http://www.thestar.com/

Copyright body may slap levy on digital music players
Would boost price of storage media
Economy will suffer, retailers say

TYLER HAMILTON
TECHNOLOGY REPORTER

That 20-gigabyte MP3 player going under the Christmas tree this season could soon cost 20 per cent more if the Copyright Board approves a proposed levy tomorrow on the sale of digital music devices.

It could also mean new levies on recordable DVDs, removable flash memory and micro hard drives, as well as increased tariff rates on blank cassettes and recordable CDs, assuming a music-industry group called the Canadian Private Copying Collective, or CPCC, gets its way.

Don't they do that already for hard drives or cdrs or something like that.

That 20-gigabyte MP3 player going under the Christmas tree this season could soon cost 20 per cent more if the Copyright Board approves a proposed levy tomorrow on the sale of digital music devices.

I'd gladly vote for this in the UK if it went along with Canada's other law about copying for personal use not being a violation of copyright. An upfront fixed fee, and all the music you can kazaa? Sorted!

Of course, whether it's fair or not all depends on how the money is distributed to the artists. (If that remark sounds familiar, it's because I also made it the other day on the Karma beta forum -- but as it's got nothing to do with beta versions of the Karma firmware, it didn't really belong.)

Peter

"They" do it at the rate of about 29 cents (CAD) per blank CD-R already. The new ruling on Friday now levies about $25 onto a Karma, or thereabouts.

-ml

I'd gladly vote for this in the UK if it went along with Canada's other law about copying for personal use not being a violation of copyright. An upfront fixed fee, and all the music you can kazaa? Sorted!

That's what the AHRA was supposed to be here in the US. See how much good that did us.

This "levy" is attempted every other year or so. I do not believe it has ever passed on any generic digital consumer media. Usually it is very far reaching. The last time I saw it proposed it woul dhave increased the storage cost of removable media as well as fixed disks by a significant percentage. The time before that retailers tried to take advantage of the supposed "new law" and started hiking CDR prices. That law never came to pass and the prices soon went down again.

There is likely a tax imposed on MUSIC CD recordable media (media that works in audio-based commercial or consumer recording devices), but there isn't on run of the mill media. You can buy CDRs for 30-something cents Canadian each in spindles (or less) right now. At least in the Toronto area. That doesn't leave any room for a media tax on the order of tens of cents per disc. I'm pretty sure a similar tax did exist on audio cassettes. Not that it's very relevant now.

The majority of removable media is never used for music, so any such tax would be highly unethical. The only way for something like this to pass is through the shadows. Easy to kill if it's publicized enough. And if it made it into the Star, it'll likely be shot down. Again.

Bruno