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Canada's Copyright Cops Give Go-Ahead For iPod Tax

Posted by Zonk on Thu Jul 19, 2007 06:19 PM
from the pay-for-your-piper dept.
Media Music Businesses Government Politics
An anonymous reader writes "Michael Geist reports that the Canada's Copyright Board has given the go-ahead for a new copyright tax on iPods, despite an earlier court decision blocking the fee. The Board apparently ruled that not including iPods would make criminals of millions of Canadians and that the levy could conceivably be applied to cellphones and personal computers. 'If we're going to make P2P legal through a levy system, the system must (1) address both downloading and uploading; (2) consider addressing non-commercial use of content; (3) cover audio and video; and (4) more closely link the copying to those paying the levy. The government has yet to play its hand on this issue, but with the prospect of an unpopular levy and mounting pressure for a Canadian fair use provision, it will have to take a stand sometime soon.'"
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  • Tax them for using law enforcement resources (Score:5, Insightful)

    by syousef (465911) on Thursday July 19 2007, @06:23PM (#19920903) Journal
    Justifications aside this is just a grab for money. They'll still persue downloaders and still seek to make downloading illegal in every country on the planet.

    Disclaimer: I'm not a Canadian. I'm Australian. Our government's much worse on these issues.
    • I'll choose to look on the bright side. This levy will make it harder for the Canadian version of the RIAA to convince the lawmakers that filesharing of copyrighted music should be illegal. It's somewhere between a grey area and perfectly legal right now.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by IAmTheDave (746256)
        Really? Doesn't seem like the RIAA has had much trouble convincing government officials of just about anything they've set out to do. It's only the courts that seems to have any degree of understanding. They're the ones that are actually pushing back on the RIAA, awarding attorney fees to victims of lawsuits, etc. They're the ones that already said "no" to the iPod levy in Canada.

        But lawmakers? They have no idea what anyone is talking about, and the organization with the biggest campaign contributions

    • Re:Tax them for using law enforcement resources (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Mistlefoot (636417) on Thursday July 19 2007, @06:55PM (#19921247)
      Justification is the key word.

      If I bought an iPod and used it to archive my legal purchased CD's and music that I bought from iTunes I can use this justification for downloading other music I may not currently have. To do otherwise would be to pay a levy for songs I legally buy.

      My teenage children will surely understand this simple concept - they pay for something ('illegal' mp3's ) they get something. Now try to explain to them why it's wrong to take something they paid for.
      • Why try and explain something that's not true? Unfortunately, you got the concept backwards. We pay a levy on blank media because it's legal to copy audio to that media for personal use. Canadians have been in the clear downloading things off of P2P for years (apart from the minor snag of needing to make the copy to an approved, levied, media). It's funny how many people complain about standard copyright law being broken in an age of infinite supply, but then refuse to acknowledge an attempt to bring the laws up to date. I don't like the levy the way it's implemented, but the lawmakers were thinking straight when they decided to make an activity performed by a large part of the population (copying audio recordings without permission) legal, and finding new ways to compensate creators where copyright had broken down.

        • I don't like the levy the way it's implemented, but the lawmakers were thinking straight when they decided to make an activity performed by a large part of the population (copying audio recordings without permission) legal, and finding new ways to compensate creators where copyright had broken down.

          See, here's where your argument breaks down ...

          Prior to the media lobby groups convincing our government that I needed 'permission', we had a concept of "fair use" strongly embedded in Canadian Copyright law. One of the things I was explicitly allowed to do was to make mixes, personal copies, and limited copies for friends of music I had legally purchased. It was already legal to copy to that media -- the lobby groups just managed to convince the government they needed to get paid for something it was already legal to do without the levy; the levy doesn't give us any new rights, it allows us to buy-back the ones we already had.

          There was absolutely NO need for me to ask permission, or compensate the media companies. I go out, I buy a CD, I have legally guaranteed things I can do with it. This little extortion scheme basically amounts to them saying "you can only do that which is already legal if you pay us, because we're sure you're doing something illegal and we're losing revenue".

          I own several hundred CDs, most of which have been bought in the last 5 years. When I buy CDs, I usually buy $100 or more worth at a time. The artists I like lead me to new genres of music, new artists, and all sorts of more cool music.

          For me to pay this tax (I don't care if you wish to call it a 'levy', to me, it's a fscking tax) on an iPod which is going to be used to store MP3 copies of my legally purchased music (NOT downloaded from P2P) basically is extortion and it really chafes.

          They've been compensated when I buy the CD. This presumption that since I own an iPod I'm surely ripping off the content creators (and I don't mean the media companies, I mean the artists) is utter bullshit. I make a point of buying albums from the artists I like so they DO get paid and keep making music (or, in the case of some of them, get paid for the music they made over a decade ago so they can keep eating).

