Slashdot Mirror
Canada Taxing Blank CDs?
Anonymous Coward writes "Canada has restarted talks on a tax of 74 cents per 15 minutes on digital recording media that is scheduled to begin on January 1st." It's interesting that when DAT was taxed, the format never caught on. Then again, CD-ROM is already a popular format. For more on the DAT issue, which this very closely parallels, RMS has an interesting article that appeared in Wired about 7 years ago, titled "The Right Way to Tax DAT".
I live in Canada, and tho I'd never move from it, let me say this: Canada will and does find a way to tax just about everything. It's the cost of social programs I suppose, but we also have this insane notion that the way to protect our culture and musicians is by taxing the consumer. So now, when I buy a CD, it'll be:
7% provicial tax (Ontario)
8% GST (federal tax)
74 cents per 15 minutes (so another 2 dollars)?
I'll tell you though, I'm reaching my limit.
"Old man yells at systemd"
...you know that piece by RMS linked to above may be the first thing I've read by him where I found myself nodding "yeah" all the way through it.
Maybe there is hope for the guy yet.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Oh, incidentally, I'm an independant musician. Now I get to spend another 2-4 dollars per blank CD that ends up in the pockets of succesful Canadian musicians. I'm really happy about that too. As an intelligent, cultured musician, I'm proud to say my tax dollars will end up in the pockets of such amazing Canadian musicians as:
Brian Adams
Celine Dion
Sarah McLaughlan
And yes, I'm being just a tiny bit sarcastic. Thank god for mp3.com
"Old man yells at systemd"
Digital recording media? You mean like the binary digits on my hard drive? I figure, since my MP3s equate to about a megabyte per minute of stored audio data, then my next 2.3 gigabyte drive would cost me $113 in taxes alone.
--
Rob Carlson
They are just talking about a tax on blank, recordable cds. This isn't going to affect the price of a music cd. And really, its still a lot cheaper than going out and actually paying full price for the real (legal) thing.
-Lisa
Are they taxing them as well? You can fit a lot of MP3 on a 10G hard drive...
David Corbin Promote Freedom - American Liberty Foundation
Im american and live in Connecticut so we pay 6% :-).
State tax, 1% Income tax in the state, about 5k a
year in property taxes, 33% income tax, 53% gift tax, marrige tax etc etc. Taxing for the hell of it is tyranny. Anyway the recording industry does not like this. They do not get a share of the taxes and therefore it makes their product out right m0ore expensive to their target audience. THe are already having trouble fending off mp3s all over the net and now this? If this does happen I could see some real big friction betweem the music industry and the canadians. You might not just be paying more for just the tax, the rec. industry might also raise the price of cds to cover their losses, 25 dollar cds anyone? (of course with the exchange rate that is probably what you pay already
What about hard drives, which are digital media frequently used to store music in both dedicated and general-purpose systems?
If you assume that music is stored as uncompressed 16-bit 44.1kHz 2-channel samples, an 8GB drive contains roughly 54 15-minute units, for a total tax of 0.74*54 = C$39.96, which is not bad.
On the other hand, if music is stored as 112kbit stereo MP3s (using the rule of thumb that 1MB=1min), that same 8-gig drive can store 559,240 units of 15 minutes, for a total tax of C$413,837.60.
I personally would find that excessive.
spawn_of_yog_sothoth
A. It's impossible to determine whether a blank piece of media is destined to be used to duplicate copyrighted material.
B. At over $2 per CD-R, I'd buy my media from Afghanistan if I had to.
C. Copyrighted material can be stored on lots of other media- attempting to tax one media is a slippery slope... what, are you going to add a $200 tax on hard drives because you could store music on them?
A+B+C = somebody's smoking crack.
314-15-9265
It isn't clear from the article and I doubt it's a target but it is possible to digitally record music on Hard Drives. I'd hate to see the tax on those 2.3 TB drives that are supposed to be available in a couple of years.
What about software vendors? They'll have to pay tax on these even though they are original content creators.
Just some thougths
J:)
Oh well, no point in steering now.
Actually, it will end up in the pockets of the record companies who signed Brian Adams, Celine Dion, and Sarah McLaughlin. :P
You're dead-on right, though. Taxes or penalties on new media formats (be they CD-ROM, DAT, or MP3) HURT independent musicians. I've never ripped a CD to my DAT deck, but I've recorded a heck of a lot of original stuff with it.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
If you're going to have to pay more when you buy blank media locally, get 'em on the internet. 'Computer media' are likely to get over the border with little problem.
luckily, I record all my songs at 100Mhz with 64 bit stereo samples, so I only get a few seconds recording per CD. That works out to just a few millicents tax, which I'll gladly pay once they make a coin small enough.
But don't forget, we are also legally allowed to burn one copy of commercial music CDs. That aside, this tax still sucks.
What the little blurb up there doesn't mention, is that the tarrif was scheduled for January 1st, 1999. As I understand it, they were going to charge businesses for all cds sold after Jan 1, even though they hadn't agreed on an amount yet! This resulted in some stores adding arbitrary amounts in order to compensate for what they were going to get charged (or maybe they were just BSing me).
What I can't stand about this is, what about software piracy?! There are some $15,000 programs floating around which probably have been copied a time or two. It's not just the recording companies that are being ripped off.
Further more, there are plenty of legal uses for cd-rs.
grrrr.
Sorry, this tax, that was to take hold Jan 1 1999 died, it is no more posting by telnet lynx is fun, really it is
Let's see... if I record my audio to a CD-R uncompressed at 44.1 kHz, two channels, 16 bits per channel, that's 74 minutes per CD-R that they need to tax for a total of $3.65. But data's data, and maybe I like high-end audio -- five channels at 24 bits apiece, for only 19.7 minutes per CD-R, and I only need to pay 97 cents tax on my blanks. But of course a bit is a bit, and if I'm intending to write the music at 32kbps MP3...why, I owe $160 dollars in tax per blank. And let's not even talk about the fact that any hard drive is potentially digital recording media!
If blank CD's are taxed and these taxes go to artists for the inevitable copies that are going to be made of their music, does that make it OK for me to copy music to one of these blank CD's?
