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Canada's Copyright Cops Give Go-Ahead For iPod Tax
An anonymous reader writes "Michael Geist reports that the Canada's Copyright Board has given the go-ahead for a new copyright tax on iPods, despite an earlier court decision blocking the fee. The Board apparently ruled that not including iPods would make criminals of millions of Canadians and that the levy could conceivably be applied to cellphones and personal computers. 'If we're going to make P2P legal through a levy system, the system must (1) address both downloading and uploading; (2) consider addressing non-commercial use of content; (3) cover audio and video; and (4) more closely link the copying to those paying the levy. The government has yet to play its hand on this issue, but with the prospect of an unpopular levy and mounting pressure for a Canadian fair use provision, it will have to take a stand sometime soon.'"
Justifications aside this is just a grab for money. They'll still persue downloaders and still seek to make downloading illegal in every country on the planet.
Disclaimer: I'm not a Canadian. I'm Australian. Our government's much worse on these issues.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Well, if I'm paying a levy it means it's legal! Thank you Canada.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
...and throw them in the harbor! If you're not near water, feel free to send them to me and I'll do it for you.
>> "What would the robut do? Frame someone!"
So how do I register as an artist and cash in?
I'm strongly in favor of a levy on anything that can be used to play downloadable music if and only if the levy garantee that there will never be any trial of p2p downloader or uploader in this contry and that musician receive there due. I realise that it's atall order but in my mind anything less is a travesty.
If I purchased any device that had a copyright levy on it I wouldn't feel the least bit morally obligated to pay for any content I put on there (that comes from artists who are represented by the organization that receives the monies).
Sorry, but to anticipate we're guilty by default and force us to pay a levy is simply outrageous.
1.) So, owning a device which can contain copyright-infringing music is grounds for the government to assume you *are* using it to contain copyright-infringing music? If so, is there going to be a tax on plastic baggies? Cause they could be containing cocaine...
2.) IF this tax is put in place on iPods, and the reason behind it is because they assume that the contents of the iPod have been obtained outside of the legally approved methods, does this mean now that you can steal as much music as you want in canada, if you own an iPod? Because, otherwise... what the fuck is the tax for? How are they going to bring a court case against you for depriving them of money, when you have in fact given them money because the government assumes that you're doing the very thing you're being sued for!
sig?
As much as I'd prefer to relegate musicians to their rightful place of playing in pubs and clubs for few hundred dollars a night, it seems that a tax system to support musicians when they're not on tour and raking in that cash would be a good substitute for the insane sound recordings copyright system we have now.
Note that I'm not saying anything about composers. Their work is a different kettle of fish and needs a different analysis.. and the royalty system we have now is a heck of a lot better than anything else in copyright law (where significant use of someone else's work is just unlawful).
How we know is more important than what we know.
Canada is so high in the list of "pirate" countries... if piracy is legal there.
Stop! Dremel time!
Because that's what it would come to. Y'all better duck because your motherfucking copywrited material is coming back at your head at about 60mph.
If I'm going to have to pay a levy for every piece of hardware that could conceivably hold an audio file there's no bloody way I'm going to buy any more music. I'll have to download everything I can get my hands on just to get my levy's worth. Of all the stupid... I wonder if anyone in gov't has given any thought to what this will do to retail?
I have never (well, almost never) violated music copyrights. But were I a Canadian and paid this tax, I would treat the tax as a license. Does anyone know the legal status of this? Does anyone know of any research discussion whether people will behave as I said I would?
My impression is that the music industry is again shooting itself in the foot. But that actually depends on whether the tax does change behavior and enforcement.
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
Taxation without Representation. Rebel people! The start of a new revolution! It's July 4th 1776 all over again!
Or I could read a bit of the site that I linked to myself and see that the levy actually _doesn't_ apply to anything other than audio works, making the levy redundant.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
If I pay a bit extra for CD's and iPods and I get to freely download music, that's a fair trade for me. The money I pay in levies will be no where NEAR the cost of the music I'd get, hypothetically.
I don't have kids in school, but I pay school taxes. My city taxes go to building hockey rinks I don't use. Other people's levies can go to paying for my music even if they don't "infringe".
Ohh boy, here we go. If you were British, the Tea Party was a terrorist act. Much like the combatants in Iraq now are 'terrorists' here and freedom fighters / rebels to others.
Is that this doesn't affect all media players. Sadly, I'd rather iPod users get shafted than all of us. I don't want to have to import my next media player.
If this spreads crazily to like DVD players, CD players, PCs, etc. that's freaking bullshit. Who says I'm playing MP3s on my PC? Shouldn't I be working/slashdotting?
