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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."
"The surcharge would help compensate artists for piracy"
So now we are taxing law-abiding citizens to make up for those who break the law? Is it just me, or does this *promote* piracy?
Because of the health costs of tobbaco, Canada is proposing a new tax on non-smokers.
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?
If they started implementing this, I would probably just have to stop buying music altogether. It's getting way too annoying for me to buy music without being ripped off by the industry. I use eMusic to buy my music, and if I had to pay this extra fee, I would cancel my account, and let them know exactly why. If enough online music stores had enough customers quit, then I think that the backlash from these companies would make the government change their mind about this kind of stuff. Also, trying to make things like this retroactive, would make it even worse. The industry complains that people are pirating music, and then hits their customers with crap like this. I've gone completely legit for the last few years, because I feel that it's right to support the artists, but stuff like this makes me want to go back to downloading everything over IRC. If they are just going to assume that we are pirating all their content, we might as well do it, because they certainly don't deserve our money.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Has anyone ever followed up to see just how much of the 21-cent fee actually makes it back to the artists, and how much is sucked up by the record company cartel?
In related news, Canada proposed a tax on blank paper, by analogy to the sales tax which applies to books. "Someone might read what's written on the paper someday, and we won't then have the opportunity to collect the tax."
They should tax the illegal downloads, that is where the money is!
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).
[sarcasm]Will there be a Tax on earbuds too? How about we have a per child tax of $50/year to account for music piracy, starting from birth, of course.[/sarcasm]
What is this crap? Canada needs to get their priorities in order. People are more important than lobbyist groups. I hope Canadians are voting for the right politicians, because if this continues any industry could just come up and say "People are downloading/using our material illegally, we need to be compensated." Poof, another tax! With so many copies of Windows pirated, I'm surprised that Microsoft hasn't been trying to get a piece of this cake.
So now they want my two cents worth as well, eh?
... but more evil.
The music industry is trying to come to terms with the fact that they can't make money the way that they used to. Seeing that their traditional business model is approaching collapse, they need to either protect it or find a new business model. In this case the new business model is to get the government to tax citizens and give the tax revenue to the music industry. By encouraging more piracy, they will be able to demand more tax payer money down the road.
If you think that this is an implausible business model, just look the business of agriculture in most rich countries. Their business is to depend on government enforced price supports and subsidies, and very little about actual farming.
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
I have mod points I would love to use, but I have no chance because no one is correcting the Myth of Piracy.
In Canada it is NOT piracy to copy a song for personal use. It is not stealing, it is not copyright infrigement. It is a right granted by law, a law that was encouraged by the music industry back in the Audio Cassette days. Yes, they now regret it... too bad!
It would be comparable, I guess, to SOCAN collecting a tax on CD purchases. The whole beauty of internet distribution is getting rid of (or reducing the number of) middlemen. This is destroying every incentive people have to *support the artist*, which seems completely against what the whole point of SOCAN was. So if I make a band and sell my music using paypal, do I have to write cheques giving 3% of my profits to SOCAN? What am I getting from them? How does this help the artists? How does this help the industry? *
Down with middlemen.
* "While no public responses have been made, the Copyright Board report notes that both Apple and the RIAA-equivalent Canadian Recording Industry Association were heavily involved in resisting proposed rates."
So even the CRIA's against it. Who the heck is SOCAN representing?
So you get taxed for not supporting the music industry if you do support the music industry?
And you don't get taxed for not supporting the musics industry if you don't support the music industry?
Yes, this makes perfect sense! Thanks for this proposal.
I wholeheartedly support it. I can now much easier choose my proper action here and whether I should purchase legal music or not.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Although I am no fan of SOCAN, this definitely sticks it to the record companies. As long as these fees are in place, music piracy will remain untested in court. The current theory is that as long as the artists are compensated for illegally obtained music (aka burning a copy for you friends) they are not loosing anything when piracy happens. This reduces the real losses to artists, which is what piracy is all about (can you say someone stole from you if they are paid a mutually agreeable price through SOCAN, which SOCAN oddly decides is fair). CRIA/RIAA will not risk loosing in court and would prefer it stay a legal grey area.
The proposed tax will tax companies like emusic, Amazon etc, and give the money to Sony BMG, Universal etc...
In short, a large cartel is trying to screw over the competition by lobbying politicians to create bad laws. This is pure corruption, and nothing else.
Why am I reminded of the notion of charging a tax to have a meal and another tax to take a dump?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
For blank recordable media, the CRIA has no ability to affect pricing directly, thus the tax on them.
...Or should I say "almost escape", since the CRIA has evidently returned fire.
For legally purchased music, the CRIA defines the price, via their contracts with individual distribution channels.
Thus, if they see the need for an extra $0.02, they could just, y'know, raise prices by that much per download. No need to go through the government and needlessly complicate the issue.
So, why phrase this as a tax?
Scarily obvious answer: This has more to do with Radiohead than with piracy. Piracy scares the music industry, but not nearly as much as artists like Radiohead, Issa (née Jane Siberry), and NIN finally figuring out a viable way to escape the industry's evil clutches.