If I pay a surcharge on a CD to cover someone's copyrights, I think I should have the RIGHT to store music on that medium.
Just another thought
J:)
Oh well, no point in steering now.
What ever happens if they discover my cd recordings of MP3s... god, that's like 8 hours of music. Blank CDs will cost more than full ones.
--
RumorsDaily
How is this going to stop online purchases of $1 blank CDR's from the US. So what if I buy 100 and the UPS ground shipping costs me $20. That works out to $.20 a cd. All that's happening is Canada is destroying the sale of an item in Canada and exporting that economy to other countries (namely the US).
So, it's $0.74/15 minutes, eh?
;-)
Well, I certainly hope they don't insist on charging me based on MP3 compression ratios!
After all, every audiophile worth their salt knows there's nothing quite like 8-channel Surround-sound style (corners of a cube, listener at centre, speaker placement) recordings at 176.4KHz.
--The more you know, the less you know.
Or, more likely, various Indian/Native American reservations along the border will add CD-R's to their shelves, along with the duty-free cigarettes and liquor. If the taxes are high enough and demand is high enough, it'll be worth it.
- Rush
- Bryan Adams (although his songwriting partner is British)
- Snow
- Barenaked Ladies
- Moxy Fruvous
- Our Lady Peace
- Gordon Lightfoot
- The Guess Who
- Lorenna McKennit
- Sarah McLachlan
- Big Sugar
- Victor
And this is just a short list. Just because it's the "Great White North" doesn't mean it's devoid of culture.I mirror Redhat's FTP to my computer every night and burn a new copy of the CD whenever there are major changes (because I do so many installs). If I lived in Canada, my burning a redhat CD would cost me like 5 dollars, and half of that would go to recording companies? That's screwed up..
And if heaven forbid I burn a blank, I'd be REALLY pissed...
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
They're going to tax CDRs based on the idea that they are being purchased solely to record music. But what about recording just data? Am I really expected to pay an extra $3.70 per disk? If I were a system administrator using CDRs for backups, and I purchase a bulk supply of 1000, now I have to pay a few extra $3700? That's absolutely crazy.
_______
2B1ASK1
Come to the CompuSpeakEasy for great prices on... um... imported CDRs. This is easy, since dogs can't sniff out CDRs. Look for local CDR sales to dry up and hurt local businesses and the little CDR customer while the big volume buyers will head south for their goods. Way to go stupid Canucks.
It sounds like this would effectively more than double the cost of CD-R media, and it doesn't even distinguish between audio and other forms of digital data (like data backups).
To mention two that comes to mind, not in your list. Saga made some great music! :-)
While I agree this is true for the types of things you're talking about. As an amateur musician, and a concert taper, I burn a LOT of discs, somewhere in the neighborhood of 3/day. And they're all legal, as many bands allow and encourage taping and trading of their lives shows.
Had I moved to Canada, this would mean that I'd be paying somewhere in the neighbourhood of $11.00/day to continue my perfectly legal hobby.
How would they decide how much the tax is for things digital multi-track stuff? 74 cents per 15 minutes per pair of channels? or would something that accepts an hour and a half of 8-track digital audio now be taxed at $17/tape, as it can hold 6 hours of 2-track digital audio?
Has a few nice tunes and they have stayed on the charts for quite some time.
At my local computer store, I pay $39.99 for a spindle of 50 blank "computer" CDs, which comes to $0.7998 per CD (roughly $0.80). Now, to buy just ONE "audio" CD, which can be used in these $3,000 audio burners, I will pay $5-$6 (I believe that's right, but either way its much more than data). Supposedly this difference goes to the US Copyright office who doles it out to the labels. So, is this unlike what the US does already? If this is the case, then why doesn't Canada do the same thing? (YES, I know taxing is bad, but if they're going to do it, why not do it in a way that makes sense? Oh, and I do know that PCs can burn audio to a "data" CD, which can be played with no problem, at least in my feeble, consumer-level audio devices)
If I could just figure out a way to re-write those damn AOL discs I get every month. Huhm...
Demo, sore-wa koko-no hanashi-ni wa attenai jo ne (^_^)/
As for CD-Rs, I imagine they'll probably only end up taxing the "audio"-grade and not the generic, no-name "data" kind. People that pay premiums for "audio" grade _anything_ deserve to be ripped off, IMHO, and, according to the article, 60 percent of you Canadians agree with me.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Tax knives and give the money to stabbing victims!
Tax cameras and give the money to kids forced into the porn movie underground.
Tax cigarettes and give the money to the cash strapped medical industry.
Tax lumber and give the money to countries where rain forests are being depleted.
Tax porn and give the money to rape victims.
etc. Thank you Canada for this new wave of gov't idiocy. It makes me want to reconsider my position on Quebec separatists. Maybe they're right.
One more thing. I bet the majority of cd-r's sold are not used to copy music. Many people use them to copy programs and games, so when is the SPA tax coming into effect? I know I can't wait for it, what about you? What's that one going to be? $5 a cd? Ever used a cd-r to back up a hard drive? Well, now it might cost $20 more (assuming your hard drive is 6-7GB and you don't use compression -that's around 10 cd's). That can sure build up if you're doing weekly or even monthly backups. And where does that $20 go? Well, maybe $5 goes to Bryan Adams, $5 to Celine Dion, and $10 goes towards some record exec's vacation. Do they need the money? No. Does the money help that talented garage band around the corner get radio time because of the tax? No, in fact the tax will probably cost them money too, as I explained above.
So, keeping all that in mind, answer just one question: Do you honestly think the tax is going to help those who could need it? No, you might as well be stealing from the poor and giving to the rich.
--
--
"Insert witty quote here."
Seriously. If a recording is botched and the media are not recoverable, you should be able to get a refund of the tax you paid. In practice the recording industry would be forced to refund the tax on every disk returned. That would sure teach them.
Further consequences of this would be that Parliament would be forced to criminalize the importation of recordable media for refund (fraud, y'know) just as Michigan has criminalized the import of out-of-state soft-drink containers for the ten-cent deposit. Now wouldn't that be fun!