          The problem here is that 'standard copyright law' had already made it legal for me to format/mix/location shift my music as an enshrined right. Now, some dickhead gets to charge me money on the presumption that I'm ripping off Brittney Spears or whomever the media companies assume I must be stealing from, when nothing could be further from the truth -- cause I know damned well none of the artists I'm listening to are getting compensated under this model. They've basically painted everyone with the same brush, and convinced people that we're now paying for a right we didn't previously have.

          It's a cash grab, pure and simple. Now, I could rationalize massive downloading of music on the basis that, since they're charging me this levy, I'm paying for the right to download music indiscriminately. I choose not to, but nothing I can do allows me to opt out of the fee which presumes I am.

          Cheers
    • I'm australian, and i don't see how our government is WORSE? sure there's a few idiot senators and back benchers that have voiced moronic ideas, but as far as i'm aware they haven't even tabled anything like a copyright tax?

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by syousef (465911)
        You're not paying much attention.

        We have no concept of fair use in this country. Until the end of June this year copying your CD to your Ipod was technically illegal. The same laws that made it legal make it illegal to backup your DVD. You use to have to prove someone copied a DVD to put them in prison. Now you just have to be in possession of a copied DVD - EVEN if that DVD is your own! So while they made things a little more sane for music they made them less sane and more draconian for DVD.
    • Err, there's been no attempts by the copyright cartels to sue ordinary people in Australia. Probably because the majority of magistrates here would just tell them to stop wasting his time and go away.

      Second, the Canadians are actually trying to come up with a system that placates the music industry and still allows people the freedom to share music. Here in Australia we've only just managed to get some laws passed which makes it legal to tape stuff off tv.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by dextromulous (627459)
        This is not a tax and has nothing to do with pirated music or lawsuits related to pirated music. It is a private copying levy [wikipedia.org] and is applied so that when you put your legally purchased music (e.g. CDs) onto your iPod, artists get some money.

        • Re:Tax them for using law enforcement resources (Score:5, Insightful)

          by sumdumass (711423) on Thursday July 19 2007, @08:42PM (#19922133) Journal
          I don't understand why the artist should get extra money because I listened to the music I purchased from them on a different device. It isn't like I'm listening to it on separate devices at the same time. I can only listen to one copy at a time.

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by dextromulous (627459)

            In Canada it is a Levy, and if you had quoted further, you would have seen that the wording is indeed important. "A distinction is sometimes made between "tax" and "levy" based on the recipient of the accumulated funds; taxes are received by a government, while levies are received by a private body, such as a copyright collective.)"

            In this case, the distinction is made because the government is not getting any funds from this, therefore it is not a tax. Although, it is confusing, since it is legally ca

  • Levy (Score:5, Funny)

    by gulfan (524955) on Thursday July 19 2007, @06:23PM (#19920907)
    Well, if I'm paying a levy it means it's legal! Thank you Canada.

    • This will kill retail (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      If I'm going to have to pay a levy for every piece of hardware that could conceivably hold an audio file there's no bloody way I'm going to buy any more music. I'll have to download everything I can get my hands on just to get my levy's worth. Of all the stupid... I wonder if anyone in gov't has given any thought to what this will do to retail?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by mark-t (151149)

      Private copying is legal, yes. Distributing copies to other people, even though you have paid this fee, is still not legal without consent of the copyright holder (specifically, the Canadian copyright act makes the original _copying_ of the work criminal after the fact if you do something with the copy that you made which voids a notion of private use copying).

      Of course, one might think that's what sucks about the whole levy in the first place... that it supposedly legitimizes something that was actuall

      • My bad.... (Score:3, Informative)

        by mark-t (151149)
        Or I could read a bit of the site that I linked to myself and see that the levy actually _doesn't_ apply to anything other than audio works, making the levy redundant.

  • Suppose... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fyngyrz (762201) * on Thursday July 19 2007, @06:27PM (#19920939) Homepage Journal

    ...you use your ipod for nothing but your own performances, and/or public domain playback? Why is it you should pay this levy then?

    • Personally, I don't much care for music.

      My personal use is audiobooks and podcasts. There's so much free content for audiobooks and podcasts out there it's ridiculous. I also have some paid audiobooks. Even if I assumed that the levey meant it were now open season on uploading and downloading paid audiobooks, 0% of the revenue gained from the levy would go to audiobook creators. What makes music so special that it should get all the revenue for audiobooks, pictures (personal and commercial), PDFs (ebooks an

  • ...and throw them in the harbor! If you're not near water, feel free to send them to me and I'll do it for you.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by bladesjester (774793)
        Terrorism is never ok.

        It wasn't an act of terrorism. It was an act of rebellion. There's a difference.
      • Times like this I wish I had a -1, Idiot mod.

        Terrorism is doing something to - get this - terrorize. Smashing a plane into the WTC is terrorism. Their aim was to terrorize, and they succeeded.

        The Boston Tea Party was a bunch of colonists throwing tea into the Boston harbor. This is a form of protest. Had they lynched a bunch of Tories and said "We will purge our land of the imperial British bastards - leave now or we'll get you too", then that would be terrorism.

