Slashdot Mirror
Canadian Music Industry Seeks Copy Tax On Memory Cards
An anonymous reader writes "The Canadian music industry's copyright collective is demanding
the creation of a new copying tax on all memory cards sold in
Canada. The Canadian Private Copying Collective has filed for a tax of
up to $3 per memory card to compensate for music copying on SD
cards. If approved, the tax could cost consumers millions of
dollars." Makes no less sense than the current levy exacted on blank CDs and audiotapes in Canada — and no more sense, either.
so once you have paid the copy tax you are free to copy as much music as you like?
This will stimulate international trade! US citizens will buy their drugs from Canada and we'll buy our storage media from the US.
There can be some justification to tax the specific device (ipod), but not a multi-purpose medium.
Let's call it what it is, Anti-Social Media.
Just gotta get this out of my system... what a greedy bunch of ****suckers!
Ok, maybe some folks use SD cards to copy music, but the assumption that everyone's going to use them for that purpose is beyond stupid.
I own several SD cards and several CF cards and I've never ever put a single song or other piece of copyrighted work on any of them... well, ok, actually I have... I use them in my cameras to take pictures, so I put MY OWN copyrighted work on them.
I know obvious post is obvious, but these Canadian MPAA-Wannabees already get a tax on every blank CD and DVD sold in that country... I can't believe they were allowed to do that, and now they want more... Why don't they just tax brain cells since I might REMEMBER what one of their songs sounded like.
GARRHRRHHHH!!!!
The Digital Sorceress
I'd rather pay 3$ per memory card than have a DMCA++ / ACTA laws enacted that just screws everything up!
You can't sue people who have paid a copying tax can you?
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) today declared illegal any digital canon which is being imposed indiscriminately on all equipment and materials used for reproduction and not only that which presumably can only be used for private copying , as applied in Spain. Spain imposes a "canón digital", a small tax on all digital media (CD's, tapes, DVD's and associated equipment) which is given to the General Society of Authors for copyright payment in case the media is used to copy work.
The difference between approving a tax on CDs and a tax on memory cards will be the perception in the minds of those voting on it and in the minds of those who vote for the politicians.
CDs are perceived as music storage mediums, but SDs are perceived more as picture storage mediums.
Already it was a bad idea for a tax on CDs, but if the tax is applied to SD cards then it's an easy road to hard drives, cell phones with flash memory, thumbdrives and probably even Web hosting in general.
Google and Amazon won't have to get licenses for music storage, they'll be paying the tax anyways.
How many people copy music on SD cards? 99.9% of them are used in things like digital cameras. Other than a few VW owners (some models have a SD card slot in the dash connected to the music system) I don't know anyone who would.
Go ahead and tax iPods, which actually *are* used for copying music - but don't try and kill off the photography industry by adding useless taxes.
The CD tax is senseless, but if grading on a curve, the memory cards makes even less sense.
At *least* burning music to CD represents a larger share of what is done with blank media, so that people can pop portions of their collection into their car cd player (and nowadays to a less extent in other cd players). Of course they penalize everyone 'just in case' and even in the case of burning music to CD there are plenty of fair-use sorts of applications ('mix tapes', burning legally purchased music, etc), which makes it absurd.
In the memory card situation, mostly I see them purchased for cameras, game consoles, and general sneakernet of data. There isn't a huge ecosystem of music players that take memory cards as the primary medium. Must music lives on an iPod or cellphone and arrives on other stereo systems by way of bluetooth, aux jacks, or iPod dock connection. Sure, there are things that take usb hard drives as sources and primarily play music, but I think that's such a vanishingly small use of even those specific units as to render any sense of entitlement beyond absurd.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
everytime I make a .zip or .tar file, the music 'industry' pays me BACK.
the gall of the 'industry' to take what is essentially 99.9% data-only (NOT music) format and try to gouge 'usage fee' for it where its absurd beyond belief.
stop following their rules (like we even have to state this anymore). when the laws become bought and paid for by the rich, its time to start ignoring the laws.
you want us to respect the laws? make them respectable. we'll wait. until then, we'll do pretty much any damned thing we want (torrents, usenet, whatever).
grow up, and we'll treat you like adults. (isn't that a switch!)
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Aren't memory cards more commonly used in digital cameras than for music? I know that many phones now use memory cards for storage, but I'd have to imagine that more people have digital cameras, and multiple cards for said cameras, than people who have phones with memory cards installed....
Get legislation enacted to guarantee your revenue stream.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
No, in Canada this is the price we pay for "culture" industries being protected and coddled from reality.
There is no connection between this and music copying, at all. It's a cash grab. SD cards have as much to do with pirating music as video cards do.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
The RIAA is STEALING from independent artists, with this fair use tax. If a non-signed band uses CD-R's to record their music onto, they are paying a fair use tax.
The same people who claim we are stealing from bands by downloading music, are getting paid by bands who didn't sign any agreement with the RIAA or any record labels. Now WHO is stealing from bands...?
What's next, bailouts for record labels...?
-Myke
So, presumably, by paying the tax, I can pirate as much music as I like! Excellent.