Finally, if you're lucky, you might even get everyone to agree that the whole thing was a rotten idea and that it ought to be scrapped. But you have to force the system into the exercise of the reductio ad absurdum first, so get moving!
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
I was a criminal when a friend copied me on a CD the music that him and his band did.
I was a criminal when I did copy a Linux (RedHat) CD-ROM image.
I was a criminal to backup some important files on CD-ROM. I was a criminal when I kept a copy of my music CDs for myself in MP3 format (on CD-R).
I'm sure plenty small companies that need to give software to clients (by burning a CD-R) will love being considered criminals too...
I happen to own stock in some of the big music companies, Sony, Capitol, etc. As such I receive their annual financial reports. For those who don't know, The Secirities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the states REQUIRES companies to fully disclose their earnings and losses to their chareholders. Welp, lemme flip through the report here... nope. No losses mentioned from piracy. Where's this $6 billion in theft from piracy they keep raving about? I guess THE COMPANIES think that piracy is NEITHER THEFT NOR LOSS. If it were it would HAVE TO be listed on their financial reports. It isn't. Imagine that!
I'm still a proud Canadian. So as I so aptly am putting it...FUCK YOU!
This is aboot the stupidest thing I've seen, eh.
Hm, maybe it's time to start labeling the packages as "Data Only - not to be used for audio content." Now... you know, and I know, that this would be ridiculous. But based on the logic used in formulating this tax, it just might work. "Oh golly, no, this isn't a recording medium. This is a binary backup medium, just like this tape over here..."
People that record only their own live performances should subsidize the major record companies.
People that use recording media only to backup thir computer data should subsidize the major record companies.
People that record their business meetings and personal notes, including the Canadian court system itself, should subsidize the major record companies.
Will the madness never stop?
For all my US comaptriotes out there, a little lesson in Canadian government. First off they are just holding hearings. Translation - a few old judges and back-bench politicians are going to yammer about this for a long time. They may get around to doing something, they may not. They may have the price stay at 25 cents, they may drop it.
If enough Canadians make a stink about this they may just drop it (after all they already backed it off for almost 6 months for the same reason).
Even if they do pass it, it will not last long. Someone before mentioned about people heading across to the US or getting blank CD-Rs from Natives on border reservation. Well, the same thing happened a few years ago. Cigarettes, clearly a dangerous product that should not be promoted in any way, used to cost $7 Can a pack. When the US stores and smoke smuggelers began to make gobs of money while mom and pop stores in downtown Toronto went out of business, the hue and cry of a relatively small affected group cause our Prime Minister (Jean Chretien) to drop the taxes so that smokes are now about $2.50 to $3.00 a pack.
If the public can force the government to drop the price of smokes by more than half in one shot (literally $7.00 on Monday and $2.35 on Tuesday morning), dropping the CD-R tax should be real easy.
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
Now we who live in the northern states can make huge money bootlegging untaxed CDR blanks up to Canada! :-)
Did you even bother to read the article or ever follow the discussion when this came up before. The recording industry is the lobby that is pushing for this levy. They love, nearly 100% of the levy will be distributed between the record labels in Canada.
Next time, read the article before stating complete falsehoods.
just because your govt is stealing from you, don't take it ou on us.
Ah, yet another attempt to take money from the poor musicians and give it to the rich ones. Hmm, there's something fundamentally wrong with this, I just can't put my finger on it... :-)*
."
Reminds me of Tom Green's "Scuba Hood" segment. Stealing money from the poor and giving it to the rich. He went into a mall with scuba gear and stuffed money from the fountain into a bag and brought it into a bank and just gave it to them. He got banned from that mall.
"Turn off that camera!"
"Ok, it's off
Actually, I have a friend who knows someone at ATI. Apparently they're really pissed off about this because they use a lot of CDR media. They intend to fight. This is a "guilty whether your proven innocent or not" thing.
Well, as long as there are rich people/entities actually fighting for us. That doesn't happen often.
In a perfect world the record industry would be breaking the law. They sell for $20 something that cost them a few cents to make then they only give a few pennies back to the artist. We should feel sorry for them and give them money, why exactly? What they are doing should be illegal. It is really an unfair monopoly because if I want a copy of Sgt Pepper I have to buy it from capitol. I cannot see any reason why we need those companies. Let's all hope they go out of business soon! Long live MP3!
If I'm buying CDRs to back up my hard drive, I had better not have my money going to the RIAA, etc. Punish the pirates, but don't punish everyone.By taxing everyone for piracy losses, you are de facto accusing everyone of being a pirate. And since the crime is "already being paid for", people will feel no guilt in choosing to engage in piracy. Is it still wrong. Yes but I sure will not feel any guilt. Neither will others. That will be the reality.It's like if the police dept. starts billing me for parking in a handicapped zone wheather I did or not. Well, if I'm being fined anyway, why not to say "fuck it" and park in the handicapped zone anyway? Similarly, the tax on blank media will LEGITIMIZE PIRACY. On the other side is the industry and stupid musicians who can't get past "Oh wow! A chance for free money! Let's vote for this."
I wonder... if the gov't set up a plan where one could "sell" various personal rights and liberties for quick cash, how many idiots would actually participate?
The problem with that is the Canadian dollar exchange rate. Paying tax on a CDR makes the conversion to $US look like peanuts.
:)
That's why I was so happy when chapters.ca finally pulled it head out of it's arse and did a proper website. They aren't as good as amazon, but at least I can afford the books
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
One which will do something other than raise taxes and reneg on promises
Okay, you've stumped me. What country/government are you talking about and I'll move there...
and write our MPs!
www.parl.gc.ca
Hey, who knows... It might actually work.
Sorry about the semi offensive subject title (I love our brothers...and sisters in the great white north). I think the tax on every 15 minutes of "digital recording" "media" is absurd. Thats like putting a tax on every couple of lines of writting paper. Well, I guess there is nothing I, or anyone can do about that, governments have to get their money somehow. Hope you that tax dosent eventually apply to handheld or audio Mp3 players (;_;)
Funny, I don't remember ever saying I thought this was a good idea or that I liked the music industry as it stands today. Its interesting what some people will assume based on one 'keep in mind' statement.
