In a ruling released Friday, copyright regulators in Canada said downloading copyrighted music from peer-to-peer networks appears to be legal under Canadian law but that uploading is still prohibited.
In the same decision, the Copyright Board of Canada imposed a government fee of as much as $25 on iPod-like MP3 players, putting the devices in the same category as audio tapes and blank CDs. The money collected from levies on “recording mediums” goes into a fund to pay musicians and songwriters for revenues lost from consumers’ personal copying. Manufacturers are responsible for paying the fees and often pass the cost on to consumers.
In its decision Friday, the board decided to allow personal copies on a hard drive until a fee ruling is made specifically on that medium or until the courts or legislature tell regulators to rule otherwise.
Friday’s decision will also impose a substantial surcharge on hard drive-based music players such as Apple Computer’s iPod or the new Samsung Napster player for the first time. MP3 players with up to 10GB of memory will have an added levy of $15 added to their price, while larger players will see $25 added on top of the wholesale price.
MP3 players with less than 1GB of memory will have only a $2 surcharge added to their cost.
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