Second:
I've written and recorded a song. Where do I sign to get my share of the cash?
We got that in Spain. The thing ended up propagating to every multimedia device like photo cameras, HDDs and anything that can use removable memory. (and it's a large price difference!)
If you Canadians can stop it, this would be a good moment, before it spreads.
The fund gets paid out to record labels, not artists. The best you can do is sell your copyright to a record label so they can get your share of the cash.
paintball
Just so the Canadian music industry understands ...
I use my memory cards for my camera and my cell phones, and I use my USB sticks for work, and I use blank DVDs to make backups ... add another copyright tax (don't call it a levy) on my ability to have electronic data, and I will hand around copies of MP3s like they're candy.
I will get my money's worth out of this *&$#( levy -- if you continue the default position that I am pirating your music (which I'm not doing now), then my default position will be that since I've already paid for your music, I am bloody well entitled to it. I won't even draw the line at Canadian music -- I'll just assume you're tithing to the RIAA.
If your business strategy is to charge all of us for the music that we're neither listening to nor pirating ... well, I will pirate it just because I've already paid you for it.
In short, if you keep ripping me off, I'll start ripping you off -- and I won't feel even a little bad about it. Is that what they really want?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
If I'm presumed guilty, I'll gladly take this as a license to download as much as I like. It's kind of a great deal!
I have no idea what anyone would use a 32Gbyte or 64Gbyte SD-card for, it is an insane amount of storage for most digital cameras, but pretty neat for storing entire seasons of TV-series, or all the music you have ever had the chance to leech.
Video. The new thing in DSLRs is videos and even dedicated video cameras are using SD. 64 GB is a nice big number for video.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
It is at the moment, but the Conservative government has promised to outlaw fair use as soon as possible. The copyright reform legislation died with the previous minority government, but now that they have a majority they have vowed to pass it as quickly as possible.
Somehow I doubt they'll repeal the levy once they repeal our fair use either...
Because up here the last time they tried, they lost and lost BAD.
BMG Canada vs John Doe resulted in the judge declaring file sharing was entirely legal! It was a sledgehammer to the balls for the music industry. It took a year for the Federal Court of Appeals to nix the previous judges ruling (while not making any judgement themselves), leaving the question of file sharing legality an open and unanswered question. That was six years ago. The Canadian music industry is waiting for copyright reform (probably coming in the next year) before they risk slamming their collective dicks in a door again. In the meantime they'll just soak up some media levy - it's cheaper than constantly hiring lawyers anyway.
Everytime I see something like this I think, why would I bother paying $15-$20 for a retail CD when I have already paid hundreds of dollars in "sin taxes" for all the data CDs I have used over the years. I mean clearly all the memory cards for my digital camera are used only for pirating music. Seems obvious enough to me. I love my country, but we could do without some of its inhabitants ;)
You obviously don't understand Canadian Copyright law.
Those 4 examples are all taken from the Canadian Heritage Ministry's official government website regarding the CD Levy. (I'd love to link to it, but I can't seem to find it any more)
In Canada copying for personal use is always legal providing you are copying for yourself, and from the original.
To clarify, they specifically state that you do NOT need to keep the original CD in your posession for your copy to be valid. This is why we pay the levy, to legitimize such use.
They are to cover ANTI-piracy. Forget about what it is, and forget about what it means. It's not a good idea, it's a better idea.
Look at the US. Not at their piracy, but at their letigious anti-piracy. Think about all of the times that someone, especially the RIAA but not only them, takes legal action, of any kind, at all related to pirating music, in any way.
Now think of the costs spent, by the tax-payers, to pay the courts, the judges, the legal defense, cleaning the court rooms, publishing the court date, scheduling the legal battle amongst actual important things.
Think of the tax-payer money lost because people free to sue each other actually do.
$3 per memory card is WAY LESS than the cost of supporting people suing one another.
That's why we do it. It's cheaper to pay a tax than to deal with such an issue. So we'll wait for the US to solve piracy altogether -- you know, with dmca and such -- and until then, we'll take the lesser of two evils.
Sorry to reply to myself again, I still can't find the official government page I was looking for earlier (I suspect that's partially because one of their servers pch.gc.ca is down right now) however I did find this excellent FAQ including analysis of rulings by the Copyright Board of Canada on the subject:
http://neil.eton.ca/copylevy.shtml#copy_for_friends
I note the date is a few years ago, however the law has not (yet) changed on the subject
TO ALL in this thread replying that it is not illegal: You missing the crucial word of the ruling: indiscriminately
"declared illegal any digital canon which is being imposed indiscriminately on all equipment and materials used for reproduction"
Bottom line: extending and applying the canon to all memory cards indiscriminately - is illegal in Europe
As per the Canadian Copyright Act, it is legal as long as you are the one doing the copying and it is for your ears only. It can be copied from an original or a 2nd generation copy (but your friend that gave you that 2nd gen copy has no committed a crime). Both are legal as long as you are the one personally doing the copying. If you personally make a copy and that copy is for your self only, it is all legal. If you give that 2nd gen copy to anyone, you have now committed a crime.