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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."
First poost, eh?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Just saying... :)
SIG: HUP
Indepedent artists are still left out in the cold.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Lets just hope the money gets to the struggling artists!
I envy your optimism. It will most likely go the recording industry -- the ones who have to be appeased over the digital equivalent of mixtapes.
They pay a copying tax every time they buy media. It seems to me this implies copying is then legal.
However, with common sense and government, only occasionally do the two meet.
I wish they would do this with my rolling papers and decriminalize non-medicinal marijuana!
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.
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:
Maybe my Canadian friends can elaborate as to how effective this scheme is.
The bill being put forward by a member of parliament from the NDP, who are at the opposite end of the political spectrum from the governing Conservative parties. It will not get enought support to make it past first reading - it would need the support of the largest opposition party, the Liberals, and they're likely to just ignore it, because politically, it looks like a tax. Also, because there's finances involved, passing the legislation might be considered a confidence vote which would bring down the government and trigger an election, and this just isn't an issue the Liberals want us going to the polls over. Canada once did have an "ipod tax" of the sort proposed. The "private copying" regime in Canada makes it legal (i.e. not a violation of copyright) to copy music (but not movies, or non-musical audio recordings) for private use onto an "audio recording media". The flip side of the legislation is that a levy (tax) is imposed on "audio recording media" to compensate recording artists for the copies of their music that are copied in this way. For example, there's a levy of about 30 cents per blank CD. However, because the law doesn't model technology very well, there is no levy on blank DVDs, and when they tried to impose a levy on MP3 players several years ago, the Court struck it down, concluding that an MP3 player is not "audio recording media". Hard drives, similarly, are not "audio recording media" because they can hold anything, not just audio. Like I said, the law doesn't model technology very well.
They want to criminalize most forms of private copying in the digital age anyways, so it wouldn't make any sense to continue to have a levy for something that is illegal (contrary to what a lot of people think, the current levy only exists to compensate for private use copying, which is perfectly legal, not piracy).
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Sorry, but I already pay for CDs in stores, which I convert to MP3 using iTunes, then read them on my iPod. Don't want to pay a tax for something I already paid. I sometimes buy individual tunes from the Apple store when I know the album is not good except for one or two songs.
I never download pirated content, and I don't want to pay for all those who do.
Let's have a tax on crowbars, because some will use it to break into houses and not be caught. And a new tax on automobiles, because some will go through red lights and not be caught. And a new tax on shoes, because some people will jaywalk and not be caught. And a tax on thinking because some will commit thought crimes and not be caught.
Seriously, it boggles the mind that the media corporations have managed to brainwash people sufficiently that they have politicians proposing a tax that enables them to be paid _FOR DOING NOTHING!_ Just because they exist, they expect to be paid. It's a degree of entitlement that my brain has troubles comprehending. I want to rant more but I'm just too flabbergasted to be able to put together a coherent sentence... I clearly went into the wrong industry - I actually have to work for my pay check. I should have gone into music distribution where I can get paid just for being there.
Seriously, the media companies (music, first and foremost among them since the RIAA and CRIA are the most antagonistic of them) need to fuck off. Eh.
How do they determine eligibility? Do they collect a sum from sales, then divide it proportionally based on percent of actual, normal sales?
Say Britney got 57% of all audio sales in Canada, does she (and her company) get 57% of the money?
And is that 57% based on units sold (albums, singles) or on $ sold? If she can charge more for an album than a nobody, does each of her album sales count as more towards that percent than each album for the nobody? Like if she sold 10,000 albums at retail of $20, but the nobody sold 200 albums at $10, is her share 10,000 x 20 vs. 200 x 10 for the other guy? Or 10,000 vs. 200?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Not effective at all.
You must help me! I am the Prince of Newfoundland, wrongfully imprisoned for having hidden a stash of illegal mp3s from thousands of your favorite artists. If you email me back with your personal bank info, I shall split my mp3 stash with you. This is not a scam! (*legal disclaimer* this is totally a scam)
I'm more interested in the other private members bill, the one that would expand the definition of fair-dealing.
Magic doesn't work in my presence. My power of disbelief is too strong.
Yvan already debunked this. The recording companies aren't paying artists properly already. This tax will be another form of corporate welfare, pouring money into the pockets of the real music pirates ... Sony, BMG, etc.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
The intent might have just been to extend to portable media devices, but the wording covers a whole lot more.
The actual motion reads:
"That the Committee recommends that the government amend Part VIII of the Copyright Act so that the definition of “audio recording medium” extends to devices with internal memory, so that the levy on copying music will apply to digital music recorders as well, thereby entitling music creators to some compensation for the copies made of their work." (http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?DocId=4349743&Language=E&Mode=1&Parl=40&Ses=3)
So it doesn't just apply to mp3 players, but portable media players, digital camcorders, set top boxes, consoles, cell phones, digital cameras, computers, etc.
Parkinson's Law, theorized by C. Northcote Parkinson, a British Royal Navy historian and author, explains this phenomenon by stating that "work expands to fill the time available for its completion" and in bureaucratic organizations, the number of people required to do the work will continually rise whether the actual volume of work stays the same, increases, decreases or disappears.