This will put iPods into the 'unafforable' range again.
Yeah, the difference is which side you're on. Didn't you hear that destruction of property to make a point, even if it was carefully done to avoid harming any person, is terrorism now? Don't believe me? A federal judge declared Stanislas Meyerhoff to have committed terrorist acts, and gave him 13 years. Under the current rules, George Washington & friends most certainly would have been declared to be terrorists.
1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.
Personally, I don't much care for music.
My personal use is audiobooks and podcasts. There's so much free content for audiobooks and podcasts out there it's ridiculous. I also have some paid audiobooks. Even if I assumed that the levey meant it were now open season on uploading and downloading paid audiobooks, 0% of the revenue gained from the levy would go to audiobook creators. What makes music so special that it should get all the revenue for audiobooks, pictures (personal and commercial), PDFs (ebooks and personal), and other media? How on earth is this levy going to be distributed fairly?
I posted these comments on Michael's site, and I'll post them here as well:
--------
Am I paying for:
1) The right to share copies with my "friends" on the internet.
2) The right to transfer content that I already paid for to another device that I owned for my exclusive personal use. IE "private copying".
If I'm paying for 2), then this is an egregious form of copyright socialism whereby I have been deprived of the ability to choose the musical entity that I will support financially. This means, among other things, that I can't deprive the RIAA of my music dollars in favour of independent artists via emusic.
If I'm paying for 1), then our copyright laws defy logic and common sense. The notion that I must "pay" for the privilege of using the music I paid for more than once is repugnant. Also, it defies any reason, given the proliferation of computers and the internet.
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Yawn.
The most typical use of ipods is probably playing commercial music. If enough people lobby that a sizeable different usage exists (eg. people playing public domain music, or lectures and podcasts) then possibly some sort of "tax-free" ipods will emerge.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
What do iPods have to do with P2P?
There should be an explicit right-to-pirate in Canada... a "license to copy and share media" if you will. If you're forcing people to essentially pay for something, they should at least be free to go about acquiring it.
being cool just got more expensive in Canada.
I Heart Sorting Networks
I mean, not really.
expandfairuse.org
Evidently, "ginormous" is now a real word, found in both Merriam-Webster and the Oxford English Dictionary.
"Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand" - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Change your name to Céline Dion, or someone else with annoying amounts of airplay.
I remember when all this shit started and "terrorism" was a word I could barely define, let alone give an example of. It took 20 minutes on 9/11 SEEING the towers burn, to actually say, "I know what this is... This is terrorism."
TEA LEAVES at the bottom of a harbor doesn't even come fucking close. And the LAST thing that was on King George's mind after hearing about the incident was FEAR about how a sleeper agent would come out of nowhere and---oh god help him---dump HIS tea into the sea!
The definition of terrorism is getting looser and looser these days. After you start using a word enough, it begins to lose its meaning and simply become degrogatory. Start clamping your mind around the dictionary before you let the same lawmakers that passed the Patriot Act do it for you.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
I'm not goddamn paying it. Absolutely not. I refuse. And you know what? They can't make me pay it.
I'll have an iPod shipped to my U.S. PO box located right at the border. I'll ship the box and paperwork into Canada, stick the iPod in my pocket and drive the shit across. If they say anything (unlikely since I have a NEXUS card), I'll just tell them I've had it for a while and that it was a gift from my mom.
Okay, so it's a bit inconvenient, but this is a matter of principle.
FUCK THE RIAA!!!!
you're paying for both, though i don't see what your issue is with 1. you're paying for being able to download at no cost and share with others.
Here's my issue:
I choose quite deliberately to take my business elsewhere than the RIAA. In fact, I make a point of actively paying money to somebody else. By sending my dollars elsewhere, I'm simultaneously supporting their competitors and making it clear I'm taking money away from them. It sends a clear signal of how much money they *would* have gotten from me.
Also, by actively giving my money to their competitors, I'm helping put those bastards out of business by promoting independent labels that sell DRM-free music. The dinosaurs are closer to becoming extinct.
"Copyright socialism" helps keep those dinosaurs alive. I have a real problem with the government seizing my music dollars and helping prop up these DRM-touting, student-suing, and customer-contemptuous fossils and prevent the new digital market from driving them into the ground.
So, yeah, I have a real problem with 1).
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It's too bad the citizens of the USA let these corporations become so corrupt, evil and beyond the law. What's worse is now they've corrupted almost every other country's economies. Thanks, eh!
However, it is interesting watching the world go to hell in an a handbasket.
What about sending someone encrypted "music"? Is that still illegal? Oh wait.. lol, nevermind.
I wish the posts that explained this were modded higher, but since I don't have mod points, I'll try to raise awareness through repetition.
