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.'"

Comments

Nothing mentioned about DVD-R

[sayfawa]

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.

Re:So, maybe this IS the solution?

[Grendel70]

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.