  • Step 3: profit? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rustalot42684 (1055008) <rustalot42684 AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday July 19 2007, @06:30PM (#19920979)
    So how do I register as an artist and cash in?
    • No, no you don't understand. After the government is done charging their oh so modest administrative fee, they will give the money to the RIAA or some related body, who will also take an administrative fee out of the money so raised. The 2 or 3 cents left will be divided equally between all the artists who were already registered when the levy went into effect. And since it isn't possible to pay in fractions of a penny, never mind.
    • This post isnt that funny, in fact he has a very good point. Who gets this cash? I bet the artists won't see much...

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Mia'cova (691309)
      Sign up with SOCAN [socan.ca]. Look around there first. Google it if you need more.

  • As a canadian... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Darkinspiration (901976) on Thursday July 19 2007, @06:32PM (#19920997)
    I'm strongly in favor of a levy on anything that can be used to play downloadable music if and only if the levy garantee that there will never be any trial of p2p downloader or uploader in this contry and that musician receive there due. I realise that it's atall order but in my mind anything less is a travesty.

  • Hold up here (Score:5, Informative)

    by zerocool^ (112121) on Thursday July 19 2007, @06:40PM (#19921089) Homepage Journal

    1.) So, owning a device which can contain copyright-infringing music is grounds for the government to assume you *are* using it to contain copyright-infringing music? If so, is there going to be a tax on plastic baggies? Cause they could be containing cocaine...

    2.) IF this tax is put in place on iPods, and the reason behind it is because they assume that the contents of the iPod have been obtained outside of the legally approved methods, does this mean now that you can steal as much music as you want in canada, if you own an iPod? Because, otherwise... what the fuck is the tax for? How are they going to bring a court case against you for depriving them of money, when you have in fact given them money because the government assumes that you're doing the very thing you're being sued for!

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by mark-t (151149)
      No. First of all, it's not a tax, it's a levy. Second of all, it does not exist to legitimize something that would have otherwise been illegal. It merely exists to (allegedly) compensate the artists for personal and private copying of copyrighted works. In actuality, the consumer doesn't get one single thing from paying this levy, although it's completely legal to avoid it by importing blank media from another country (as it is only the sale of such media within the country that triggers the levy, and

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by QuantumG (50515)

        In Canada, downloading music for your own personal use is not illegal.
        It's also not illegal in the US, the UK or Australia... despite the vast "education" campaign carried out by the RIAA to make people think otherwise.

        I guess it is working.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by cpt kangarooski (3773)
          [Downloading music for your own personal use is] also not illegal in the US

          It depends. If it's copyrighted music, and you're downloading it without the permission of the copyright holder, then it is prima facie infringement. It might not be infringing if it's a fair use, but merely because it's for personal use doesn't necessarily mean that it will be a fair use. So I'd be careful; it's not accurate to say that it's not illegal, as a blanket statement. It might be legal, it might be illegal, it depends on t
  • As much as I'd prefer to relegate musicians to their rightful place of playing in pubs and clubs for few hundred dollars a night, it seems that a tax system to support musicians when they're not on tour and raking in that cash would be a good substitute for the insane sound recordings copyright system we have now.

    Note that I'm not saying anything about composers. Their work is a different kettle of fish and needs a different analysis.. and the royalty system we have now is a heck of a lot better than anyth
  • Because that's what it would come to. Y'all better duck because your motherfucking copywrited material is coming back at your head at about 60mph.
  • Taxation without Representation. Rebel people! The start of a new revolution! It's July 4th 1776 all over again!

  • Just what am I paying for? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by javacowboy (222023) on Thursday July 19 2007, @07:08PM (#19921371) Homepage
    I posted these comments on Michael's site, and I'll post them here as well:

    --------
    Am I paying for:

    1) The right to share copies with my "friends" on the internet.
    2) The right to transfer content that I already paid for to another device that I owned for my exclusive personal use. IE "private copying".

    If I'm paying for 2), then this is an egregious form of copyright socialism whereby I have been deprived of the ability to choose the musical entity that I will support financially. This means, among other things, that I can't deprive the RIAA of my music dollars in favour of independent artists via emusic.

    If I'm paying for 1), then our copyright laws defy logic and common sense. The notion that I must "pay" for the privilege of using the music I paid for more than once is repugnant. Also, it defies any reason, given the proliferation of computers and the internet.
    -------

  • Innocent until proven guilty? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Mr. Picklesworth (931427) on Thursday July 19 2007, @07:24PM (#19921507) Homepage
    I recently had the displeasure of paying a rather significant levy for CDs which I then used to burn copies of free operating systems and backups of my own work. In other words, my actions, which were completely on the right side of the law, were rewarded with levies for pirates.

      • GINORMOUS TAXATION
        That's funny, I didn't recall there being a tax specific to gin; I thought they were lumped together into 'spirits'.
    • Piracy is not an absolute term, it is a legally defined concept which can vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. If the government of Canada defines the non-commercial use of P2P as not infringing copyrights, then by its very definition it is not piracy. The music industry can call it piracy. But that does not make it piracy.

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