Slashdot Mirror
Canada May Tax Legal Music Downloads
FuriousBalancing writes "MacNN is reporting that Canadians may soon pay a small tax on every legal music store download. This fee is the work of a measure proposed by the Copyright Board of Canada. About two cents would be added to every song downloaded, with 1.5 cents being added to album downloads. Streaming services and subscriptions would also be taxed, to the tune of about 6% of the monthly fee. Most interesting - the tax would be retroactively applied to every transaction processed since 1996. 'The surcharge would help compensate artists for piracy, according to SOCAN's reasoning. The publishing group draws similarities between this and a 21-cent fee already applied to blank CDs in the country; the right to copy a song from an online store demands the same sort of levy applied to copying a retail CD, SOCAN argues. The tax may have a significant impact for online stores such as iTunes and Canada-based Puretracks, which will have to factor the amount both into future and past sales.' The full text of the measure is available in PDF format."
Just how do we get connected to this gravy train?
Can we just churn out some simple recordings, demonstrate it's theoretical pirating rates and call up somewhere to get some dough?
Because of the health costs of tobbaco, Canada is proposing a new tax on non-smokers.
Actually, that could make sense. Smokers die much sooner; as a result, they are much less likely to receive the same benefits from their pension plan that a non-smoker would receive. Every smoker who dies at 60 or 65 saves the government and their employer a lot in pensions.
It is often said that smokers cost the health care system more - I'm not sure that is true. Since everyone dies, are smokers just running up their health care costs sooner than non-smokers?
A retroactive tax an ex-post-facto law. If this were the US, that part of the law would be unconstitutional on its face, article I, section 9, paragraph 3: "No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed." But of course, it's Canada, and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms only affects criminal retrospective laws (and section 33 can be used to obtain a 5 year mulligan if it is). BUT I AM NOT A LAWYER, so maybe I'm wrong (but I may be right).
I very much doubt a retroactive tax would fly in court. Our Charter of Rights and Freedoms prohibits that sort of thing.
I for one hope this goes through.
It's the law of unintended consequences. Due to the Levy on blank media, I can copy/download as much as I please, all completely legal in Canada
Add another Levy and I'll have even more protection from the lawsuit insanity going on in the US.
And I wonder how this works to the CRIA's advantage as that they are attempting to get rid of the levy on blank media for the afore mentioned reason.
I don't pay to download music now, Why would I start?
If I remember well (being Canadian too), its actually not "legal" in Canada to download and copy as much as you want, BUT there is ONE (I beleive just one) precedent of a judge letting someone off when they used as a defence that the levy paid for their piracy... so you most likely can get away with it, but its not written black on white that its "completly legal". its just a gray area that plays heavily in our favor.
Yes, you are exactly right. I'm not too happy with the spokesperson the copyright board used for this annoucement because the did a very bad job of explaining exactly what is meant by "copying" in Canada. As you say, copying music to levied media is not piracy but legal copying and the levy on on-line music would allow the copying of downloaded files more than once. Giving a copy to your mom for example. However, DRM routines may make most downloads not easily copied anyway but might make an interesting court case should someone purchase levied music on-line and discover the files are altered in a manner that prohibits or makes very difficult legal copying. Legal copying they have paid for. Could get interesting.
I'm thinking that, when future generations look back on this period of time, it will be known as "The Age of Unreason". Perhaps, given the number of attorneys involved in the ongoing fall of Western civilization it will be known as the "Shark Ages". Either way, it's really remarkable.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
That might be the case if it weren't for the fact that record labels are against it. The tax allows copying. Any copying. That means you could download music from a store and share the music with friends and family without worrying about being sued for it. The record companies don't want that. They want your right to copy restricted to their terms. This law undermines that.
Not quite. It's in black and white that it's legal to make a copy of music someone else has purchased for your own personal use. It's in the act.
There's one detail that can potentially be argued, and that's whether SHARING (or uploading) music is the other guy making a copy for himself (legal), or you making a copy for him (which is illegal). The precedent is that this too is the other guy making a copy for himself, and therefore legal.