Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
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?
Private copying is legal, yes. Distributing copies to other people, even though you have paid this fee, is still not legal without consent of the copyright holder (specifically, the Canadian copyright act makes the original _copying_ of the work criminal after the fact if you do something with the copy that you made which voids a notion of private use copying).
Of course, one might think that's what sucks about the whole levy in the first place... that it supposedly legitimizes something that was actually perfectly legal in the first place (personal and private copying being supposedly exempt from copyright infringement). But since the levy applies to all blank media, regardless of form, it actually legitimizes private copying of _ALL_ forms of copyrighted works that can be copied onto such media, where the Canada Copyright act only exempted private copying of audio works from infringement.
Info about the blank media levy in Canada can be found here.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Terrorism is never ok.
It wasn't an act of terrorism. It was an act of rebellion. There's a difference.
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
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'
The levy does not legitimize the sharing of copyrighted works over the internet without permission of the copyright holder
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
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.
This is not a tax and has nothing to do with pirated music or lawsuits related to pirated music. It is a private copying levy and is applied so that when you put your legally purchased music (e.g. CDs) onto your iPod, artists get some money.
There are two types of people in the world: those who divide people into two types and those who don't.
Well according to various federal courts of Canada (including rulings by the Supreme Court) it is legal to download music and it is also to make your shared music folder available over the internet. Sounds to me like sharing is legal though purposely sending music to someone would still be illegal.0 5.html or for the text of the Supreme Court decision http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/2004/2004scc45 /2004scc45.html
See for example http://www.michaelgeist.ca/resc/html_bkup/may3020
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
In Canada it is a Levy, and if you had quoted further, you would have seen that the wording is indeed important. "A distinction is sometimes made between "tax" and "levy" based on the recipient of the accumulated funds; taxes are received by a government, while levies are received by a private body, such as a copyright collective.)"
In this case, the distinction is made because the government is not getting any funds from this, therefore it is not a tax. Although, it is confusing, since it is legally called a Tariff, and referred to by the CPCC as both a tariff and a levy...
This is the issue the private copying levy is attempting to address. Not illegally downloaded music. The private copying levy is strictly in place to cover you privately copying your legally purchased music from one medium to another (e.g. CD to CD, CD to iPod, iPod to your phone's SD card, etc.)
I know, that on the surface, it seems that this is in place to make money off of illegal copies. If it were, I wouldn't be so outraged. What they are doing is charging you a fee to do something legally. If you don't believe me, look on the CPCC's website for any mention of illegal copying. If you are interested in what the CPCC considers private copying, look here.
Unfortunately, I did not find this particular FAQ until I finished writing the above. It is a little old, but not too out of date. A few choice FAQs:
5) Isn't this just another tax by the federal government? The private copying royalty is not a tax. Unlike a tax, which is collected by the government, the private copying royalty is collected by the CPCC to provide remuneration to rights holders for private copying. The private copying royalty helps to ensure rights holders receive some payment for the copying of their work and to assist them in the creation of music.
11) Isn't the point of the levy to compensate rights holders for losses due to peer-to-peer file trading on the Internet? No. The private copying legislation that passed in 1997 did two things. First, it made it legal for individuals to make copies of recorded performances of musical works if the copies were made for the private use of the copier on a medium ordinarily used to copy music. Second, the law provided for a fair and equitable levy to provide remuneration to copyright holders for the making of those private copies. The legislation recognizes that privately made copies have their own inherent value and for that reason it ensured that rights holders received compensation for the copy itself through the levy. It was never the purpose of the private copying levy to compensate copyright holders for lost revenue due to peer-to-peer file trading.
There are two types of people in the world: those who divide people into two types and those who don't.
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.
Sign up with SOCAN. Look around there first. Google it if you need more.
Why try and explain something that's not true? Unfortunately, you got the concept backwards. We pay a levy on blank media because it's legal to copy audio to that media for personal use. Canadians have been in the clear downloading things off of P2P for years (apart from the minor snag of needing to make the copy to an approved, levied, media). It's funny how many people complain about standard copyright law being broken in an age of infinite supply, but then refuse to acknowledge an attempt to bring the laws up to date. I don't like the levy the way it's implemented, but the lawmakers were thinking straight when they decided to make an activity performed by a large part of the population (copying audio recordings without permission) legal, and finding new ways to compensate creators where copyright had broken down.