Unable to define memory as a “recording medium,” Canada’s Private Copyright Collective goes directly after portable music player devices, memory cards, and anything else that can be used to make private copies.
Canada’s Private Copyright Collective hasn’t given up in their efforts to get a bigger cut from anything and everything people use to copy, store, or transfer digital music with.
Not content with only the current tax on blank recording media like CD-Rs and cassette tapes, which it seeks to raise, it wants to expand taxed items to include portable music players and memory cards, even though the latter is used mainly for digital cameras.
The Private Copyright Collective submitted a proposal to the country’s Copyright Board that suggests levies of $5 on devices with up to 1GB of memory, $25 for 1 to 10 GB, $50 for between 10 GB and 30 GB and $75 for over 30 GB are in order to compensate artists and labels for the losses they suffer when people “illegally” copy or transfer music.
This proposed levy means that the price of Apple’s 30GB iPod for instance, would increase from around $290 to $365, an astounding 26% increase and enough to make a person reconsider the purchase altogether.
“It is simply a matter of fairness that the creators of content, the creators of culture actually, should receive some compensation for the large volume of unauthorized and uncontrollable copying onto these media,” said collective chair Claudette Fortier. “Private copying is a fact – Canadians do it.”
Now we all know full well that yes, of course Canadians engage in “private copying” but, isn’t that considered a “fair-use?” Should people really be forced to pay a tax simply because they want to listen to their music in a manner and format of their own choosing?
The Private Copyright Collective also wants to raise the current 21 cent tax on blank CD media, and 77 cent charge on CD-Rs, CD-RWs, and MiniDiscs by additional 8 cents.
They also are seeking a new $2 to $10 tax on memory cards. That’s right, MEMORY CARDS! The backbone of digital photography has become tangled up in the fight for making sure music artists get every nickel and dime they feel that they deserve.
What’s next, a cut from sales of HDDs? After all, it too is used to store pirated music, in fact outright “unauthorized and uncontrollable copying.”
It was a coalition of retailers that included Wal-Mart, Staples, and others that successfully defeated the Private Copyright Collective’s previous efforts back in 2003 to get a cut from iPod sales, and I have no doubt they will do the same again with this new proposal. Once they find out that the price of an iPod could rise by as much as a third they will certainly mobilize their lawyers to make sure those efforts fail.
To bolster its proposed taxes on all things media, the Private Copyright Collective even commissioned a poll to determine the attitudes of Canadians towards the proposed levies.
According to the results of the poll, 80% of those who make private copies of recorded music would consider a levy of 30 cents on the CD-Rs and CD-RWs they buy to be “fair.”
It also was determined that 79% of those who make private copies consider a $40 tax on a 30 GB iPod to be “fair and reasonable.”
Now I’ve never met a poll that didn’t reek of flaws, and I think this one is no exception. Who in their right mind would want to pay a tax for something they already purchased legally and outright? What’s the point of buying music legally if you get taxed at every turn?
Are iPods and memory cards the new “recording medium” as were CDs and audio cassettes in years past? Maybe so but, before we were talking 20 cents in taxes and now its 40 bucks. The line has to be drawn somewhere, and this is as good a time as there ever was.
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Well like their previous efforts to get levies on these products it will fail. The sad truth is that even with the levies downloading music will still be made illegal in a few month. So why should we be paying more for devices while still being treated as criminals. Either they charge levies and make the entire market free or they shouldn’t get a cent.
This is so completely Canadian! Creating a whole new layer of administration with statistics accounting rulings meetings logos buildings translators travel perks and an agenda to grow itself…..
I think you are not nearly hard enough on these parasites. Firstly most purchased media will not be used for copyright music at all and the tax is totally unjust. Rather than arguing with their flawed reasoning it might be better to question their initial assertion. Also “the fight for making sure music artists get every nickel and dime they feel that they deserve” has never been one of the record companies’ fights more the opposite! You present them as pretty respectable and just wrong in minor details. The idea that a commercial organisation should be able to make a tax on something that is sold by another organisation and has no direct connection is totally ludicrous and arguments should not make any concession to the reasoning behind such outrageous impositions.
IMHO paying taxes on something that is supposedly “illegal” automatically makes it legitimate.