the consumers" be organized. How do you imagine the logistics of such an outcome. Maybe you bring your receipts and they give you 1 cents for each disk or something?
What they did is the best they could do. Manifacturers/retailers/importers get back the money and they can pass the savings on to their future customers.
Of course they won't, since it's not how business works, but that's a completely different matter.
I, for one, give you those 2 cents and not look back.
You know, those guys they always talk about as the losers of piracy.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
As I recall, when this levy on recordable media was put into effect, the purpose was to ensure that the artists would get the money to offset loss of revenue due to copying of recorded works. As such, I've never really had a problem with paying a few extra cents per blank disk providing the collected revenue went to the right place. (Of course it the system didn't address the difference between media purchased for burning data etc. but then, no system is perfect.) I find it interesting that nowhere is there any mention of giving the surplus cash to the people that deserve it.
Perhaps you mean a different thing than I do when you say "science."
Which copyright holders? Who gets to pick? Do we really want government (even the Canadian government) deciding who is rewarded for producing content?
How about a copyright moratorium for a month?
In order to compensate consumers for overpaying, we can download and copy anything we want royalty-free.
If it works out well, we can do it every year.
Don't forget: copyright isn't your enemy, RIAA/MPAA and organisations like them who abuse copyright, are.
As someone who produces something worthwhile myself, I don't want everything I did copied around for a month, thanks.
I've seen this note being circulated for, I think, 5 years now. It doesn't get better with time, actually, it gets more and more pathetic. But even as a cookie-cutter template "think of the small record store owners" tear-squeezer, lemme take this opportunity to answer. Once, and for all.
First and foremost, when you invest in a dying business, you're the only one to blame if it goes south. The CD market is dwindling. Copying may play a role, but the bigger problem is that music and clothing, which has been for ages the only stuff kids and teenagers waste their money for, have to face serious competition in cellphones, computers and the gadgets (ringtones, games,...) for them. Music and the containers for them (records, tapes, CDs...) are no longer the only ones who try to lure teenagers into spending.
Second, when you aim at a certain demographic, make sure they have money to spend on your stuff. Families don't. More and more families today have less and less spending money. Also, show me at least one family that sits down together at home to listen to some CD instead of, say, watch TV. IF, and only if, they do anything at all together.
Third, a "national blacklist" won't do jack. Welcome to the world, pal. You won't sell to Mr. Copy? Ok, then he won't buy anything AT ALL anymore but copy everything. In a nutshell, it means that you will sell LESS. Not more. People don't fear paying a few thousand bucks to the mafiaa when they get sniffed out, you think they'd get their panties in a knot for not being allowed to take a step into some store anymore?
Btw, I don't consider the atrocity that the copyright laws have turned into "basic rules of society". It takes at the very least a good, specialized lawyer to actually understand that bullcrap. If those are the basic rules, what kind of lawyer does it take to understand the more complex ones? And what do they govern?
War on Piracy... Good idea, I personally dread sailing in the vicinity of Manila, it gets really, really dangerous there... but what the heck does this have to do with the topic?
And, seriously, if your daughters can't go to college, blame yourself for choosing a dead horse to bet your money on.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Let's not start the Canada bashing while we have an idiot savant like Bush drooling in the Oval Office.
thanks.
We pay that "copyright mafiaa tax" too, but that doesn't mean we actually may copy anything. We still are not allowed to remove or circumvent copying restrictions to actually execute our right to create a backup, we still have no right to actually burn copyrighted content on those media, so I wonder what this "tax" is based on.
In fact, we pay for nothing.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
How on Earth would this "return in the hands of the consumers" be organized.
By suspending the levy entirely until the overpayments have been made up for.
May I say welcome to the nanny state! I am all for out healthcare system, but the government in this country goes way too far to try and prop up our "culture" and things like "multiculturalism". It goes from annoying to downright infuriating knowing my tax dollars prop up crap like this. It's just another bureaucracy that is useless and yet is held up as some kind of icon for social responsibility like the gun registry.