It is legal in Canada to make copies of audio recordings on approved media for personal use. Full stop. No conditions, levies, anything involved. Copying something and giving it to a friend? Illegal. That would be distribution, and not for personal use. Offering a friend the use of your computer while there's a blank CD in one drive, an audio CD in another, a burning application open, and the mouse hovering over the "copy" button? Legal.
As a result of this new reality, the Canadian government felt bad for all the money "lost" by artists, and decided to create a way for them to be compensated without relying on people purchasing their recordings.
That's what this levy is.
Unfortunately, the two laws were conceived of to work together, so the personal copying law is limited to copies made on approved media, and only media covered by the levy are ever listed as approved. So currently, copying a CD to your iPod is not considered a legal personal copy. It may be legal due to format shifting and other fair-dealing clauses in the copyright laws, but not the personal copying law.
Expanding it to cover additional devices is an attempt to expand the legal rights of Canadians, and (much more so, I'm sure) provide additional revenue to the poor deprived artists.
This would imply a direct connection between iPods and P2P networks, which is something that just isn't there. If you want to follow through on these false relationships, then you could say that everyone who has an iPod participates in P2P file sharing. The RIAA might as well sit outside of an Apple store and have their lawyers sue every person that comes out with a new iPod, since they must be, by stereotype, doing illegal things in their spare time. I just don't think it's either fair or accurate.
I agree with a levy system.
Is this Flamebait based on content or context?
Surely this is on the mark with a vast # of people...No?
Blank DVDs are way cheaper than blank CDs here because of this tax, which I find weird.
Anyway I'm Canadian and I'd rather have this levey than put up with a bunch of corporate bullshit from the RIAA.
I have to say that I am extremely irritated about this as a Canadian. I have over 4000 songs on my iPod... every single one of them legal. I am sick of people using levies as an excuse to pirate -- it just gives lobby groups more ammunition to badger government to come up with more levies! I don't need to be paying for more money for products because of people who feel falsely entitled.
The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) is looking to shakedown hairdressers who play music in their salons, according to the Globe & Mail.
Insightful?! You've been watching too many "when you copy you hurt the artists" commercials.
You're innocent until proven guilty of what? Personal copying is legal in Canada. There's nothing to be innocent or guilty of. You're no more "on the right side of the law" burning a copy of Gentoo than you are a copy of The Tragically Hip. Heck, burning the music should be MORE legal, you've paid for the right to do it. If you choose not to enjoy that right, that's your problem. Not to say I support expanding the levy, but if it does come through, iTunes music store and Music World can say goodbye to all the revenue they've been getting from me.
Regardless of how much pressure this levy will supposedly relieve from the consumer, I can't think of many things worse than supplying the music industry with government money on the merits of simply existing. Between this, the DMCA, network neutrality, the pre-emptive funding of Obama and Hillary on behalf of the RIAA, Disney's eternal manipulation of the copyright, and the RIAA single-handedly influencing Russia into dropping AllofMP3, it looks like we're getting closer to corporation-controlled nation states than we thought. You bring the deck. I'll bring the derms.
I buy 100 spindles of blank DVD's for 29.99$ + Harper Tax, on a regular basis. That's 435GB (or so) of space that "can" be used to store "downloaded music". As long as the levies are of a sized-based nature and not based on the MSRP of a product I see no issues with this kind of system. As long as the money goes to the people it should go to, I'd rather have that AND my arse covered in case the RIAA people find a way to invade Canada.
For every single post that cries about "I never break the law" there are hundreds (thousands?) more who don't have a voice on this site and download songs off the intarwebs like it's going out of style. Try to have some perspective people.
I tried to think of a good sig, and this wasn't it.
Next time don't purchase the clearly labeled AUDIO CDs to burn your free operating systems, buy the regular ones.
Then you don't have to pay the levy.
In which a country (then Britain/now the US) produces a consumable that another country cannot live without (then tea/now an ipod) and is taxed because of it.
I like that Canada is the Tortuga of the internet, I dont even mind paying the pirate king (read goverment) to keep the *IAA off me while I'm here. Canada I think handled IP laws the right way, I wish people would join the canadian bandwagon.
-Ours is the wisdom of Solomon, the magic of Merlyn, the fall of Icaris.
How about, rather than this levy on objects that *could* be used to hold copyrighted media, a direct deal with the RIAA/BPA/whoever the relevant body is in your country, costing maybe £50 a year, saying "Yeah, I want to download music. Give me the licence to do it, everybody wins." Then, it can be enforced in a similar way to T.V. Licensing in the U.K. If you don't have a licence, then the body can attempt to detect use of copyrighted music. I'd pay it, so I could download music if I wanted, without fear of repercussion.
