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Copyright Board of Canada approves of extra taxes on digital music players |
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Written by Felix Da Silva (fdasilva@bitnip.com)
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Friday, 20 July 2007 |
 According to the Copyright Board of Canada's decision here (PDF), they stated that digital music players and removable memory cards should have to pay an extra tax. Originally suggested by the Canadian Private
Copyright Collective (CPCC), it followed the intent of the country's Copyright Act
and Parliament and therefore such a tariff could be enacted.
In Canada, there is a levy system on all recordable CDs and in February of this year, the CPCC asked the Copyright Board to increase the
levy on recordable CDs and to add removable media, such as SD cards and digital music players to the
list.
As observed by the wise and top Canadian IP specialist, Michael Geist, he states that in paragraph 70 of the decision:
We see no inherent problem with this scenario. A
thing that is ordinarily used by individual consumers to make private copies
should not be excluded from the private copying regime for the sole reason that
it has other uses. Indeed, all media that are currently subject to the levy can
be used for purposes other than private copying. Wow, just wow. What can I say? The board is basically saying that anything that can store digital data and has the potential to hold music should be taxed accordingly. In addition, they're implying that everyone that buys digital music players and any sort of storage devices steals the music they're listening to which is why they have to put in the levy.
I don't know about you but I don't like being thought of as a thief and that I should get 'punished' every time I buy one of these devices just because it could potentially store stolen music. If this does come into force, I expect it will affect music sales negatively and the CPCC will be left scratching their heads as to why they keep losing money.
Do these people actually know what exactly they're doing and how many music fans they're pissing off with stunts like this? I am glad that Prince decided to release his latest album for free with the Daily Mail which shook things up a bit.
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