The question is how much do Canadian artists get handed from the government in the existing "tax the media" scheme? I'd warrant they don't get anything and that the government keeps track of what they collect and injects "money into supporting artists, including more money for the Canada Council for the Arts and the Canada Music Fund." (from TFA). I mean, what else could they do? Say I was a terrible artist (not too much of a stretch) and I put out a terrible album with nothing on it that anybody would want. Do I have my hand out for the MP3 tax? How much would the government give me? How would they determine that?
They can't. And they don't. This is a stupid idea based on another stupid idea.
Want to see what they do with the money?
So they tax our media. Then they give it to bureaucratic organizations that consume themselves. And the indy rock band gets? You guessed it. The shaft. And we are proposing to extend this to new media. Excellent. Let me just get out my wallet...
I am not interested in articles about life extension advancements.
The last time I even bothered looking into it, which was probably 5 years ago, they were selling music and data CDs as separate products and the levy only applied to music CDs and not data CDs.
In Spain we have this levy for blank media but not only CD and DVD but also USB flash sticks, memory cards, hard disks and doesn't end there: It also applies to Optical media recorders and MP3 players. If you can read Spanish it's explained here http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_por_copia_privada_(Espa%C3%B1a). And after all of this you'd think this would legalize filesharing ....it doesn't. This is supposedly a compensation for "private copy" which is something like making a copy from the original media for your personal use (for example copying an audio cd you bought to use it in the car and prevent the original one to get damaged).
Of course the politicians are in bed with the intellectual rights societies (SGAE is the most important here) so this is unlikely to get better in the coming years.
I think it should all go to me. So far, I have received no money at all from my music, which must be due to piracy[1]. Therefore, my sense of entitlement tells me that society owes me approximately $2m (Canadian).
[1] The fact that I have not produced any music does not detract from this argument in any way.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I participated in the effort to defeat this same proposal in 2002-2004. However these guys never quit. The good news is that they aren't particularly inspired – or inspiring.
It's noteworthy that I found out about the last go-around of this effort by the Canadian Private Copying Collective on Slashdot.
Fortunately I only play Oggs.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
People on Windows, who have to live with Adobe Acrobat.
How? Foxit Reader > Adobe Reader.
This "tax" is imposed to try and help avoid an American DMCA style law that would, in the end, screw everyone. If the "industry" gets their share then they will, hopefully, back off and let Canadians be free from their oppression.
They charge high prices then wonder why people don't buy their product. If they were a small business then they would go belly up, but since they are large they are safe and can bully everyone into bowing to their whim. They must have understood this at one point or they would not have gotten to where they are today. THe economy in Canada, and around the world is going towards a Less for More model. THe consumer gets less for their buck which they are just ignore because their corporate profits are more important. (Sad)
Scott
So long as you are a member of SOCAN and have music tracked by SoundScan, you're eligible for the levies
So if you happen not to be Canadian yet are the author of music that has been copied in Canada, how do you get into SOCAN? And it appears you need a UPC to get into SoundScan, and to get a UPC, you need at least some sort of label (even if not major). Besides, I didn't see anything on your flowchart about download sales (e.g. iTunes Store).
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.
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
How many
http://news.cnet.com/No-iPod-tax-for-Canada/2100-1041_3-5809117.html
times
http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/story.html?id=235987
are they going to try and bring this tax in? This has to be the 3rd or 4th time this has come up.
The point is that no matter what the levy, in today's wired world the only losers would be the Canadian retail sellers of such items - because any levy would be enough to more than pay for the shipping of a unit from outside the country - so neither the musicians nor the retailers would profit.
kind of makes me wonder if it is the US resellers who are behind this ;)
Been there, done that, paid for the T-shirt
and didn't get it
I think you will not be happy with paying income tax over that $1Bn revenue.
Load New Commander (Y/N)?
... someone that pays for all of their music, without exception, I would certainly welcome such a tax. However I'd move to just copying everything instead of buying it. I wouldn't pay for my music twice ; )
I'm pretty sure most other people would feel the same way. Doing this essentially socializes entertainment since the government becomes the record store.
I'm pretty sure that doing this will result in a net loss for the music industry... There's no way people will buy their music unless they are idiots since this tax sanctions copying. People will just form music clubs where you can copy whatever you want without buying it.
Record stores could simply burn mix cds for people. It's not online, the record store owner is simply copying with friends right?
Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
You are "distributing" the music when you copy it from your computer to the mp3 player. You are no longer just a downloader, you are uploading it to the player.
Unlike similar levels on blank media, at least an MP3 player is designed with a PRIMARY purpose of playing music, as opposed to the levy we currently pay on blank DVDs and the like.
With that said, I'm sure this won't make people who legally pay for music via iTunes and the like happy.
Errr, the big labels are opposed to the media levy. They originally supported it, but when that one decision came down stating that charging a levy meant they couldn't sue for file downloading, they did a quick about-face.
The media levy got in because the CRIA thought they could have their cake and eat it too. When a judge told them that wasn't going to work, they decided that law suits would be more lucrative than the media levy, and if they can't have both, they want the levy gone, not expanded.
The NDP is no friend of the corporations, and Charlie Angus, MP (who introduced the new bill) is himself a musician, with no particular love for the major labels.
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