I made the statement because I knew some people would misinterpret the tax to be on music cds (I have already seen some people make that assumption).
-Lisa
How can you tax people based on the reasoning that they're going to do something illegal? It's either illegal and they should be punished for it, or it's legal and you tax it. It shouldn't be both.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Maybe I should save all those coasters and mail 'em in with my tax return at the end of the year for a big fat refund! Yeah!
When this tax was first mentioned, prices of CDRs skyrockted within days. Where I bought, a single blank CDR use to cost about $1.50. The price then jumped to about $6.
First of all, the tax was to be placed at the manufacturing level so any CDRs currently in distrubtion didn't have the tax on it. Why the hell did the price go up then? It has taken many months for CDRs to come back down to around $2 in a pack of 10.
Now I guess, the price is going to jump again even before the tax.
This reminds me of the oil prices. Whenever crude oil goes up the price at the pump instantly goes up. But when the price of crude drops the price at the pump stays up because the gas companies say they have to clear out the oil in the supply channel first. Think about that for a moment.
and your government isn't stealing from you?
I can see the argument (though I don't completely agree with it) that artists need to be reimbursed for their work, and that a tax might be a good way to do it. But pay the damn money to the artists at least, not their bosses.
I actually wouldn't mind this if:
#1 - it were spurred by complaints by artists of piracy
#2 - said money was being used to pay the artists...
Instead:
#1 - Artists being screwed by labels is incredibly commonplace, whereas pretty much the only artists that have successfully screwed a record company are the Sex Pistols...
#2 - Seems record companies keep bigger and bigger slices of the profits as music moves from LP to Cassette to CD... Cost's of production lower, prices rise, and the artists get a smaller and smaller take.
Therefore, though I can't speak for canada, I hope to join or start a class-action suit should they ever try that here. Besides all that, I have plenty of uses for cassettes, DAT's, CD-R, and just about anything else that in no way even approaches the record industries territory.
That all said, I know some people with 200+ CD collections of pirated CD's... I don't condone or agree with it, but their stance is "The band won't get more than a dollar from this CD anyhow"... Should we penalize the users of the mediums for the reputation the labels have hoist upon themselves?
Sorry, Gentle Readers.
I was off by a mere factor of 1024. The 8GB drive, of course, can store only 546 15-minute increments, which would make the tax C$409.50. Which is excessive, but not quite as bad as the earlier figure.
(post && (!caffeine)) == bad;
spawn_of_yog_sothoth
But pay the damn money to the artists at least, not their bosses.
This, I think, is the real problem. If anything, the artist should be the boss, if they're going to pay a company to distribute something for them. But, at least as the recent MP3 scandals would indicate, the record companies make them sign restrictive contracts that make everything ass-backwards so that the artist at least seems to be all but an employee of the company. Does anyone else see this as a problem?
Take off, you hoser.
Fighting the War on the War on Drugs.
http://smokedot.org/
A friend of mine who had five part-time jobs in the tax year had to pay almost $1100. Gee, any idea why the guy had so many jobs in the first place?
I like the idea of protecting Cdn culture, but we don't need the CRTC. If the music is good, people will listen. OTOH, CBC, spare us your crappy sitcoms! Documentaries and news and hockey is what you do best. More Daniel Richler and Avi Lewis (but forget Ralph Benmergui, pleeeeez)
I'm lucky to live in Alberta, which has no PST, just GST...I can only pity ppl in the maritimes - that's like, 20% PST + GST.
That CD you just bought in the States probably cost 15 or 20 bucks, right? Well, in Canada the prices tend to be the same, as in 15 or 20 bucks for the average CD. The difference is this. 15 or 20 bucks in Canada is 10 or 14 bucks in US dollars.
It is absolutely essential that everyone who should be "exempt" from this tax is able to do so. The basic premise of the tax argument is, nontheless, completely absurd. I mean, just about anyone, you would think, who has a burner would be able to justify their purchase in terms of non-copyright-infringing use. For example, I own a modest home recording studio, but anyone else could simply say that they use their burner for routine data backups, etc. - therefore removing any liabilty for the proposed tax. Am I missing something here? It seems as if virtually no-one should end up paying the tax, because proof of "legitimate" use will be easy! Oh, and fuck the record industry anyway. :) -ad mp3.com/adrianhenke
I'm not sure what the prices are like on CD-Rs in the states, but for you Americans out there who do know... A CD-R can be had in Canada for about a buck and a half, after exchange = $1 US. In all seriousness, are CD-Rs only a buck in the states?
How could you foget Bif?!?
Tak on
-Moist
-Concrete Blonde(they may have broken up, but Canadian they were)
-Joydrop
-Great Big Sea
-54-40
-Tragically Hip
etc
Between the time that the tariff was announced and the time that the news was reporting it DOA CD-R costs increased in my area of Canada by between %200 and %300 depending on location and quantity... After a few months, the price came back down to where it had been before.
I heard about this some time ago, and was quite angered by the concept. (I use many CDRs to archive downloads, and Free Software, and I don't have a single copied music CD.) I think that now that the media show has whined down, our wonderful record companies are trying to get this tax passed before the public catches on.
I alse believe the best way to combat this is to encourage that ALL digital media be taxed (at $.75/MB ala MP3). The public would them go crazy when they find out that it costs $8,000.00 to buy a 10GB hard drive. The government then would repeal the tax, and taxing media would be such a sensitive issue that no government in its right mind would ever try something that stupid again.
My $0.02.
--------
"I already have all the latest software."
If they claim the tax is to support artists in the face of music piracy you are a MUSIC PIRATE for copying a LINUX CD. How's that for twisted logic? :-)
The so-called "audio grade" CDRs have some sort of identifying bits on the media that the consumer audio CDR recorder looks foor. Pop in a blank $0.80 CDR and it'll say "NO DISC". Really, though, just get a computer, sound card, big hard drive, and a CDR burner. The WHOLE setup will probably still cost less than a $1000+ Philips or Marantz CDR deck.
