MP3 Player Tax Proposed In Canada

Interoperable writes "The status of sharing music in Canada is, to some extent, ambiguous. This is partly due to a levy imposed on blank media, CD-Rs and cassette tapes, that compensates artists and the recording studios for a loss of revenue due to copying. Legislation proposed by the NDP and supported by the Bloc Quebecois would extend that levy to cover MP3 players with the intent of decriminalizing audio file sharing for Canadian citizens. The proposed legislation, however, faces opposition from the governing Conservative party; the Liberal party has agreed to discuss the proposed bill."

Comments

May not pass

[Jazz-Masta]

The Conservatives are opposed to the bill, and currently they have 145/308 seats in the House of Commons.

They only have to convince 9 of the Liberals, NDP, or Bloc to agree.

Not everything is voted on party lines, but most is. It is likely the conservatives will have to make a concession in some other form to get the Liberals to side with them. And that is extremely likely, because the Liberals no longer hold the threatening role they had a couple months ago.

Yes, I am Canadian.

Re:Useful

[value_added]

Lets just hope the money gets to the struggling artists!

I'd have guess that it would be spent on either donuts or hockey tickets, but Wikipedia offers a different take:

The private copying levy is distributed as per the Copyright Board's allocation as: 66% to eligible authors and publishers,18.9% to eligible performers and 15.1% to eligible record companies.

Maybe my Canadian friends can elaborate as to how effective this scheme is.

Re:The levy only compensates Major Label artists

[JobyOne]

Of course they are. They don't have enough money to be of concern to a government.

In all seriousness though, this is how it always goes: somebody has a halfway decent idea but somewhere along the line of being implemented it gets perverted by the special interest with the most money. It's always subtle though, that way the special interests get what they need and the politicians still get PR points.

Remember the increase in tobacco taxes here in the US recently? Pre-rolled cigarettes (made by giant corporations) saw a modest increase in taxation of about 150%. Rolling tobacco (mostly made by smaller, often local businesses) saw their taxes increase by 2,200%.

The net result? Big tobacco actually gets more business as people ditch the now-obscenely-expensive rolling tobacco, so they're happy. Politicians get to say they're raising money and helping the budget. In reality though, we're driving small businesses down and moving smokers into spending their money to buy an arguably more dangerous cigarette while at the same time not supporting their own local economies.

I basically assume anything I hear on the news or from a government press conference is at least a gross misrepresentation - if not a flat-out lie.

Re:Useful

[Beardo the Bearded]

It's not the RIAA up here. It's the CCRA, IIRC.

There are three factors that prevent RIAA-style tactics in Canada.

First, it is not illegal to download music. It is, however, illegal to upload. So in a very real way, P2P clients are illegal here. I get around this by setting my ratio to cap at 1. It's a bit jerky to the other people after me, but it's how I interpret it. (IANAL) My ISP suggests setting the upload ratio to the lowest possible setting, and lists steps for how to do so in various clients.

The other factor is that we have a loser-pay court system. If the Canadian Copyright folks want to sue me, they would have to pay my court costs when they lose. If they drop a case, they would be out all of my out-of-pocket expenses. Since I've already paid a levy for copyrighted materials, I (or more accurately, my lawyer) would argue that I've paid for the material that is being copied. Poor logistics on the part of the store, government, and rights holders are not my problem.

Finally, this levy is brilliant. It bypasses the conservative's attempt to make copyright violations illegal. (We've talked about Bills C-60 and C-61 before.) By adding the fee, you give the okay to piracy by charging what is, in essence, a pirate licence. (I would happily pay a few bucks extra a month to get a pirate's licence, by the way.)

Notwithstanding all the hoopla about music, which is ubiquitous, there are real dangers in copyright violations. However, those revolve around industry. If you're doing this for personal use, it should not be illegal. Once you try to sell the stuff or engage in fraud, then it's time for the law to step in.