However, my Dad, who uses iTunes to get all of his music shouldn't have to pay, so he could choose *not* to buy the licence, and not have to pay any kind of excess for the music he downloads legally.
I can't see the authorities finding holes in this, because at the end of the day, they'd get a list of "potential pirates", and the equivalent of 5 CD's worth of money for people who would previously have been paying nothing.
... if you'd like to throw that word against the American colonial revolutionaries. That loose association of 'patriots' was seen as responsible for most of the physical violence against Loyalists and the like. Washington was landed gentry and really was a damn good servant of the Crown - and a principled leader of an arguably legal (after the Declaration) rebellion. Remember most of those nascent Americans were British subjects who really did believe in the goodness of British democracy in the form of a Constitutional Monarchy and expected to be treated with the same rights and privileges as the people of Kent or Surrey. Parliament and the King failed to live up to their most lofty rhetoric. Britain treated the American colonists as 'different' from the people in Britain itself - so is it so remarkable that the colonists would eventually conclude they really WERE a breed apart?
Canadian System = Tax Everyone for the "right" to transfer CDs to your IPOD, but not to share CDs with friends. American System = No one gets taxed, RIAA sues dumb people who are still using Kazaa. Therefore dumb people subsidize my piracy. Dumb people subsidize piracy > Everyone subsidize "transfer rights"
this is the RIGHT direction if they drop the lawsuits- that is what the taxes are supposed to be for on recordable devices- if they are still perusing lawsuits then they have no reason for a tax because they are not getting compensated for losses- I would even be fine if there was a reasonable ISP tax (if it was a few $ a month- not if it doubled ISP costs since I never bought that much music) if it opened up the P2P realm and stopped file filters and such.
Read Part VIII of The Copyright Act. It is perfectly legal in Canada to copy music (and only music) for personal use. Note that section 80 does not state the copier must own a copy of the music prior to making another copy. The Copyright Board has interpreted this to mean that it is legal for a person to copy music from any source such as a CD borrowed from a friend or library. It is not legal for another person to make the copy for you. It is not legal for a person to charge a fee for the privilege of copying their CD. The Copyright Board has also stated that regardless of the source of any music you might have it is all legal (non-infringing) once you have it. So it is illegal for a friend to make you a mixed tape, but it is not illegal for you to posses the mixed tape.
...and that's why I used it.
Doesn't this just give dis-incentive to people who normally buy legal music and put it on their iPod? All the music on my Nano currently is from legal sources. But as they create a Tax, its doubtfully I'd continue that practice.
And don't even try to say that this hurts the artists. 99% of those guys don't ever make a dime off their music. Most of those are actually helped by P2P as it drives people to go to their shows, for which they actually get paid. Its only the top 1% that makes money of record sales.
-Todd
Put down the sig, and step away from the computer.
Now I have two choices. If I buy the media/device in Canada I'm taxed for tunes the US says I don't own. If I buy it in the US, I have to inload/outload (c'mon you knew it's not really up or down!) the tunes there in the US so I'm not copying them illegally in Canada. This is really gonna put a crimp in travelling with your new iPhone. Might as well just blend it right now.
On the good side, it means more travel industry revenue, as all conference procedings recorded will now have to be transcribed in situ. Time to invest in a steno school.
Oh, I'm sorry sir, I thought you were referring to me, Mr. Wensleydale.
Listen, I know he is a hero of Canadian comedy, but I don't understand why Eugene Levy gets a cut on every iPod sold up there. Do they come preloaded with Best in Show?
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
Is it possible that somewhere, someone is manipulating this copyright hysteria -- a driving force behind the RIAA et.al. -- who is actively, deliberately working to kill off the music industry altogether on the basis of some bizarre hatred of music itself? Profile -- someone turning back on a traumatic experience during their music-loving days, who transferred their reaction to some major abuse to blame music itself? Someone rich, very powerful, and behind the scenes? I'd think Richard Nixon, but he's dead -- someone like Phil Spector, but with a hatred for the media instead of women. Some cat-stroking Bloefield.
Music is an extremely powerful voice of individuals, and yet the big labels appear to be trying to channel it into a particular mold, freezing out the indies with everything from media levies to terror campaigns. Is it in anyone's best interest to curb independent thought on a broad scale?
Perhaps. Geez what a meme. Scared now, pulling the blanket over my head.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
As soon as it is 'normal' to expect a device to play RAW or MP3 music from a DVD.. THEN your blank DVD will cost more.
You will still have to shoulder this crap from an antiquated company who hasn't died in their own good time.