Because some men committ rape, the legislature has decided that ALL men will serve a jail term of exactly 3 days out of the year to pay for the actions of rapists. While not all men committ rape. SOMEONE has to pay for the plethora of rapes that go unpunished every year and cost the nation $6billion in the mental trauma of women every year.
In Canada you will pay $5 for a pack of cigarettes.
In Canada you will now pay almost $2 in taxes on blank CDs.
Hey you guys should revolt, wait a minute you guys are in a socialist nation, you've been disarmed by your government.
Come one down south, we're willing to accept people who want freedom.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
74 minutes on a blank CD-R disc. :-) Talk about gouging. I don't know how much $3.65 is in Canadian dollars but in the US blank CD's are only about a buck a piece.. even assuming $1US=$1.50Can you guys are getting screwed. :-)
Why not just take a trip across the border and stock up.. buy 500 CD's a pop. The idiotic border "guards" sure as hell aren't going to notice 5 spindles of CD's in your trunk. :-)
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Wait, you already are fucked. Never mind.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
They have to be INSANE if they think people will stand for this. For example, I am shortly going to be doing a copy of Redhat 6 for a friend in the US. Totally legal, yet if this tax were in effect, i`d be expected to pay the record companies for the priviledge of distributing a free OS. Fucking idiots. I emmigrated here 3 years ago almost to the day... Two things i`ve learnt in the 3 years i`ve been here. #1 Canada Post SUCK GOATS! #2 The government of Canada will try and screw you any which way they can. Just look into the immigration rules here. Cost me $2000 just so I can stay with my Canadian wife. (Legit, not just to stay in Canada.) No wonder Canada is ranked highest by the UN, the govt. has all the money. Regardless of anything, I still love it here, I just wish the government won`t obsessed with finding new ways to screw you.
Anonymous Coward, sometimes you can be a real jerk, but this time I think you have made a brilliant point! I almost can't believe that this is the same guy who wrote "First Post?"
This is a point that needs to be highly publicized: The media tax is a copying license. Scream it from every rooftop: "You have already paid the alleged victims for the right to copy their work, so feel free to do so!"
Maybe if the word gets out, the record companies will shit a brick and lobby for the law to be repealed. The law is based on the assumption that everyone is a criminal, but the actual sales are based on the fact that most people aren't, and they find it against their conscience to steal musician's work. If Joe Average, who doesn't want to steal, can be convinced that it isn't stealing, because he paid for the right, then I think all hell would break loose.
Hmm.. I wonder. If I interpret the media tax as a license-to-copy, and it is tied to another product (media) so that you can't purchase one without also purchasing the other, does that mean there's a case for anti-trust? :-)
---
Have a Sloppy day!
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
First alcohol, then cigs, now CDRs?
In Canada you will pay $5 for a pack of cigarettes.
In Canada you will now pay almost $2 in taxes on blank CDs.
Hey you guys should revolt, wait a minute you guys are in a socialist nation, you've been disarmed by your government.
Come on down south, we're willing to accept people who want freedom.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
...or an extra $2.94 on a 90-minute blank CD...
Sweet deal! Anyone know where to get their hands on a 90-minute CD-R? And a burner that can record on it?
Just watch, first the government will prove they're ignorant twits by implementing the tax (calling it a "levy" does not change what it is) and then they'll prove that they're mathematically challenged by charging based on a 90-minute disc because 74-minutes is more than a nice, round 60.
First they plan to assume all CD buyers are music pirates, then add to the indignity by overtaxing. What else should one expect; this is the same government that promised to eliminate the GST.
Well, didn't the article say that it had been published on Wired in 1992? But it also mentioned that comments and links/updates had been placed, in [], throughout the original article.
Insert mind here.
i mother earth sloan odds econoline crush headstones tea party canadian music is pretty good. and muchmusic is ok. at least they still play music videos and not predictable couples game shows and "fake world" simulations.
You can already buy cigars and cigarettes tax free on Indian reservations. They are a quasi-nation and escape many taxes. Maybe they should make CDRs. It'd bring needed jobs to Indians and benefit us too. It's win-win-win except for the RIAA of course (boo hoo).
...was Skinny Puppy. They defined a whole genre of music. You can keep the rest -- that includes Bill Leeb, too.
Hey, I know... Let's tax photocopier paper too!! Cause it might be used to illegally photocopy books, but who cares about those few people out there who use it in their computer printers, offices, etc...
In Holland,(where I happen to live) there is already a $0.15 tax on CD-R/CD-RW 's. This tax is so small that few people actually noticed it's introduction. The distribution of that money is handled really fair here though, and aside from a percent or two in administration fee's for the government you'll at least be sure that your 15 cents will be distributed via a certain rating-system to all artists who had a song in the dutch hitlists in the last few months. Actually, if the canadian tax system would be put to effect, and distribution of the money would be handled in the same way as in holland. Then an average artist would earn more money from a CD-R on wich his album was (might have been) copied than from an album sold by his or her record company.
Heck... we store data in our brain all the time. Think of how much tax we'd pay for 70 TERABYTES!! No more History and Geography class for me.
heh heh heh
All music and video recording media is taxed in the U.S., including blank audio and video tapes. Think about it: That's why it cost's $6 to $10 for 3 lousy Type II cassettes-- a technology that is decades old. I guess CD-ROMS haven't been taxed bacause they've been viewed as a "computer product."
"People with opinions just go around bothering one another." -The Buddha
I would be a lot less hesitant to copy a CD and give it away if they are going to assume I'm doing this and charge me for it.
If I'm paying a copyright violation fee, tax, whatever, I may as well do it if I'm paying for it.
It sure makes it harder to feel bad about it anyway.
I'll gain a lot of weight so I have a big fat ass, drive south to the US, buy a 100 pack of cds for like $50, hide then in my butt crack, and drive back.
Those mounties won't cavity search me, will they?
Thanks,
SpaceMoose (www.spacemoose.com)
PS: Pressed Ham and Gravy to all! Oops, gotta go, terrence and phillip are at the door...
1. how will they tell if they are for music or data?
2. how do they really tell how many "minutes" of audio can be stored (archive 96khz 24-bit will be less, MP3 will be more)?
3. if they are going to tax CDs for data then why not hard drives, DVD-RAM, magneto optical, tape backups, flash cards, etc?
4. if the tax won't apply to data CDRs then everybody can get around it by buying the cheaper blanks meant for data and putting audio on them anyway.
This tax is totally based on the assumption that ALL blank CDs are only used to burn copies of original music CDs. Everybody else using CDRs for 900 billion other purposes will have lighter wallets while musicians/record labels have a hayday.
This is probably because Marantz, Philips, etc. (the makers of the consumer audio burners) made an agreement with the media manufacturers. So if only Brand X CDR media will work in Brand Y's audio burners, then Brand X shares some of the profit from the media sale with Brand Y because the driving factor in Brand X's sales was Brand Y's functionality requirements. So basically the $6 "audio" CDR discs are only so expensive because of industry collusion.
I thought thast was Bob and Doug Mckenzie? TAKE OFF EH! You Hoser! You Knob! Pass the beer eh!
Don't feel too bad. Here's a brilliant tax from the US:*
- - --
***********************************************
Forwarded-by: Nev Dull
CCH Tax Day Report © 1999, CCH Incorporated.
A Daily Digest of Federal and State Tax Developments
-------------------------------------------------
Volume: 15 Report No: 161 Date: 08/19/99
-----------------------------------------------
[S13] Connecticut--Marijuana and Controlled Substances Tax: Tax Explained to Law Enforcement Officials
A guide for law enforcement agencies on Connecticut marijuana and controlled substances tax explains that the tax is imposed on dealers of controlled substances, but not on individuals unlawfully possessing illicit drugs. Dealers are required to purchase tax stamps from the Connecticut Department of Revenue Services and affix them to illicit drugs in order to provide proof of tax payment. Payment of tax does not legalize the sale or possession of drugs. Any law enforcement or criminal agency may refer suspected cases of tax delinquency to the Department of Revenue Services, and the Department's investigation, as a civil matter, is separate from any criminal proceeding against a drug dealer.
Arrests of tax violators are conducted by law enforcement agencies rather than the Department of Revenue Services.
Informational Publication 99(20.1), Connecticut Department of Revenue Services, July 23, 1999, ARD-CT P400-344
Other References:
CT St. Tax Rep. at P31-215
And just about anything that'll burn could be used to power an automobile, too, but that doesn't mean that a gasoline tax would apply to the wood next to your fireplace. You could use a slingshot to launch a bullet, but not even the most ridiculous gun prohibition kook would try to claim you need to wait five days before buying one.
Just about any type of digital storage could be used to record audio, but how many have a primary purpose of recording audio? I doubt you could claim with a straight face that the primary purpose of a DIMM is storing music.
Doh! Read the above excerpt from RMS's article on DAT taxation, and then try to tell me, with a straight face, that he isn't a card-carrying Communist.
If you still Don't Quite Get It, substitute whatever your own profession happens to be in the place of the term "musician" above. Imagine how you'd like RMS and his fellow travellers having the final word on how much YOU ought to be paid before you become an unnecessary burden to society.
The proposed levy is 49 cents per 15 minutes, not 74 on digital media. The proceeds are to go to the writers and performers through SOCAN etc, not the record companies. That said, this levy makes as much sense as a levy on blank paper to give to writers. The logic of this whole thing escapes me. If this levy is to distributed according to sales, it would follow that the artists with the greatest sales were copied least. After all if everyone was copying them then their sales would be lower. What follows is that the levy should be given to those artists who have the smallest sales, since they may have been copied more. In fact the artists who only sell one disk should get it all since they were copied most. Makes as much sense as the levy! rgrunsk@ibm.MAPSON.net
This would be the Goods and Services Tax, a 7% sales tax on, well, goods and services sold in Canada. Books and magazines are not exempt from it, so the opposition was able to spin it as a "tax on books". I guess calling it a "tax on bathroom faucets" or a "tax on liposuction" didn't have the same impact with newspaper reporters who needed to whore themselves to a sound bite.
any band with a frontman named Joey Shithead is ok by me! Even though they've been around since the early '80's (more than a lifetime for a punk band), they're still pretty awesome live, even if Joey's the only original member left
Please... let me keep some of my money?!? For heaven's sakes, you drain me enough already!
Who would bother recording material from some unknown starving artist. Alanis Morrisette, RUSH, Bryan Adams, etc... Fuck off already. You get enough of our damn money from Concerts, T-shirts, and tape sales. Do you really need another $10 million when you have $200 million already. Enough already.
To the already over-paid artists who will benifit from this, I say: Try pumping gas for a living so that you can feed your family. Then tell me that you believe it is ethical to charge an additional tax on blank media.
The tax presupposes all blank media purchases are made in bad faith with the intention of copying copywritten material.
I say, fine, charge me the tax, but make the distribution of pirated material legal.
GOD can be our new contraband dealer. :) The Globe and Mail article referenced mentions it in passing, but Churches, in all their tax-free glory, frequenty use the infernal "audio recording media" to record and distribute their sunday services. :) Now I'm not saying one needs to *pay attention* to the sermons, but I bet it would be easy for any regular /. reader to get him/herself set up as the church's new audio tech. :)
You think Canadian artist will get money out of this! Don't think so, all that the mighty or should I say not so mighty governement will do wiht these taxes, is spend it where they want!!! And the place it's going is..... Pocket!?!?!?!? :P
All the Canadian Governement is good at, is stealing from the poor, and giving to the rich!!!
I may not know that much about politics, but at least, as a Canadian, I know that we vote for someone, and all they do is put money in there pockets, and for a thank you note, they write to us by adding more taxes
It seems to me that this tax is undefinable. Say you put 650MB worth of MP3 on a CD, and assume that it was 2MB/min (I don't know what the compression ratio is, I don't use MP3's) The capacity would be 325 minutes. At $0.49/15 min that comes out to $10.60/blank CD. Plus the other taxes. Am I wrong? Comments?
thank you... you rock.. I am glad I live in the USA where my illegal activities are alright just as long as they are in to confines of my own home!
Yes it is. I used to live there, too. But I have to say that at least there are tangible benefits to average citizens for those taxes in Canada... few visible benefits here.
And we have no room in the US to be smug. Taxes here are pretty high, too, and the politicians are no more realistic here than there.
--- Bill
Actually, no. I just paid from 8.50 to 14.00 for a half-dozen CDs in the US, and I buy blanks at 50 for $59.00.
--- Bill
Hello?! This has been going on in the US forever. The only reason you don't pay it for CD-R is because they are not considered music recording media (yet). However, the new Philips CD recorder box will only accept disks marked as music to verify that you paid the tax. Where have all you whiners and Canada bashers been for the last 10 fucking years?!
In the netherlands we already have a tax on blank cd's. at first they tried to tax every CD but after some legal 'discussion' they were only allowed to tax audio-only cd's (those disks that go into stand-alone cd-recorders lake those made by philips) so this leaves most of the people unharmed.
They had to pay it almost all (95% I think) in taxes.
It goes into the pockets of greedy music publishers! It sucks and is very, very sad!
Jón
Hello all. This "levy" is plagued with two very serious problems. First off, not enough terms in Bill C-32 are sufficiently defined, so that no doubts can be cast on their meanings. This creates many problems for the correct implementation for the passed laws. For instance, the terms "digital audio" and "digital audio recording media" are defined nowhere in the Canadian Copyright Act. What is digital audio? Is it compressed/uncompressed? What digital format(s) would qualify it as digital audio? As it has been stated many times in this forum, mp3 compression allows for a normal 74 minute CD-R to hold over 800 minutes of digital audio. If you wanted to impose a levy of 25 cents per every 15 minutes of this kind of digital audio, the total would come out to nearly $27 per CD-R. This kind of monstrosity is possible with the existing wording of this amendment to our Copyright Act. What is a digital audio recording medium? Are we talking about CD-R's here, or hard drives, or DAT tapes, or all of the above? If this levy is to be applied to all digital audio recording media, it really should be applied to all of the above types of media. Otherwise the law bears no logical format. Second of all, this amendment to our Copyright Act makes some automatic assumptions, with respect to the "digital audio recording media" in question: a) All media will be used solely for the purposes of recording audio. b) All media will contain copyrighted material, which is being infringed upon by the individual performing the recording. c) All media will contain material copyrighted by only Canadian artists. Those are some very dangerous and fallable assumptions to make. I don't think I even need to state that a only certain percentage of such media is used to hold any kind of digital audio recordings and that such recordings are mostly of foreign (read: non-Canadian) content. Let me play with this concept for a minute. Let's suppose that, say, a conservative 20% of all actual recorded material on the CD-R medium alone was of Canadian copyrighted material. Wouldn't an American organization like the RIAA be perfectly within their rights to demand 70-80% of the total levy imposed by the copyright collective? And this supposition of mine rests on the assumption that ALL CD-R media is used solely for recording copywritten digital audio. If you assume that roughly half of all CD-R media is used for recording copyrighted digital audio, then the collectives might have a right to collect a rough figure of 10% of their original levy. A final levy of $2.50 per CD-R, automatically becomes something closer to $0.25. That's the way I formulate this levy anyway, in my own mind. We've had tradewars with the US before and I see this as no different. I'd like to say that as a Canadian, I would not like to see this levy hold up, mainly because it will set such a dangerous precedent. I mean, what will be next? Will a levy of 10 cents per each sheet of paper be implemented, simply because each sheet can potentially be used to infringe upon copywritten Canadian literature? Will a levy of 50 cents per each inch of any knife sold be implemented because people can potentially be stabbed with any knife and the victims must be justly compensated? Will internet subscribers, particular users of broadband services, be forced to cough up some more money because they may or may not be infringing upon Canadian copyrighted material on the internet? Anyway, I think you all get my point. The floodgates will be opened if this levy is allowed to be implemented. Certain terms are not clearly defined and the wording appears to indicate that this levy was not well thought out to begin with. The collectives should go back to the drawing board and conceive a levy which is fair- something that Canadians will accept. This one is thoroughly ridiculous and people know it. Under the legacy of the collectives, your freedom to record material you purchased, or you created is proportional to how much money you dole out to the collectives. I don't recall the Bill of Rights, or the Charter of Rights and Freedoms mentioning anything about monetary compensation, with respect to one's personal right to do as they choose, without violating the law. The collectives just don't seem to understand that. In closing, I'd like to say that I have discussed this situation with the EFF, EFC, two lawyers (one who specializes in copyright law), the Copyright Board of Canada and people on the internet who just view this action by the collectives, as just plain wrong. If the final negotiated tariff is unreasonable, I will do everything in my power to attempt to abrogate it. Please, if you're Canadian, sign this online petition. 23,360 people already have, which is more than proportional to the 45,000 or so Americans who expressed their dissatisfaction to the "Know Your Banker" scheme, which was abolished a number of months ago as a result. I expect nothing less here.
"The illegal we can do right now; the unconstitutional will take a little longer." --Henry Kissinger
Sorry, I forgot that the HTML formatting wouldn't automatically add newlines for me :P
Hello all. This "levy" is plagued with two very serious problems. First off, not enough terms in Bill C-32 are sufficiently defined, so that no doubts can be cast on their meanings. This creates many problems for the correct implementation for the passed laws. For instance, the terms "digital audio" and "digital audio recording media" are defined nowhere in the Canadian Copyright Act.
What is digital audio? Is it compressed/uncompressed? What digital format(s) would qualify it as digital audio? As it has been stated many times in this forum, mp3 compression allows for a normal 74 minute CD-R to hold over 800 minutes of digital audio. If you wanted to impose a levy of 25 cents per every 15 minutes of this kind of digital audio, the total would come out to nearly $27 per CD-R. This kind of monstrosity is possible with the existing wording of this amendment to our Copyright Act.
What is a digital audio recording medium? Are we talking about CD-R's here, or hard drives, or DAT tapes, or all of the above? If this levy is to be applied to all digital audio recording media, it really should be applied to all of the above types of media. Otherwise the law bears no logical format.
Second of all, this amendment to our Copyright Act makes some automatic assumptions, with respect to the "digital audio recording media" in question:
a) All media will be used solely for the purposes of recording audio.
b) All media will contain copyrighted material, which is being infringed upon by the individual performing the recording.
c) All media will contain material copyrighted by only Canadian artists.
Those are some very dangerous and fallable assumptions to make. I don't think I even need to state that a only certain percentage of such media is used to hold any kind of digital audio recordings and that such recordings are mostly of foreign (read: non-Canadian) content. Let me play with this concept for a minute. Let's suppose that, say, a conservative 20% of all actual recorded material on the CD-R medium alone was of Canadian copyrighted material. Wouldn't an American organization like the RIAA be perfectly within their rights to demand 70-80% of the total levy imposed by the copyright collective? And this supposition of mine rests on the assumption that ALL CD-R media is used solely for recording copywritten digital audio. If you assume that roughly half of all CD-R media is used for recording copyrighted digital audio, then the collectives might have a right to collect a rough figure of 10% of their original levy. A final levy of $2.50 per CD-R, automatically becomes something closer to $0.25. That's the way I formulate this levy anyway, in my own mind. We've had tradewars with the US before and I see this as no different.
I'd like to say that as a Canadian, I would not like to see this levy hold up, mainly because it will set such a dangerous precedent. I mean, what will be next? Will a levy of 10 cents per each sheet of paper be implemented, simply because each sheet can potentially be used to infringe upon copywritten Canadian literature? Will a levy of 50 cents per each inch of any knife sold be implemented because people can potentially be stabbed with any knife and the victims must be justly compensated? Will internet subscribers, particular users of broadband services, be forced to cough up some more money because they may or may not be infringing upon Canadian copyrighted material on the internet?
Anyway, I think you all get my point. The floodgates will be opened if this levy is allowed to be implemented. Certain terms are not clearly defined and the wording appears to indicate that this levy was not well thought out to begin with. The collectives should go back to the drawing board and conceive a levy which is fair- something that Canadians will accept. This one is thoroughly ridiculous and people know it. Under the legacy of the collectives, your freedom to record material you purchased, or you created is proportional to how much money you dole out to the collectives. I don't recall the Bill of Rights, or the Charter of Rights and Freedoms mentioning anything about monetary compensation, with respect to one's personal right to do as they choose, without violating the law. The collectives just don't seem to understand that.
In closing, I'd like to say that I have discussed this situation with the EFF, EFC, two lawyers (one who specializes in copyright law), the Copyright Board of Canada and people on the internet who just view this action by the collectives, as just plain wrong. If the final negotiated tariff is unreasonable, I will do everything in my power to attempt to abrogate it. Please, if you're Canadian, sign this online petition. 23,360 people already have, which is more than proportional to the 45,000 or so Americans who expressed their dissatisfaction to the "Know Your Banker" scheme, which was abolished a number of months ago as a result. I expect nothing less here.
"The illegal we can do right now; the unconstitutional will take a little longer." --Henry Kissinger
Usually, the problem is that I don't have the resources to identify every single little small-business pirate to sue, so I'll concentrate on the big fish to make an example out of them. Now, if someone is orchestrating this kind of piracy all over an entire country, effectively forcing each resident to pay them a fee for copying my music/software/literature, don't you think that would be a big enough fish for me?
Granted, they may abuse the creative talents of their own country as they see fit, but when they start copying foreign works for a profit, I'd suggest taking them to court, or excluding Canada from your otherwise liberal distribution license.
The interesting thing about this tax is, that the original version of the legislation, only taxed recordable music CD-R's or "digital music recording medias". Walk dow to your local computer store, that sells them for "computer use", and there was no tax.
I guess this is the kind of thing you get when the people making the laws don't even know what a CD-R or digital recording media really is.
This is not the sig line you are looking for... -- Old Jedi Sig Line Trick
Everyone's government steals. So EVERYONE just SHUT THE FUCK UP! I mean please! This is more pathetic than little kids saying, "My daddy is nicer than your daddy!" Are we people or are we politicians?!?! Don't play their fucking games!
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Ok, and then after my boss paid me (once, I repeat again) he goes and sells that stuff I've done multiple times! See? I don't work, boss doesn't work either, since copying software is so easy, but he still gets money!
What does it lead to? Let's see, work's not done, but that "activity" still costs money. So, we got money losing their cost!
So, software pirates really make your dollar heavier. So does free software, which by the way, is completely legal. Copyrights SUCK They are slowing progress down. Piracy sucks too, cause it discourages the real producer.
As to the topic, it seems to me that Canadian government just found another way for getting money for itself. It's so widely used practice to tax something that one can't live without - they'll pay anyway. Oh, yes, I mean, you won't die without writing a CD, but everyone uses it and got used to it :-)
If this tax should ever become law (and I doubt it ever will), then it could legitimize pirating of all music CDs. If you have paid your $3.25 tax on a CD which goes directly to the artists fund, you could claim you have now compensated the artist for making a copy of their works. As long as you pay the tax on each CD you copy, you would then have the right to make unlimited copies of the artists works since they are getting reimbursed. I imagine there would be a test case, and if the defendant hauled into court had made a ton of money from selling pirate CDs, he could afford a top notch legal team to fight this defense. If the first test case should happen to side with the pirate, it would turn pirates loose in no time at all. Then all your copies for home or personal use would then be legal. I thing the big music companies might catch onto this at some point, and this proposed law will die a quick and quiet death.
I don't think I'd be proud of being the home of Snow.
This is a little off topic. But... could you not at least have used a Gif of a Canadian Dollar for the article.
Here is a link to the news release that went out last January which stated the tax was being delayed.
The most relevant portion of the release stated that:
The letter also advises the Copyright Board that all members of the CPCC have agreed to delay collecting the levy on blank audio recording media until the Board renders it's decision on the proposed levy or until December 31, 1999, whichever is earlier.
I haven't seen anything which indicated that the "CPCC Board" has "rendered it's decision" yet.
Does anybody else know if this "board" has come to a decision yet?
"grey market" goods "imported" from the USA are a fine canadian tradition.